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Wilshire Center | |
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  Wilshire Center Location within Los Angeles | |
| Coordinates:34°03′34″N118°17′55″W / 34.059415°N 118.29855°W /34.059415; -118.29855 | |
| Country |  United States of America |
| State |  California |
| County |  Los Angeles |
| Time zone | Pacific |
| Zip Code | 90006 |
| Area code | 213 |
Wilshire Center is a neighborhood in theCentral region ofLos Angeles,California.
Wilshire Center is roughly bounded byMelrose Avenue on the north, Virgil Avenue and Hoover Street on the east, Wilton Place and Crenshaw Boulevard on the west, andKoreatown and part ofHarvard Heights to the south.[1]
The area was historically known as part of the Wilshire District. As the Wilshire area expanded westward, neighborhood names emerged to distinguish parts of the district from each other.[1]
Wilshire Center includes some of the Wilshire CPA's oldest streetcar suburbs dating to the early 20th century. Historic Preservation Overlay Zones within Wilshire Center includeWilshire Park andCountry Club Park.[1]
Within the neighborhood, the "Wilshire Center Regional Commercial Center" (as defined in the city's general plan) is generally bounded by 3rd Street on the north, 8th Street on the south, Hoover Street on the east, and Wilton Place on the west.[2] Google Maps uses the general boundaries of the Regional Commercial Center for the neighborhood.[3] Services provided by thebusiness improvement district are limited to the commercial area between Wilton Place, Hoover Street, Third Street and Eighth Street.[4]
Wilshire Boulevard is named forHenry Gaylord Wilshire—a millionaire who in 1895 began developing a 35-acre (140,000 m2) parcel stretching westward fromWestlake Park (MacArthur Park) for an elite residential subdivision. Asocialist, Wilshire donated to the city a strip of land for a boulevard on the conditions that it would be named for him and ban public transit, railroad lines, and commercial or industrial trucking and freight trains.
ALos Angeles Times overview of the area referred to "the corridor's former glory as a haven for blue-chip corporations and fine shopping."[5]
In the early 1900s,steam-driven motorcars started sharing Wilshire Boulevard with horse-drawncarriages. At the turn of the century, Germain Pellissier raised sheep and barley between Normandie and Western Avenues. Reuben Schmidt purchased land east of Normandie for his dairy farm.
In the mid-1990s, it had a reputation for "crime and grime," and many businesses had left the area, but by 2001 it had recovered.[5] TheLos Angeles Times noted that:"Another sign of the district's popularity emerged this summer with the opening of a plush, $35-million spa, mall and golf complex called Aroma Wilshire Center just east of Western Avenue that caters to the city's affluent Korean population, many of them entrepreneurs who own businesses in the area."
Distinguished high-rise apartment buildings and hotels were erected along Wilshire Boulevard. The lavishAmbassador Hotel was built in 1921 on 23 acres (93,000 m2) of the former site of Reuben Schmidt's dairy farm. In approximately 1929, the Academy Awards ceremony was moved from theHollywood Roosevelt Hotel to theAmbassador Hotel. It closed in 1989 and, despite efforts of historic preservationists, has been demolished. The site is owned by theLos Angeles Unified School District, which in 2010 opened theRobert F. Kennedy Community Schools and a small park on the site. It is the most expensive public school in the United States.
The area nearby became the site of elegant New York-style apartment buildings such as the Asbury, the Langham, the Fox Normandie, the Picadilly, the Talmadge (afterNorma Talmadge), the Gaylord, and the Windsor. Many film stars lived in these buildings.
As of 2021, a building boom fueled by density bonuses and the City of Los Angeles's Transit-Oriented Community incentives has increased the supply of apartments and condominiums in the area,[6] and older office buildings have been converted into apartments and condos. Large apartment buildings have been constructed at the Metro stops at Wilshire/Western and Wilshire/Vermont.
Gloria Swanson's husband, Herbert Somborn, opened theBrown Derby Restaurant, a hat-shaped building at Wilshire and Alexandria, in 1926. The hat now sits on top of a restaurant in a mini-mall.
In 1929, the elegant Art-DecoBullocks Wilshire was built at Wilshire and Westmoreland as the city's first branch department store in the suburbs. It closed in 1993 and now houses the library ofSouthwestern Law School.
A section of Germain Pellessier's sheep farm became the site of the Pellessier Building andWiltern Theatre, which began construction at the corner of Wilshire and Western in 1929. The theater, operated byWarner Brothers, opened in 1931.
In 1929, the Chapman Market drew motorcars to the world's first drive-through grocery store at Sixth St and Alexandria.
The San Francisco-basedI. Magnin opened a store in 1939 at Wilshire and New Hampshire.
In 2001, David Y. Lee was the largest landlord in the district, owning 20 buildings comprising about 7 million square feet of space inMid-Wilshire and three buildings in nearbyPark Mile.[5]
In 1952, on the driving range on the south side of Wilshire between Mariposa and Normandie, the first three 12-story Tishman Plaza buildings were built in 1952 (they're now known as Central Plaza), designed byClaude Beelman.
Insurance companies began locating their West Coast headquarters in Wilshire Center because of tax incentives provided by the State. Some 22 high-rise office buildings were erected on Wilshire Boulevard from 1966 to 1976 to provide office space for such companies as Getty Oil Co., Ahmanson Financial Co., Beneficial Standard Life Insurance, Wausau, and Equitable Life Insurance. The Chapman Park Hotel, built in 1936, was torn down to make way for the 34-story Equitable Plaza office building erected in 1969. By 1970, firms such as CNA, Pacific Indemnity, and Pierce National Life were starting construction of their own high-rise buildings. Southwestern University School of Law moved from its downtown location of 50 years to a four-story campus just south of Wilshire Boulevard on Westmoreland in 1973.
In the 1970s and 1980s, commerce moved to the city's less congested Westside as well as the San Fernando Valley, and businesses and affluent residents eventually followed. I. Magnin closed, while Bullocks Wilshire held out until 1993. Rental rates in office buildings plummeted from an average of $1.65/sq ft to a dollar between 1991 and 1996; property values dropped from a high of $120/sq ft to $30 or $40 per foot in 1998.[citation needed]
Wilshire Center lost most of its remaining original glitter following the1992 Los Angeles riots and the1994 Northridge earthquake.
Subsequently, the Wilshire Center Streetscape Project[2] used federal funds to rejuvenate Wilshire Boulevard. It was one of the most ambitious and significant urban rehabilitation projects found anywhere in America and in 1999 was awarded theLady Bird Johnson Award from TheNational Arbor Day Foundation.
TheLos Angeles Unified School District operates the following public schools in the neighborhood:
Wilshire Center is served by city buses, including severalMetro Rapid lines, and three subway stations alongWilshire Boulevard. TheMetro D Line, which begins atUnion Station inDowntown Los Angeles, has stations atVermont Ave.,Normandie Ave., andWestern Ave., at which it currently terminates. An extension of the D Line subway under Wilshire Boulevard toWestwood is scheduled for completion in 2027.[13] The Vermont station is also served by theMetro B Line, which continues north throughHollywood toNorth Hollywood.[14][15]
Very generally speaking, Wilshire Center encompasses much of the eastern portion of the Wilshire CPA, from Virgil Avenue and Hoover Street on the east to Wilton Place and Crenshaw Boulevard on the west. Its northern edge borders Hollywood at Melrose Avenue, while its southern edge meets Koreatown
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