Quote:
Originally Posted by HossC
Broadway was the end of the 5 Line. Here's the area in 1952.
![](http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/zz19/HossC_2010/Noirish%20LA2/LAHawthorne1.jpg)
Historic Aerials
There have been many changes on the east side of Hawthorne since then ...
![](http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/zz19/HossC_2010/Noirish%20LA2/LAHawthorne2.jpg)
Google Maps
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by HossC
I like the street layout too, particularly the quirkiness of one circular central island and one square. It survived until at least 1972, but was gone by 1980.
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by ethereal_reality
I hope we hear from someone that grew up in Hawthorne Hoss. I'd love to learn more about this neighborhood with the 'island' parks.
|
I'd also like to hear from someone who grew up there. In the meantime, I've been looking into what replaced the islands. The large structure visible on the Google Maps view above is/was
Hawthorne Plaza. The 40-acre site seems to have been cleared in 1975, and the new mall opened in stages through 1977. Unfortunately, it soon faced competition from neighboring malls such as South Bay Galleria at Redondo Beach, and the area's prosperity turned out to be a blip rather than a trend. Following decline through the early-90s, the mall eventually shut its doors in 1999, and has remained boarded-up ever since.
I found a couple of videos about the mall. The first,
Good Bye Hawthorne Plaza, starts with vintage photographs, some showing the old 'island' road layout (below). These are followed by a montage of shots of the mall in various states of disrepair - I think the editor got a little carried away with video effects in the middle. Skip on to the six-minute mark and there's a good summary of the mall's history at the end.
Jerry Miles/YouTube
From the text at the end of the video:
"The mall had a very short lifespan, making it a colossal failure in a commercial sense. In addition, it was a colossal failure in a redevelopment sense. It probably left Hawthorne Boulevard commercial strip worse off than it found it. Although it faces the street, its monolithic exterior is uninviting to pedestrians and inappropiate in a 'downtown' setting."
Some of the "monolithic exterior" along Hawthorne Boulevard.
![](http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/zz19/HossC_2010/Noirish%20LA2/LAHawthornePlaza2.jpg)
GSV
For contrast, here's the other side of the street from the same spot.
![](http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/zz19/HossC_2010/Noirish%20LA2/LAHawthornePlaza3.jpg)
GSV
The second video I found is called
Hawthorne Plaza - Dead Mall | ep. 16 | Tom Explores Los Angeles. It combines vintage footage of the mall when it was open with some urban exploration showing how the mall looks today.
Although the mall closed over 15 years ago, it still gets used for filming from time to time, and has appeared in movies such as Minority Report (2002), The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006), and Gone Girl (2014). The makers of the 2006 movie The Green Hornet even converted the top of the parking structure into a quarter-mile section of freeway (below).
www.seeing-stars.com
The mall's future seems uncertain at the moment. I was amused to see
one proposal where the redevelopment includes towers that pay tribute to the island road layout. The circular tower they've used looks suspiciously like part of the Westin Bonaventure
![Wink](images/smilies/wink.gif)
.
www.placehood.org