Downtown Los Angeles has been undergoing its much-vaunted Renaissance for what seems like forever. For at least three decades, the area - bounded on the north and south by the 101 and the 10 and on the west and east by the 110 and the river - has been ever so close to the ultimate goal of every postindustrial urban city: high-end gentrification. The last few years have seen an influx of new shops, lounges, event sites, and lofts. And now it looks like that gentrification might actually happen. So join us for a tour of downtown’s various districts, subdistricts, and sub-subdistricts. Think of this as a consolidated Wikipedia entry on downtown Los Angeles. Except with hookers. And blow.
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The geographic tip-top of downtown is the Civic Center, stretching from the 101 to 1st and then from the 110 to Alameda. It’s also the metaphorical entrance into the city, housing Wil Wheaton geek favorite Union Station - the last great American railway station and a legitimate architectural wonder. This is also the top of half of downtown’s Culture District, where LA Cathedral, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and the Music Center are all housed. It’s also the administrative center of Los Angeles, with the largest concentration of government buildings outside Washington, DC. Which probably explains why our city is bureaucratically efficient, has so little crime, and is filled with nothing but correctly-timed traffic lights. Ahem.

Directly east of the Civic Center is the Warehouse District. It’s so named because it’s filled with empty, decaying warehouses. It’s also filled with empty, decaying railroad stops and empty, decaying industrial buildings. For years starving artists have been illegally occupying the abandoned buildings and using them as lofts, eventually making the area into a kind of bohemian cauldron. Then about 25 years ago the city decided to formally recognize their influence and officially redubbed the area an “Arts District.” They rezoned everything, and now shiny residential buildings are springing up. So in 10 years the empty, decaying warehouses will have been totally replaced by glittering lofts - the result being that no artists will have the money to live in the Arts District. The whole plan has a kind of unblinking, ironic stupidity that I can’t help but admire.

Back on the west side of downtown, Bunker Hill overlooks the eastern half of downtown and is wedged in between the Civic Center and the Financial District. It has the bottom half of the Culture District, including the Disney Concert Hall and the MOCA, plus skyscrapers like the Deloitte Tower and the Library Tower. Most significantly, it also has downtown’s best happy hour. In contrast to the newer lofts in the Historic Core and South Park, housing in Bunker Hill has been prohibitively expensive for decades. And since they’re planning more skyscrapers, more high-end hotels, more entertainment, and a new 16 acre park, prices aren’t decreasing anytime soon. New condos will ensure that they increase. But decreasing not so much. No worries - the City Council has promised not to let the area get gentrified.

Most of the other skyscrapers that make up downtown’s skyline are in the Financial District. This subdistrict serves as the 9-to-5 home of roughly half a million Angelenos. Tens of thousands of them take the train every day into the 7th/Metro station on Fig. The rest just kind of sit on the 101 and 110 and watch the minutes of their lives tick away. This is where you’ll find most of downtown’s decadent hotels and not a few of its pricier restaurants. Cheapskates and/or professional alcoholics are encouraged to mosey north into Bunker Hill or east into the Historic Core and avail themselves of downtown’s increasingly generous happy hours. Or to visit the Central Library, which is both free and a veritable museum.

The center of downtown, to the east of Bunker Hill and the Financial District, is the Historic Core. Among other city landmarks, it has Pershing Square, downtown’s smaller version of Central Park that’s not really anything like Central Park. It also has the Old Bank District - ground zero for downtown gentrification. Where old commercial buildings used to sit, new lofts, each with their own dual-use-approved Qdoba or Chipotle, are growing like weeds. There’s also the Toy District, where they import and sell cheap lead-soaked toys from China, and the Jewelry District. Guess what they import and sell in the Jewelry District? The east side of the Historic Core remains a little rough. Depending on whether your map is being drawn by a city official or a developer trying to sell lofts in the Historic Core, parts of it almost certainly share common boundaries with Skid Row. This area was last featured in our Los Angeles Hooker Hotels post. It will soon make another appearance in a post tentatively titled How To Gently Explain To The Dealer You Met On Main St. That You Meant An 8 Ball Of Coke, Not An 8 Ball Of Crack.

Little Tokyo sits on the other side of the Historic Core. This is obviously a bastion of outstanding low-priced sushi, but food options are broad and certainly not limited to that. It has the Japanese American National Museum, one of the MOCA branches, and a bunch of public artwork that makes it a decent place for tourists to kill a day. It’s a little far from everything else, but that hasn’t stopped a series of recent development projects.

South Park, in the southeastern corner of downtown, is in a race with the Historic Core to see who can gentrify faster. The west half of the subdistrict is dominated by the Convention Center and the Staples Center, the latter being home both to an ESPN Zone and to my beloved soon to be 2008-2009 NBA Championship winning Los Angeles Lakers. The east side is pocketed by luxury apartments, lofts, and condos. Or at least it will be when all the fucking construction finishes up and Figueroa becomes usable again. Which will be nice. Expect to see more projects, like LA Live, that feed off their proximity to the Historic Core and events at the Staples Center. This is also where the Ralphs is. Which is glorious.

Finally, next to South Park at the southern end of downtown, is the Fashion District. This is ninety blocks of warehouses, depots, and sweat shops. Wiki says that it’s the “hub of the apparel industry on the West Coast,” a description that is technically true but undersells the also relevant “scary shithole” ethos of the subdistrict. When they started installing 24-hour surveillance cameras in downtown, this is where the project began. This in turn drove away the drug trade, leaving no excuse to be there after dark. Even the flagrant daytime sale of counterfeit goods, stolen DVDs, and live animals has fallen off. The world famous Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, for instance, isn’t even in the Fashion District. I don’t know if this was a rent issue or because even their male students tend toward the less than burly, but I do know that “less than burly” is the best gay reference I could come up with for the Fashion District. And that, frankly, is sad.
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