Victorian Downtown Los Angeles



The late-Victorian-era Downtown of Los Angeles in 1880 was centered at the southern end of the Los Angeles Plaza area, and over the next two decades, it extended south and west along Main Street, Spring Street, and Broadway towards Third Street. Most of the 19th-century buildings no longer exist, surviving only in the Plaza area or south of Second Street. The rest were demolished to make way for the Civic Center district with City Hall, numerous courthouses, and other municipal, county, state and federal buildings, and Times Mirror Square. This article covers that area, between the Plaza, 3rd St., Los Angeles St., and Broadway, during the period 1880 through the period of demolition (1920s–1950s).

At the time (1880–1900s), the area was referred to as the business center, business section or business district. By 1910, it was referred to as the "North End" of the business district which by then had expanded south to what is today called the Historic Core, along Broadway, Spring and Main roughly from 3rd to 9th streets.

Location
By the mid-1890s, First and Spring was the center of the business district, and the Bradbury Building, opened in 1893 at Third and Broadway and still standing today, By 1910, the area north of Fourth Street was considered the "North End" of the business district and there were already concerns about its deterioration, as the center of commerce moved to what is now known as the Historic Core, from Third to Ninth streets.

Map
The map shows the street grid in 1910, and shows in blue three important road alignment changes that came in the 1920s–1950s:
 * Spring Street realignment north of First Street to run parallel to Main Street
 * Temple Street extension eastward from Main Street
 * Creation of the US-101 Freeway and its service roads, called Arcadia and Aliso streets, but not exactly in the positions of the old Arcadia and Aliso streets

Horsecars (1874–1897)

 * Horse-drawn streetcars started with the Spring and Sixth Street Railroad in 1874. The last horsecars were converted to electric in 1897.

Cable cars (1885–1902)
Cable car street railways in Los Angeles first began operating up Bunker Hill in 1885, with a total of three companies operating in the period through 1902, when the lines were electrified and electric streetcars were introduced largely following the cable car routes. There were roughly 25 miles of routes, connecting 1st and Main in what was then the Los Angeles Central Business District as far as the communities known today as Lincoln Heights, Echo Park/Filipinotown, and the Pico-Union district.

Electric streetcar systems (1887–1963)
Electrically-powered streetcar systems were numerous starting with the Los Angeles Electric Railway in 1887, but were over time consolidated into two large networks:
 * In 1901, Henry Huntington bought various electric streetcar companies operating mostly within the City of Los Angeles (and not in the San Fernando Valley, Harbor area or Westside) and combined them into the Los Angeles Railway with its "yellow cars".
 * In 1902, Huntington and banker Isaias W. Hellman established the Pacific Electric Railway, which would acquire other railways, providing interurban service to surrounding towns in what is now Greater Los Angeles (Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties) and new suburban developments. The Pacific Electric Building, with station underneath, was opened in 1905 at 6th and Main Street.

Funiculars
Angel's Flight and Court Flight were funicular railways operating from Broadway up Bunker Hill.

Railroad depots
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 * Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad Depot, SW corner Alameda and Commercial streets
 * Los Angeles and Independence Railroad Depot, San Pedro and 5th street (southeast of the business district)
 * Arcade Depot of the Southern Pacific Railroad along Alameda Street between 5th to 6th streets. Opened 1888, closed 1914.
 * La Grande Station of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, Santa Fe at 2nd (East of the business district), opened 1893, closed 1939
 * Central Station of the Southern Pacific Railroad, Central and 5th streets (southeast of the business district), opened 1914. Union Pacific Railroad started operating from the station in 1924. Disused 1939.
 * Union Station was opened in 1939, replacing the existing Central and La Grande stations.

Timeline
The business district evolved and grew in tandem with the increase of the city's population from eleven thousand to about a hundred thousand residents over twenty years.

1880-1889
1880. The U.S. Census recorded 11,183 people within the Los Angeles city limits. Only one section of roadway was paved: a short strip of Main Street near its junction with Spring Street for the benefit of the patrons of the Temple Block, where the City Hall now stands.

1882. The Los Angeles Telephone Company began erecting telephone poles, and the Brush Electric Lighting Company installed the first electric streetlights.

1883. Southern California’s first woman physician, Elizabeth A. Follansbee, set up a practice in her residence at 240 South First Street, and J.W. Robinson opened the Boston dry-goods store in the Allen Block.

1884. A channel for the Los Angeles River was dug through downtown, and the Volunteer Fire Department opened a firehouse at the Plaza.

1885. The Santa Fe Railroad completed a second transcontinental rail line into the depot, which was said to be "a 10 minutes' ride to the business center of Los Angeles." The University of Southern California opened its medical school in a former winery on Aliso Street.

1886. A flood washed away every bridge and many other structures in the city; many people were killed. The first "fast fruit train" left the depot for eastern markets.

1887. An attempt to move the Los Angeles High School building from atop Pound Cake Hill to Sand Street (now part of the Hollywood Freeway) failed for lack of funds, and it was abandoned in the middle of Temple Street. The structure had to be raised high enough with scaffolding so that streetcars could run under it.

1888. An African American residential area formed in Los Angeles, centered at First and Los Angeles Streets.

1888. A reporter checking the local hotel registers found that "a considerable number of Eastern people are already here, and many of them are seeking investments in the city and country. Central business property is especially in good demand."

1890-1899
1890. The census recorded 50,395 residents. Morris Cohn opened the city's first garment- manufacturing business.

1891. The first Los Angeles County Courthouse was completed at Temple Street and Broadway.

1893. Four Los Angeles banks closed from financial stress. The Bradbury Building opened at Third Street and Broadway.

1895. In an editorial, the Los Angeles Times noted that "the business section of the city is moving south at a remarkably rapid rate." It complained of the "constantly increasing crush at the corner of Spring and First streets," which it called "a menace to life and limb" and urged a North Broadway tunnel to "accommodate travel."

1896. The Times reported:

"Postal authorities in Washington have graciously accorded Los Angeles one more carrier, and that for a limited time only. This extra man will be employed in the central business district only, where the crush is greatest. Fay Stephenson, who has done faithfull [sic] and intelligent work, has been given this newly-created position. He will begin work this morning."

1897. The first known automobile to appear on city streets was built by J. Philip Erier in a downtown shop. Frederick Blechynden created the first motion picture made in Los Angeles when he filmed 25 seconds of traffic on Spring Street.

1899. The Los Angeles Stock Exchange was established.

1899. The city's population was close to 100,000. -->