The Arts District HISTORY AND ARCHITECTURE IN DOWNTOWN L.A. Endings and Beginnings: A History of Change in Downtown L.A.’s Arts District he history of the Arts District only local railroads ran through the city, is one of constant change – but in 1876 the arrival of the Southern many endings and beginnings. Pacific Railroad from San Francisco TWith the neighborhood about to connected Los Angeles with the start another chapter with the influx transcontinental railroad. The Atchison, of new businesses, residents, and Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad came developments, it is a good time to next to Los Angeles in 1885. In 1905, reflect on the neighborhood’s history the Union Pacific arrived, making the and to think about how the historic city a western terminus of three major architecture can continue to play an transcontinental railroads. All three important role in its unique identity. railroads built depots, transportation buildings, warehouses, and rail yards in From Grapevines to Railroads and around the Arts District. Had you visited the area now known as In fact, many of the industrial Aerial view of the expansive Barker Bros. the Arts District in the mid nineteenth- buildings constructed in the Arts factories and warehouses located along century, you would have seen acres Palmetto Street, 1924. Photo courtesy of District during the late nineteenth and Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection. of vineyards. In fact, Vignes Street, early twentieth century leave clear which runs through the northern signs that they were built around the edge of the district, was named after railroad. Buildings curve unexpectedly, City of Los Angeles was adding huge “the father of French immigration to following tracks long since covered amounts of territory by incorporating Los Angeles,” Jean-Louis Vignes. He over, and doors and loading docks are already existing communities, such as arrived from France in 1831 and found set three or four feet above ground level Highland Park and Boyle Heights, and in Southern California the perfect to the height of a boxcar. adding more than 100,000 acres in the climate for planting grapes. In 1833 While the railroads were eroding San Fernando Valley. Because of all the he planted grapes from France, and some of the agricultural land around available residential land, by 1922 the by 1847, Vignes’ vineyard, El Aliso, the turn of the twentieth century, the city had officially re-zoned downtown to was the largest producer of wine in area still had a rural feel in contrast eliminate all residential housing in order California. Other winemakers and fruit to the residential and commercial to make room for more offices, retail, growers followed Vignes, and by the development concentrated in and manufacturing. This move solidified late nineteenth century, oranges and downtown Los Angeles west of Main the Arts District as an industrial center. grapefruit had outpaced grapes as the Street. Surprisingly, the Arts District Manufacturers continued to locate in primary product of the area. was also home to several working-class the area throughout the 1910s and Railroads and manufacturing residential neighborhoods due to the 1920s. emerged to serve the citrus industry’s real estate boom of the late 1880s and By the end of World War II, this shipping needs, and later to support the proliferation of job opportunities neighborhood was clearly industrial in the large number of people moving that came with industrial development. nature, but it began to face challenges into California, and so began the as industrial needs evolved. As railroads transportation and industrial chapter in Industrial Boom gave way to the trucking industry, large this neighborhood’s history. Previously, Despite the residential enclaves, this trucks had difficulty accessing some neighborhood was on a clear path of the smaller streets that were once toward industrialization during the railroad spurs. Manufacturing plants early twentieth century. The city’s grew larger in size, yet land parcels population explosion contributed to the in the neighborhood were small. expansion of the regional economy. By Companies had to purchase several the 1920s, Los Angeles had become adjacent lots in order to build a large the fifth-largest city in the United plant, making property acquisition States and the seventh-wealthiest in difficult. Newer, outlying cities such the nation. Key manufacturers located as Vernon and the City of Commerce in the Arts District at this time were could better accommodate the needs producing bakery products, women’s of modern industries. As companies clothing, foundry and machinery goods, moved away to build larger, more furniture, printing and publishing modern factories, the warehouses of View looking east of Jean-Louis Vignes’ orchards, circa 1865. Photo courtesy of Los Angeles materials, automobile parts, and rubber. the Arts District stood vacant and the Public Library Photo Collection. In the early twentieth century, the neighborhood began to decay. 