LOS ANGELES | Downtown Project Rundown 6.0

[Jun]

Originally Posted by Blesha13

It's refreshing seeing new pics on these projects! One question though: Is 820 Olive completed? I also feel like Metropolis should finish installing that one piece facade at the top on the west side of Tower IV.

820 olive is indeed finished

[scania]

Originally Posted by colemonkee

That's going to be huge. Now if we can get work started on the tower just north of Hotel Clark, across 4th Street, adjacent to Grand Central.

We really need to get the Pershing Square renovated and it’ll be awesome to get the Jinga Tower started. If they could just clean up the train station just a little, this would become one of the premier areas of DTLA.

[Tiorted9]

Originally Posted by scania

We really need to get the Pershing Square renovated and it’ll be awesome to get the Jinga Tower started. If they could just clean up the train station just a little, this would become one of the premier areas of DTLA.

I agree, and would prefer something simple and classic for Pershing Square, sort of like Bryant Park in NYC. Too many parks here are over-designed with objects and colors and don't offer inviting green space.

[Prahaboheme]

Originally Posted by Tiorted9

I agree, and would prefer something simple and classic for Pershing Square, sort of like Bryant Park in NYC. Too many parks here are over-designed with objects and colors and don't offer inviting green space.

Completely agree. Pershing needs to be redesigned to eliminate multiple layers and to promote clean site lines across the square.

[JerellO]

Right?? Like how hard is it to design a 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 park?? Grass, trees, walkways, and seating areas. I don’t mind a play place for kids. Clean sight lines like traditional parks, none of this avant garde/modern/hip/asymmetrical designed parks that’s SOOOOOOOO extra.

[saybanana]

But Pershing Square isn't a regular park is it? It is a huge underground parking garage where they just a plaza above it with limited green space and few trees at the edges. It is not like you can have any tree there. Trees needing big roots to grow cant be placed there so you are stuck with mostly small trees for shade for 1-2 people. You need a really good irrigation system or else all that water would crack and seep into the parking garage and possibly make the the park and garage collapse killing 1000s of kids in the playground. Thats great PR.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by colemonkee

Now if we can get work started on the tower just north of Hotel Clark, across 4th Street, adjacent to Grand Central.

I've been wanting....& waiting for...that site to be cleaned up & filled in for yrs & yrs.



flickr.com


ladowntownnews.com

The disappearing roadside hamburger stands of downtown Los Angeles

The rise of the hamburger stand coincided with the decline of downtown Los Angeles. In the early part of the 20th century, it was the dominant centre of southern California, accounting for 90% of all retail sales. The hulking beaux arts buildings that line streets such as Spring and Broadway are a testament to downtown’s former commercial might.

There are approximately 20 hamburger stands left in downtown Los Angeles. They began to appear in the early 1930s, rapidly proliferated throughout the 40s and 50s, and the last was built in 1964. Only a fraction still serve food; others have been converted or stand vacant.

Ye Old Taco House has occupied the corner of a large parking lot at 4th and Hill Street since 1962. Like many of the stands, it is an immigrant-owned enterprise run by Maria Morales and her son Josh. On a slow Tuesday night, Maria helps in the kitchen as an older relative sits in the corner, watching TV. The Morales have operated the restaurant for 11 years, while the neighbourhood has transformed around them.

“Before it was only Hispanic people, now it’s everything: American people, Chinese people,” Maria explains. As we speak, two security guards walk in, ordering in Spanish, followed by a tattooed rocker, most likely in the area for one of the new trendy bars that have opened up nearby.

With downtown LA now boasting a residential population that has grown to over 50,000, many stands have benefited. “It’s busy all the time now: lunchtime, in the evenings,” says Maria Morales.

The hipsterfication of LA’s hamburger stands may, however, prove the final chapter in the saga of these half-century-old structures. A construction boom is transforming the landscape, with parking lots becoming new buildings on what seems like monthly basis.

Despite this tension, the re-urbanisation of Los Angeles’ core is, in a sense, the city going back to the future. If we look at photographs of downtown in the 1920s, it looks like New York or London: dense and bustling with streets packed with pedestrians, cars and trams.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

Originally Posted by JerellO

Right?? Like how hard is it to design a 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 park?? Grass, trees, walkways, and seating areas. I don’t mind a play place for kids. Clean sight lines like traditional parks, none of this avant garde/modern/hip/asymmetrical designed parks that’s SOOOOOOOO extra.

When Pershing Square was last redesigned, all the talk was about creating "outdoor rooms" and bringing "whimsy" and "cultural expression" through garish color choices. The people were pushing for a traditional park/plaza. You can see what won out.

