| Homer Laughlin Building | |
|---|---|
 The building's exterior in 2014 | |
 | |
| General information | |
| Town or city | Los Angeles, California |
| Country | United States |
The Homer Laughlin Building, at 317 South Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles, is a landmark building best known for its ground floor tenant the Grand Central Market, the city's largest and oldest public market that sees 2 million visitors a year. [1]
Built by retired Ohio entrepreneur Homer Laughlin (founder of the Homer Laughlin China Company), the Homer Laughlin Building was Los Angeles's first fireproofed, steel-reinforced structure. The original six-story building was designed in 1896 by architect John B. Parkinson. [2] Smith & Carr were the building contractors. [3] In August 1898 Coulter's Dry Goods (later department store) opened here. [4] [5]
In 1905 the structure was expanded through to Hill Street, called either the Laughlin Annex or the Lyon Building. This design by architect Harrison Albright was the first reinforced concrete building in Los Angeles. [6] The first post-expansion tenant was the Ville de Paris department store, replaced in 1917 by the Grand Central Market, which still occupies the ground floor of the building. The location was chosen because of its proximity to the Angels Flight Railway allowing for easy access to the well-to-do citizens of Bunker Hill.
In the 1920s the building served as an office for the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. [7]
The original building was built in the Beaux Arts style, but subsequent modifications drastically changed its appearance including the addition of a tile façade in the 1960s which hid the second-story windows. Along with the adjacent Million Dollar Theater Building and the Bradbury Building, the Homer Laughlin Building and the Grand Central Market underwent a major renovation in the 1990s under the direction of developer Ira Yellin and architect Brenda Levin. As part of the rehabilitation residential units were added, creating downtown Los Angeles's first true mixed-use developments in decades. [8]
In 2013, under the leadership of Ira Yellin's widow, Adele Yellin, the Market began welcoming a new wave of vendors who are transforming the nearly century-old food arcade into a major culinary destination. [9] The ongoing revitalization of the iconic food arcade has garnered numerous media accolades including being named one of the “Hot 10” restaurants nationwide by Bon Appetit magazine in 2014. [10] [11]
Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) contains the central business district of Los Angeles. In addition, it contains a diverse residential area of some 85,000 people, and covers 5.84 sq mi (15.1 km2). A 2013 study found that the district is home to over 500,000 jobs. It is also part of Central Los Angeles.
Chinatown is a neighborhood in Downtown Los Angeles, California, that became a commercial center for Chinese and other Asian businesses in Central Los Angeles in 1938. The area includes restaurants, shops, and art galleries, but also has a residential neighborhood with a low-income, aging population of about 20,000 residents.
The Bradbury Building is an architectural landmark in downtown Los Angeles, California, United States. Built in 1893, the five-story office building is best known for its extraordinary skylit atrium of access walkways, stairs and elevators, and their ornate ironwork. The building was commissioned by Los Angeles gold-mining millionaire Lewis L. Bradbury and constructed by draftsman George Wyman from the original design by Sumner Hunt. It appears in numerous works of fiction and has been the site of many movie and television shoots and music videos.
The Historic Core is a district within Downtown Los Angeles includes the world's largest concentration of movie palaces, former large department stores, and office towers, all built chiefly between 1907 and 1931. Within it lie the Broadway Theater District and the Spring Street historic financial district, and in its west it overlaps with the Jewelry District and in its east with Skid Row.
The Civic Center neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, is the administrative core of the City of Los Angeles, County of Los Angeles, and a complex of city, county, state, and federal government offices, buildings, and courthouses. It is located on the site of the former business district of the city during the 1880s and 1890s, since mostly-demolished.
Broadway, until 1890 Fort Street, is a thoroughfare in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The portion of Broadway from 3rd to 9th streets, in the Historic Core of Downtown Los Angeles, was the city's main commercial street from the 1910s until World War II, and is the location of the Broadway Theater and Commercial District, the first and largest historic theater district listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). With twelve movie palaces located along a six-block stretch of Broadway, it is the only large concentration of movie palaces left in the United States.
The Financial District is the central business district of Los Angeles along Olive, Grand, Hope, Flower and Figueroa streets from 4th Street to 8th Street. It is south of the Bunker Hill district, west of the Historic Core, north of South Park and east of the Harbor Freeway and Central City West. Like Bunker Hill, the Financial District is home to corporate office skyscrapers, hotels and related services as well as banks, law firms, and real estate companies. However, unlike Bunker Hill which was razed and now consists of buildings constructed since the 1960s, it contains large buildings from the early 20th century, particularly along Seventh Street, once the city's upscale shopping street; the area also attracts visitors as the 7th and Flower area is at the center of the regional Metro rail system and is replete with restaurants, bars, and shopping at two urban malls.
John and Donald Parkinson were a father-and-son architectural firm operating in the Los Angeles area in the early 20th century. They designed and built many of the city's iconic buildings, including Grand Central Market, the Memorial Coliseum and the City Hall.
The Million Dollar Theatre at 307 S. Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles is one of the first movie palaces built in the United States. It opened in 1917 with the premiere of William S. Hart's The Silent Man. It's the northernmost of the collection of historical movie palaces in the Broadway Theater District and stands directly across from the landmark Bradbury Building. The theater is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Jessica Sage Yellin is an American journalist. Focused primarily on politics, she was the Chief White House Correspondent for CNN in Washington, D.C. from 2011 to 2013. Described as "one of the most powerful women in Washington," Yellin began reporting for CNN as the network's senior political correspondent in 2007, covering Capitol Hill, domestic politics and the White House. Her debut novel, Savage News, was published in April 2019.
The Broadway Theater District in the Historic Core of Downtown Los Angeles is the first and largest historic theater district listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). With twelve movie palaces located along a six-block stretch of Broadway, it is the only large concentration of movie palaces left in the United States. The same six-block stretch of Broadway, and an adjacent section of Seventh Street, was also the city's retail hub for the first half of the twentieth century, lined with large and small department stores and specialty stores.
The A+D Museum is a museum of architecture and design located in the Downtown Los Angeles Arts District at 900 E 4th Street. Designer and educator Natasha Sandmeier serves as the museum's executive director and Camille Elston is the managing director.
William F. Curlett and Alexander Edward Curlett were a father-and-son pair of architects. They worked together as partners under the name of William Curlett and Son, Architects from c. 1908–1916. Aleck Curlett partnered with Claud Beelman as Curlett & Beelman (1919–1932).
Bringing Back Broadway is a public–private partnership begun in 2008 and led by Councilmember José Huizar, with Executive Director Jessica Wethington McLean, to revitalize the historic Broadway corridor of Los Angeles. Goals are to provide economic development and business assistance; encourage historic preservation; reactivate Broadway's historic theaters and long-underutilized commercial buildings; and increase transit and development options by bringing a streetcar back to downtown Los Angeles with Broadway as the spine for the route.
Historic Broadway station is an underground light rail station on the A Line and the E Line of the Los Angeles Metro Rail system. It is located at the southeast corner of 2nd Street and Broadway in the Historic Core section of Downtown Los Angeles. In planning documents, the station was originally going to be named 2nd St/Broadway.
Jacoby Bros. was one of Los Angeles' largest dry goods retailers in the 1880s and 1890s, developing over the decades into a department store, which closed in the late 1930s.
Ville de Paris was a department store in Downtown Los Angeles from 1893 through 1919.
7th Street is a street in Los Angeles, California running from S. Norton Ave in Mid-Wilshire through Downtown Los Angeles. It goes all the way to the eastern city limits at Indiana Ave., and the border between Boyle Heights, Los Angeles and East Los Angeles.