2 The Arts District Enter the Artists Pickle Works Building). Several artist in other creative industries, including In the 1970s, a group of artists, many hangouts opened, such as Al’s Bar in green technology, architecture, and of whom were being priced out of the the American Hotel, which was home entertainment, while still retaining increasingly expensive Venice and to a groundbreaking punk-rock scene some of its industrial use. Yet it is poised Hollywood art scenes, saw opportunity beginning in the mid-1970s until its for another wave of development and in the forgotten buildings in the Arts closure in 2001. change that comes with its own set District. Vacant warehouses made for This migration into the Arts District of challenges. The area continues to massive live/work studios at rock- was done quietly and illegally, but attract new residential and commercial bottom prices. Yet moving into an became a growing issue. In 1981 the development, some of it now being abandoned industrial neighborhood City acknowledged the situation and built from the ground up and at a much was not easy for these pioneering implemented the Artist-in-Residence larger scale than the existing structures. artists, who had to hide during building (AIR) program, which legalized the New development will bring an influx inspections by the fire department and residential use of formerly industrial of new residents, perhaps doubling the live in inhospitable surroundings. Linda buildings for artists. After the passage population in the next few years. Frye Burnham, one of twelve early of the AIR, the earliest developers of From a preservation perspective, artists called the “Young Turks” living the Arts District were often artists all this change could affect the historic in the Arts District during this time, themselves. One of the most important industrial buildings and other defining described it this way: legacies from these early artist/ elements, such as railroad tracks, developers is that by rehabilitating that served as the focal point for early Living downtown was exhilarating the vacant warehouses, they saved revitalization and that tell so much after the perfect lawns and an important part of L.A.’s industrial of the neighborhood’s story. The expensive lifestyle of Orange and transportation past. They became Los Angeles Conservancy is already County, where everything smelled grassroots preservationists. involved in a preservation issue at the like Coppertone. But it wasn’t easy. The Arts District had a thriving James K. Hill Pickle Works Building, It was dangerous, especially in underground arts scene in the which was proposed for demolition the ’80s when the crack epidemic 1980s yet saw another downturn in in 2013. It is important to understand blew through L.A. It was filthy and the early 1990s due to a decline in the story of the neighborhood in order uncomfortable, at the confluence downtown investment, rising homeless to maintain its historic fabric and of 11 freeways. The noise was populations, and social unrest. This successfully plan for the change that is shattering and it was so smoggy prompted a response from Arts District coming. you couldn’t see the city from the neighborhood activists, led by Joel Over nearly two centuries, the Arts I-10. We had to drive 20 minutes to Bloom, the area’s unofficial mayor. In District has evolved from vineyards, get groceries or do laundry or go to the mid-‘90s, he successfully petitioned to working-class neighborhoods, the movies. In winter it was really the City to designate the area the “Arts to bustling industry, to abandoned cold in those cement industrial District.” He also opened Bloom’s factories, to artists’ mecca, to urban spaces and in the summer the General Store in the American Hotel oasis. Going forward, we can continue thermometer would rise over 100 on Traction Avenue and Hewitt Street. to turn to its architecture to better degrees. (lindaburnham.com) The store served as the heart of the understand and appreciate the Art The artists opend up a number of Arts District until after Bloom’s death in District’s many endings and beginnings. avant-garde art galleries, such as the 2007. In his honor, the City designated Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions the area around Third, Traction, and (LACE) center on Industrial Street, and Rose as Joel Bloom Square. The Art Dock, a drive-by street gallery in an eight-foot loading dock located in True to Its Roots amid Revival Citizens Warehouse (now known as the In 1999, the City of Los Angeles passed its landmark Adaptive Reuse Ordinance (ARO), which relaxed zoning codes for the conversion of pre-1974 commercial and industrial buildings into residential uses for non-artists. The ARO spurred another significant wave of development in the Arts District and shone a spotlight on the neighborhood as a creative and unique place to live.