BCE to 1800 CE 1800 1900 1920 1930 1940
Wilshire Blvd/Miracle Mile Historical Timeline PURPLE LINE TRANSIT NEIGHBORHOOD PLAN
Los Angeles has been a dynamic area for 1841 1900 1920 1930 1940 millennia, from the Chumash and Tongva Los Angeles Population: 141 Los Angeles Population: 102,479 Los Angeles Population: 576,673 Los Angeles Population: 1,238,048 Los Angeles Population: 1,504,277 villages, Spanish settlements, Mexican land 1920s 1904 1848 Developer A.W. Ross develops Wilshire Blvd as a 1940 grants, and post war population booms to the Los Angeles enacts a 13 story/150 foot height 1934 Mexico cedes California to the United States in commercial district to rival DTLA Pacific Electric’s Westgate line running on San vibrant and diverse place it is today. The limit Farmers’ Market opens at Third Street and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Fairfax Ave Vicente Blvd is decommissioned following are some milestones in LA history 1920-23 1913 The Rancho las Cienegas tract is subdivided and that helped shape the Purple Line TNP area. 1850 Los Angeles Aqueduct is completed developed, forming what is now the Miracle Mile 1939 1944 Los Angeles is incorporated TEXT LEGEND HPOZ May Co. opens at Wilshire and Fairfax, with Park La Brea opens with primarily two story parking for 750 cars and the first department buildings LA City Milestones 1922-24 store car service station Land Use Milestones 1892 Los Angeles annexes the areas that now Transit Milestones Edward Doheny discovers oil near Westlake Park, comprise the Miracle Mile 1944 prompting oil discoveries all across LA Peak ridership of the Pacific Electric Railway, with 1923 109 million riders on more than 1,150 miles of 38,000 BCE Developer J. Harvey McCarthy master plans track Future fossils are trapped in what is now known 1895 Carthay Center as a commercial competitor to as the La Brea Tar Pits Henry Gaylord Wilshire plans his 120 foot wide Miracle Mile on an old air field, it is serviced by boulevard on his 35 acre tract of land just west the Westgate Line on San Vicente Blvd 1949 of West Lake (now MacArthur) Park for an Prudential Square opens as the tallest building in exclusive residential neighborhood 1924 the city and shifts the Miracle Mile from a Los Angeles Railway carries 346,213,241 shopping destination to an office district passengers on rail cars, with the bus lines 1897 carrying 3,361,606 more The western boundary of LA moves west from Hoover St to Vermont Ave and Wilshire Blvd is 1924 extended George Allen Hancock, owner of the Rancho La Brea subdivision, donates 23 acres of land for the preservation of fossils, know known as the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum
1929 8,000 BCE Ross proposes to develop a 40 story hotel and Chumash people settle the LA Basin rail terminal at Wilshire and Fairfax, but plans are discarded due to stock market crash and Great 1781 Depression A group of 11 Mexican families settles by the 1929 river and the settlement is named El Pueblo Wilshire Tower (right), then known as Sobre el Rio de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Silverwood/Desmond’s, is the first art deco Angeles del Río de Porciúncula building to open on Wilshire Blvd
BCE to 1800 CE 1800 1900 1920 1930 1940
Circa 500 CE 1890 1906 1925 1945 Tongva people settle the LA Basin, creating the Los Angeles Consolidated Electric Railway Los Angeles Pacific Railway route established on Report and Recommendations on a City of LA publishes “Recommended Program for village of Yang-Na near present day city hall Company is organized and begins constructing San Vicente Blvd, later becoming Pacific Comprehensive Rapid Transit Plan for the City Improvement of Transportation and Traffic electric railway service Electric’s Westgate Line and County of Los Angeles” (below) is published, Facilities in the Metropolitan Area” emphasizing a with recommendations on future lines, as well as freeway network with rapid transit in the median financing and operation of a unified system. and enhancement of existing rail and bus lines.
