Will L.A.’s Broadway Blaze Again?

The seamy heart of downtown’s theater district is getting a $40 million makeover

By Peter Gilstrap
Published: Mar 25, 2008
Photography by Bringing Back Broadway

Many stories above the neglected theater district on Broadway, rising into the air where the pungent cocktail of bus fumes, carne asada and urine of the homeless is diluted by breezes from the Pacific, there is a simple statement: JESUS SAVES. It has stood there since 1935, ten rusted letters traced with red neon announcing the good news to anyone with a desire to crane their neck toward heaven. It’s hard to say who needed more saving, the sea of ‘30’s hatted heads that once crowded the sidewalks of Broadway or the denizens of today’s boulevard, mainly Latinos, a few African-Americans, and various souls adrift from nearby Skid Row. Back in 1935, of course, the theater district on Broadway between 3rd and 9th Streets was in full bloom, the pulse of L.A.’s downtown, boasting magnificent film and vaudeville palaces, top notch shopping, classy restaurants and watering holes big and small. The beloved, long gone Red Car cable system ran clanging down the center of the street and onto all parts north, south, east and west and back again, bringing Angelenos into the heart of it all.

Broadway was money, it was excitement, it was good times. Talent like the Marx Brothers, Jack Benny and Bob Hope graced its stages, Charlie Chaplin premiered his classic City Lights at the Los Angeles Theatre. It was a time before smog and riots, a place where folks of all ages could walk fearless into the wee hours.

But as the decades advanced, things changed. In the years after World War II, Los Angeles’ ever-expanding suburbs sprouted their own hubs and the crowds gradually stopped coming downtown. The once breath taking theaters began running out of wind, screens going dark one by one. Stately office buildings emptied floor by floor as businesses migrated, as the grand department stores followed the dollars to the ‘burbs. After the Red Cars met with extinction in 1961, the city simply paved over the tracks. The once vibrant Broadway concourse became a tired canyon of empty avenues, a home to the homeless, a place for ghosts, pigeons and police.

Now, however, if Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, City Councilmember Jose Huizar and a coterie of downtown property owners have their way, Broadway may enjoy a much-needed rehab to the tune of nearly $40 million in city and private funds. Early this year Bringing Back Broadway was announced, a plan that would feature “streetscape design, property for a new parking facility, and the next steps in the streetcar revival plan.”

The mission statement throws around magical, glittering phrases like “dynamic revitalization,” “world-class destination,” and the idea that BBB “will shape the future of Downtown Los Angeles.”

Similar plans and platitudes have surfaced and sunk before, yet this one may actually succeed. The union of city and private funds—some $17 million in state and federal monies and $20 million from Broadway property owners—is unprecedented. The last few years have already seen many aging, empty office structures flipped into swank condos and lofts, playing the sexy urban lifestyle card to upwardly mobile young careerists searching for the next location, location, location.

And, though condos have sold and lofts have rented, and during the weekdays the sidewalks are filled with white collar workers from the LA Times and city government buildings, Broadway is still a far cry from being brought back.

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It’s a late Sunday afternoon in early March that explains why it costs more to live in L.A. than, say St. Louis, and why it’s worth it: Seventy-five degrees, cloudless blue sky, the kind of slight breeze that bad romance novels would say caresses your cheeks. At 9th Street and Broadway, the far end of the district, the checkerboard-patterned sidewalk is devoid of people, the traffic sporadic.

The sheer emptiness makes for a strange feeling. If cities had tumbleweeds they should be here, rolling across the avenue as the lights change for no one. The scent of cooking meat wafts over from down the block, at a stand called Tacos Mexico, three people and one dog stand in line for delicacies featuring, among other meats, “beef cheeks.”

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