Downtown

Downtown L.A. may seem like a bunch of skyscrapers and broad streets, but it has so much more to offer than concrete and asphalt.

But let’s talk about a bit of history first. Yeah, I know what you are thinking, but it will be quick and painless, I promise!

So, here are some interesting historical facts about DTLA.

• What we now know as Downtown L.A. is what used to be a Catholic Mission settlement from all the way back to the late 1700’s.
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• Between the years of 1880 to 1896, this area’s population changed from 11,000 residents to 100,000. That is a 9X increase in 16 years!
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• During its golden age, circa the 1920’s, DTLA’s rail lines were the ones with the biggest mileage in the whole wide world.
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• Between the 1920’s and the 1940’s L.A.’s downtown area saw great development with many companies setting their headquarters there, but after WWII, this once booming part of the Big Orange started to see a decline, with many companies moving their offices elsewhere.
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• Much later, in the late 1990’s DTLA begun to rise again, this time as a residential area.

DTLA now has more than 40, 000 residents thanks to the Los Angeles City Council passing an adaptive reuse ordinance, that allowed for renovations and remodeling of the old buildings that had been left unused or used as storage. The resident ethnic profile of this area is highly diverse when compared both with the entire Los Angeles, and with the whole country with more than 36% of its residents being Latino, more than 20% Asian and African American and 16% white, a trend you do not see in other neighborhoods such as  Brentwood, Canoga Park and Bel Air.

If you turn those numbers into a pie chart, it is one of the most balanced you will see for any area of the U.S. Downtown L.A. has many things to offer, from flower markets to the fashion district, to historical monuments to art galleries. Another plus for DTLA is its efficient public transportation.

Many Angelinos believe that along with the adaptive reuse ordinance, the construction of the Staples Center is what has revived this neighborhood. For a change, Staples center is not too far off from our LA web design and SEO office.

Since this is an emergent neighborhood, or rather a re-emergent one, the most important economic sector is real estate, and the latest figures show that it is still growing at a steadfast pace.This is true for both office and residential properties. In fact, the first quarter of 2018 started off strong with office rent rising nearly 6% and construction and remodeling of old buildings taking place.

But besides history and real estate, fashion, and entertainment, DTLA also has an artistic side to it.

The Broad, on Grand Avenue, is a free museum that was designed by Diller Scofidio and Renfro, and currently is currently featuring not one, but two Infinity Mirror Rooms by Yayoi Kusama.

The Music Center, also located on Grand Avenue, is a multidisciplinary performing arts center where you can enjoy ballet functions, musicals, concerts, and more.

If you are visiting Downtown L.A., why not take one of the Conservancy’s walking tours? They feature a number of different tours that you can check out here.

And because it is L.A. we are talking about, I thought about ending it with a super fun fact: “El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Angeles del Río de Porciuncula” say what? That is how the first Spanish settlers named Los Angeles when they first established here. Hard to believe that all that ended up being simply Los Angles, or actually L.A. which is how most people call it nowadays. How a name goes from 61 letters to just 2, I don’t even know.

If you want to read more about other top neighborhoods in LA, you can check these pages: Encino, Los Feliz, Reseda, Sherman Oaks, Sun Valley and Van Nuys.