Wilshire/ Miracle Mile
Project partially funded by Metro Wilshire Blvd/Miracle Mile Historical Timeline PURPLE LINE TRANSIT NEIGHBORHOOD PLAN
1950 1960 1970 1990 2000 2010 Los Angeles Population: 1,970,358 Los Angeles Population: 2,479,015 Los Angeles Population: 2,816,061 Los Angeles Population: 3,485,398 Los Angeles Population: 3,694,820 Los Angeles Population: 3,792,621 1970 1950 2001 2014 Los Angeles Department of City Planning 1990 Los Angeles Department of City Planning receives Park La Brea adds eighteen 13-story (height limit 1960 Wilshire Community Plan update is adopted at the time) buildings in response to the postwar releases the Centers Concept, the guiding Miracle Mile North HPOZ is adopted a grant from Metro to initiate transit supportive Pacific Electric Red Car ceases operation framework for the general plan, which identified housing shortage making it the largest multi- 2005 planning around the Purple Line Phase 1 Miracle Mile as a robust regional center Extension stations family development west of the Mississippi River 1993 Antonio Villaraigosa wins election in which his 1964 SCRTD becomes Los Angeles County support for the Purple Line extension is a 1951 Los Angeles Planning Department publishes Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) centerpiece of his campaign Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is “Centropolis: The Plan for Central City Los formed to study a regional transit plan across Los Angeles,” which endorses the MTA’s four corridor 2006 Angeles, it was authorized to construct and proposal, including the Backbone Route along 1994 LACMA construction uncovers skeleton of a near- operate a monorail from the Valley to Long Beach Wilshire Blvd Petersen Automotive Museum Opens in former complete Columbian Mammoth Ohrbach’s department store 1956 Los Angeles voters repeal the 13-story height 2008 limit by a three-to-one margin and replace it with 1965 Hancock Park HPOZ is adopted restricting a building’s total floor area to no more LACMA moves to Wilshire Blvd than 13 times the area of the lot 2007 Congressman Waxman successfully passes 1975 legislation lifting the 1985 federal ban he LA City Council adopts the Wilshire District Plan, previously imposed on subway construction in the 2014 covering what is currently known as the Wilshire Wilshire Corridor Metro Purple Line Phase 1 Extension breaks Community Plan. Among many objectives in the plan is ground one that seeks “To promote the continued role of ‘Wilshire Center’ and ‘Miracle Mile’ as major Centers” 2016 Los Angeles voters approve Measure JJJ by a 2-1 1980 margin, setting requirements for affordable Los Angeles population: 2,950,010 housing and labor standards for projects of 10 or 1985 more residential units that require certain An unrelated methane gas explosion prompts discretionary actions; It also tasks the area congressman Henry Waxman to eliminate Department of City Planning to create the Transit federal funding for subway construction, while Oriented Communities (TOC) Affordable Housing 1996 the funding was soon restored, a ban on subway Incentive Guidelines Los Angeles City Council adopts the Framework tunneling under Wilshire goes into effect that will Element of the General Plan, which has a policy 2017 last for 22 years objective of directing growth to transit served Carthay Square and Miracle Mile HPOZs are 1985 areas; Miracle Mile continues to be envisioned as adopted Proposition U passes, limiting FAR in commercial a regional center 2017 and industrial zones to 1.5:1 Transit Oriented Communities (TOC) Affordable 1985 1998 Housing Incentive Guidelines are issued per the South Carthay HPOZ is adopted Carthay Circle HPOZ is adopted requirements of Measure JJJ
1950 1960 1970 1990 2000 2010
1959 1964 1980 1990 2008 2016 MTA releases “Study of Public Transportation Southern California Rapid Transit District (SCRTD) After three previously failed ballot measures, Los Los Angeles County Voters approve Proposition C, Los Angeles County voters approve Measure R, a Los Angeles County voters approve (71%) Needs for the Determination of Potential Rapid is formed, giving powers to operate, implement Angeles County voters pass Measure A, a ½ cent adding another ½ cent sales tax for ½ cent sales tax which created a funding stream Measure M, a ½ cent sales tax for transportation Transit Route,” identifying twelve “corridors of and fund transit plans not afforded to the MTA sales tax to fund a transit system in which the transportation funding for the Purple Line extension funding with no sunset major streams of travel, and narrowing to four Wilshire Subway is the “cornerstone” of the corridors for an initial priority system, including the system Wilshire District, from Beverly Hills to El Monte.
1960 1968 1990 MTA proposes elevated monorail along Wilshire, Southern California Rapid Transit District (SCRTD) SCRTD opens the Blue Line to Long Beach, later modified to be a subway route, and issues final report recommending a Five Corridor marking the region’s return to rail transit TEXT LEGEND becomes known at the “backbone route” based System, adding an Airport-Southwest line, LA City Milestones on the studies conducted by the MTA indicating it connecting Union Station and LAX would be an essential element in any system of Land Use Milestones rapid transit which would later evolve Transit Milestones Project partially funded by Metro