Every high-rise project in Downtown LA has "outdoor rooms". Pershing Square doesn't need that. The great parks and plazas of the world don't have "outdoor rooms".

The design should be simple and grand. A plaza with a prominent focal point (fountain/statue/clock tower/column), surrounded by grass and greenery. Diagonal paths lined with trees and lampposts. Surrounded with a low wrought-iron fence. It's not rocket science.

If we're afraid of the homeless, add cameras and police. If the parking structure is in the way, get rid of it. Our central square is more important than a friggin' parking lot.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

Originally Posted by LongBeachUrbanist

Our central square is more important than a friggin' parking lot.

My bigger point is: Los Angeles needs to start thinking of itself as a great city that deserves nice things, like a great central square. Too often we are afraid to think big. Too often our planning is limited and compromised, due to little nagging fears, such as not having enough parking, or having too many homeless.

New York is full of wonderful parks/squares, such as Washington Square and Union Square. New York lacks parking, and it has homeless people. That didn't stop that city from retaining its signature parks. They did what it took to make it work, for example, adding security as needed.

Same can be said about Paris, London, Prague, and Mexico City. Great public spaces make a city memorable. No tourist takes pictures of a city's parking structures.

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Originally Posted by LongBeachUrbanist

My bigger point is: Los Angeles needs to start thinking of itself as a great city that deserves nice things, like a great central square. Too often we are afraid to think big. Too often our planning is limited and compromised, due to little nagging fears, such as not having enough parking, or having too many homeless.

New York is full of wonderful parks/squares, such as Washington Square and Union Square. New York lacks parking, and it has homeless people. That didn't stop that city from retaining its signature parks. They did what it took to make it work, for example, adding security as needed.

Same can be said about Paris, London, Prague, and Mexico City. Great public spaces make a city memorable. No tourist takes pictures of a city's parking structures.

amen.

[ethereal_reality]

Originally Posted by LongBeachUrbanist

The design should be simple and grand. A plaza with a prominent focal point (fountain/statue/clock tower/column), surrounded by grass and greenery.
Diagonal paths lined with trees and lampposts. Surrounded with a low wrought-iron fence. It's not rocket science.

You are absolutely correct LBU.



The photograph below was taken in 1918, the year the park's name was changed from Central Park to Pershing Square.


latimes

As you can see, the focal point was a large fountain.






A bit more history on the subject.

The park was originally known as Sixth Street Park. (named in 1876)


lapl

In 1888 (shown above) one of the focal points was a rather large kiosk. (there may have been more than one kiosk) I don't remember.

.

[Tiorted9]

Great photos! Yes something like that will do nicely....a lot to learn from history

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Thats literally exactly what we need. Same trees too. Just copy that and be done with it damn it

[pwright1]

Pershing Square needs to get rid of the underground parking and bring the entire square to street level so we can plant trees in the ground that grow large for shade. The garage ruins the relationship between sidewalk and park/square on all four sides.

[Radio5]

Wow, that first photo of pershing square is spectacular. It pains me to think what could have been.

[superfishy]

I really love that pic of Pershing

[badrunner]

Those pine trees would be about 150' tall today if they left them alone...

[caligrad]

That moment when you realize that everything in the under construction section of the front page is either done or almost done (Looking at you Oceanwide) and you come to the realization that after that, besides the grand ave. project and Brookfield tower, nothing else seems to be in the solid pipeline... so you begin to panic and think that its about to get really boring with nothing else to talk about (a week of talking about Pershing Square/Park/Plaza) and we wont be getting/needing many photo updates for a while and your whole life begins to tumble around you. . Somebody please give me some good news about something breaking ground lol.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by caligrad

Somebody please give me some good news about something breaking ground lol.

sorry, this is the best I can do right now....another part of the Bloc that's now open, well after work first started on rebuilding the former macys plaza.


• Video Link


did they have to pay plug money to ABC?

most of the vid is like a cooking, food menu show & ad for joey's, with only some background on the restaurant itself towards the end.

as for nostalgia about the old pershing sq from over 70 yrs ago? That makes sense. But when it comes to the former macys/broadway plaza? not so much...


• Video Link

[blackcat23]

Originally Posted by caligrad

That moment when you realize that everything in the under construction section of the front page is either done or almost done (Looking at you Oceanwide) and you come to the realization that after that, besides the grand ave. project and Brookfield tower, nothing else seems to be in the solid pipeline... so you begin to panic and think that its about to get really boring with nothing else to talk about (a week of talking about Pershing Square/Park/Plaza) and we wont be getting/needing many photo updates for a while and your whole life begins to tumble around you. . Somebody please give me some good news about something breaking ground lol.

Here you go

Construction begins for 154-unit Emerald development in South Park