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Author Archives: Brian Hsu
Southwest corner of Sixth Street and Normandie Avenue, 2011-2015
2011-2015 Aside from the reopening of its guest rooms, one of the most anticipated elements of the Hotel Normandie’s recent renovation has been the rehabilitation of its ground-floor storefronts along Sixth Street and Normandie Avenue. The top photograph, taken in … Continue reading
Posted in Koreatown/Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles, Then and now
Tagged hotels, preservation, restaurants
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Excelsior Laundry Building, northeast corner of Los Angeles and Winston Streets, 1933-2014
1933-2014 Now one of the city’s oldest remaining industrial structures on Los Angeles Street, the former Excelsior Laundry is also a rare local exemplar of popular Romanesque Revival commercial architecture. The significant yet often-overlooked building was also the key site … Continue reading
The Regent Theater, 448 South Main Street, c.2005-2014
c. 2005-2014 In a dramatic reversal of fortune, Main Street’s long-beleaguered Regent Theater has begun its new life as a permanent concert venue. Completed near the end of the building’s centennial year, the much-anticipated mid-November reopening marks the most recent … Continue reading
North side of Wilshire Boulevard at Westmoreland Avenue, 1928-2014
1928-2014 As in many recent posts on Wilshire Boulevard, the top photograph shows a few of the Wilshire District’s early houses on the eve of the thoroughfare’s swift transition to a major commercial corridor. Today, the corner sits near the … Continue reading
Posted in Koreatown/Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles, Then and now, Wilshire Boulevard
Tagged modernism, street trees
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Looking west on Fourth Street from Spring Street, 1958-2014
1958-2014 Few sections of Downtown Los Angeles’ Historic Core have been as cruelly ravaged by urban decay as the blocks of Fourth Street in this view. Save for the former Broadway department store, whose corner peeks out at the left … Continue reading
Looking east on Sixth Street from Figueroa Street, 1968-2014
1968-2014 Up through the 1960s, the southern end of Downtown Los Angeles’ modern Financial District maintained a diverse building stock whose functions and styles reflected several periods of the city’s growth. Although the Sixth Street vicinity had seen the construction … Continue reading
Posted in Downtown, Los Angeles, Then and now
Tagged hotels, modernism, street widening, vintage color
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Aerial views of Bunker Hill and the Civic Center, 1955-c.2013
1955-c. 2013 Oblique aerial photographs provide an incredible wealth of information about urban landscapes. In addition to effectively illustrating the relative scale of buildings and neighborhoods, they offer hundreds of subtler details in higher resolution images. Nonetheless, due to some … Continue reading
Posted in Bunker Hill, Civic Center, Downtown, Los Angeles, Then and now
Tagged civic buildings, parking, urban renewal
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Northwest corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Shatto Place, 1928-2014
1928-2014 During the first two decades of the 20th century, the Vermont Avenue vicinity of Wilshire Boulevard saw the construction of some of the Wilshire District’s most elaborate homes. The top photograph is centered on 3143 Wilshire Boulevard, a Tudor Revival … Continue reading
Posted in Koreatown/Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles, Then and now, Wilshire Boulevard
Tagged TOD, transit
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The Hill Street Tunnels, looking north on Hill Street from First Street, 1954-2014
1954-2014 Like many of the city’s early public works projects, the Hill Street Tunnels provided a solution to one of Los Angeles’ greatest topographic obstacles to regional mobility, the hills at Downtown’s northwestern edge. While of most of them had … Continue reading
Posted in Bunker Hill, Civic Center, Downtown, Los Angeles, Then and now
Tagged civic buildings, street widening, streetcars, transit, vintage color
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Looking east on Wilshire Boulevard from Westmoreland Avenue, 1928-2014
1928-2014 By the early 1910s, near the end of the Wilshire District’s initial phase of development, Wilshire Boulevard was flanked by a number of large residences built for Los Angeles’ upper class. Due to the frenetic pace of the city’s … Continue reading
Posted in Koreatown/Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles, Then and now, Wilshire Boulevard
Tagged department stores
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urban diachrony 