February 27, 2019

We’ve visited the Bradbury Building on 3rd and Broadway in the past, today I’d like to visit some of the rest of Broadway starting with the theaters(since the Oscars were last weekend). Broadway and some of the surrounding streets(Hill & Spring) have some of the finest late 19th and early 20th century buildings in the city and is know officially as the Historic Core. Now if you look at old maps of Los Angeles from the mid-19th century you won’t see Broadway, it was Fort Street since it lead up to Fort Moore that was on a hill west of the Plaza(a couple of other main streets had different names: Figueroa was Grasshopper and then Pearl, and Charity became Grand). Broadway was very much the center of the city once it expanded south of the Plaza, the old sandstone courthouse, city hall and the LA Times were on the 100 and 200 blocks of Broadway. The 100 block of Broadway on both sides of 1st street is still government buildings(the Stanley Mosk Courthouse and the new US District Courthouse), the 200 block of south Broadway is mainly parking lots and low rise building(some of which have been reduced from much taller buildings). After 3rd Street(The Bradbury is on the southeast corner and old Edison building is on the southwest corner) the buildings here are more high rise(over 3 stories) and better preserved. Most of the buildings were offices and hotels, with some hosting both offices and theaters. Being that Los Angeles is a relatively new city, most of the theaters started out showing films(probably also owing to the movie industry becoming a force in the city in the early 20th century). Most of the theaters were on Broadway or Hill Streets with a few on Main Street.