Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonman
This might be a different story if 5th Ave needed “revitalization” but does not. Also, 3rd Street is full of homeless.
I just don’t see a need to further destroy what’s left of the street grid in favor of creating a Disney-esque mall atmosphere when there is a really great city dynamic already at play. To that end, I’ve heard people (usually from LA) already call Gaslamp Disney-like. I completely disagree but see turning 5th Ave into a pedestrian mall as severely undercutting the authenticity of the street and surrounding area.
Hope this at least makes some sense even if others disagree.
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I do see some of the points you're making, but I'll offer a rebuttal.
There is no authenticity to be preserved in the Gaslamp. Back in the 1970s the area was known as Stingaree, and it was nothing but warehouses, navy surplus stores, tattoo parlors, and porno shops (which were mostly fronts for brothels). It was such a scuzzy, dirty, unpleasant place the navy repeatedly banned sailors from going anywhere near, not that it tended to stop anyone. In the early 80s the Gaslamp Quarter Association was founded and over the next 20 years they carefully crafted Gaslamp into the Disneyland with drinks you see today. They kicked out all the porno shops and surplus stores, renovated all the warehouses into bars, and transformed 5th Ave into a sanitized parody of a sailor's drinking holiday. There's a certain irony to it, there are more bars on 5th now than back when its primary clientele actually was navy personnel on shore leave.
So the question here isn't if we should preserve some sort of "authentic Gaslamp Quarter experience" or somesuch, because that doesn't and never really has existed, but rather if we want to keep our 1980s/90s style entertainment district or update it to something more contemporary. I'll posit that a pedestrian promenade offers a lot of benefits over the current design. Bikes, scooters, and people stumbling out onto the street already make traffic on 5th a nightmare, and most people living downtown already avoid driving up and down that street without reason. There are a good deal of safety benefits to keeping cars away from people who are.... lets call it experiencing a temporary bout of impaired judgement. And all those parks and green spaces would provide more incentive for people to visit Gaslamp during the daytime, which they don't really do atm. All and all it provides a better experience to the area's customers, which is probably why the Gaslamp Quarter Association is looking to do it.
Because ultimately, this is a competition. If Gaslamp doesn't keep up to snuff tourists are going skip it and start visiting 3rd St Santa Monica instead, or Little Toyko in LA, or the Las Vegas strip for that matter (all of which have been renovated to some extent or another for a better pedestrian experience). And considering ~30% of our economy is based on tourism, we can hardly afford to watch one of our best destinations wither on the vine as everyone else improves.