DTLA Is Also Home To Many Museums, Such As The Museum Of Contemporary Art And The California Science Center, As Well As Performing Arts Venues, Such As The Walt Disney Concert Hall And The Ahmanson Theatre. The Historic Core Of DTLA Is A Neighborhood That Features Many Historic Buildings And Landmarks, Such As The Bradbury Building And The Historic Core Of The City. The Area Is Also Known For Its Vibrant Nightlife, With Many Bars, Clubs, And Restaurants, As Well As Its Growing Number Of Residents, As Downtown LA Becomes More Residential-Friendly, With Many Lofts And Apartments Being Built In The Area.
Angel’s flight has been a landmark of downtown Los Angeles since 1901. The funicular railway is the shortest rail system in the United States and is 300 feet long.
Funicular means, a railway system that is usually built on an incline and uses tension pullies to ascend and lower the train. Angel’s Flight was originally created to transport individuals from the Bunker Hill area to the business center plaza.
Designed by Frank Gehry in and opened in 2003, the Disney Concert Hall is an architectural marvel. The structure is made up of convex and concave shapes that create a distinctive silhouette. The stainless-steel wrapped building was originally shined with a mirror like finish. Due to the tremendous glare, dangerous heat spots, and increased traffic accidents, the mirrored steel was brushed to have a matte finish. The Disney Concert Hall is now home to the Philharmonic Orchestra.
Designed by New York Architect Bertram Goodhue and completed in 1926, the Los Angeles Central Library is a considered an architectural jewel with a final cost of $1.5 million. The exterior was created in an Egyptian and Mediterranean style. The dramatic tiled pyramid tower is decorated with bas-reliefs. The interior second-floor rotunda is thought to be the most stunning feature with its arabesque and deco dome, California history mural, and globe chandelier.
Sadly, Goodhue would not live to see the completion of the library as he passed away in 1924 due to a heart attack.
The Wilshire Grand Center is the tallest building west of Chicago and stands at 1,100 feet. Located in the financial district of downtown Los Angeles, it inhabits an entire city block. The boarders of the building are placed on Wilshire Boulevard, 7th St., Figueroa, and Francisco Street. The project was headed by architect Albert C. Martin in beginning in 2013 and completed in 2017 for $1.2 billion. The structure is impressive with a 900-room hotel, upscale retail spaces, world class restaurants, 500,000 square feet dedicated for parking, and over 380,000 square feet for business capacity.
Built in 1939, Los Angeles Union Station is the largest railroad passenger terminal in the Western United States and is widely regarded as “the last of the great train stations.” The station’s signature Mission Modern style makes it one of L.A.’s architectural gems. Today, Union Station is the largest transit hub and transports over 100,000 passengers per day. Union station is not only used for buses and its railway system, hundreds of cinematic films have been shot within the structure.
Formerly known as the Staples Center, the Crypto.com Arena is a multi-purpose stadium that is home to several sports giants like the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings, the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers, and the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks. The prestigious Grammy Awards Ceremony is also held here as well as dozens of concerts, comedy shows, and large-scale events. The structure is massive and holds up to an impressive 20,000 people. It is 150 feet tall and is 94 feet by 200 feet long.
Located near the Music Center, Grand Park is a green sanctuary in the middle of an urban area.
It is a popular place for a picnic, food trucks, movie productions, concerts, and large scale events.
The Broad is a contemporary art museum that is adjacent to the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Downtown Los Angeles. The structure was created with a perforated look designed to allow light to fill the interior space. The Broad is designed by world-renowned architectural firm Diller Scofidio and Renfro in collaboration with Gensler. With its innovative “veil-and-vault” concept, the 120,000-square-foot, $140 million building features two floors of gallery space to showcase the Broad’s comprehensive collection. Viewing windows are strategically placed so that the public and view the vault through special windows in the gallery.
Encompassing 107 blocks, the LA fashion District houses more than 2000 independently own small retail and wholesale businesses. The LA Fashion District started in the 1920’s as a small fashion showroom at the Cooper Building on Los Angeles St. and 9th. For 20 years, what was called the Garment District, was the center to Los Angeles based fashion. In 1940, the Fashion district had a renaissance and massively increased in demand which caused the area grow and subsequently covered dozens of city blocks. Currently, the LA Fashion district is so large that it is broken up into smaller specialty areas. The Textile, Flower, Kids, Women’s Clothing, Men’s clothing, and Jewelry are some of the more well-known sub-districts.
The Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising is a private for-profit college that is ranked as the top fashion school on the west coast and founded in 1969 by Tonian Hohberg. There are several campuses in California that offer Associate and bachelor’s degrees in majors including fashion, entertainment, beauty, interior design, and graphic design.
The prestigious school is difficult to get into and has $32,645 tuition per semester (2020). FIDM is not without scandal as the college has allegedly been suited several times for discrimination, refusing to pay teachers for the time that they worked, and not provided the education promised to students.
The Art’s District has been around since the early 1970’s when a group of artists commandeered an abandoned warehouse and turned it into artist lofts. In 1981, Los Angeles recognized the artistic area as a dedicated district. Many of the area’s establishments, homes, and workspaces are created from former warehouses and factories as the area was an industrial site prior to the 1970’s. Upscale condos, art galleries, and trendy restaurants all have a creative-urban feel. Creativity can is well respected and can be seen through street art, murals, and artist spaces. Institutions like the Hauser and Wirth Gallery, the Southern California Institute of Architecture and the Los Angeles Clean Technology Incubator fuel the Arts District one-of-a-kind character. In 2003 the city of Los Angeles enacted a moratorium which prohibited the creation of murals. With defiance, street artist continued to create sanctioned and unsanctioned artwork on buildings, sidewalks, and other standing fixtures. The community rallied and the moratorium was lifted ten years later in 2013. The sanctioned murals are usually protected for two to three years before being painted over. Unsanctioned murals often come and go without warning, so the murals currently on display may or may not be on the walls when one visits the area.