48 Years Ago: Downtown Encircled by Freeways
Dick Whittington Studio / USC Digital Archives
[digitallibrary.usc.edu]
1964 aerial view of Downtown, with the interchange of the Harbor and Santa Monica freeways in the foreground.
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — On March 30, 1962, a crowd of 400 gathered atop a newly completed segment of the Santa Monica Freeway to applaud the finish of Downtown's "freeway loop," the collection of lines that has served to define the Central City's geography ever since.
Nine Freeway Queens helped Governor Edmund "Pat" Brown cut the ribbon on the 1.1-mile elevated segment stretching from the 110 to Main street. "Now, for the first time, we have freeways that will relieve other freeways," the governor was quoted as saying in the next day's L.A. Times.
Stories about the freeway work emphasized the way in which the Downtown loop turned the routes into a system where drivers had multiple choices of how to get into or around the Central City.
The day marked the conclusion of an intense 15 year period of freeway construction Downtown. The Hollywood Freeway opened into the Civic Center on December 27, 1950. The first link of the Harbor Freeway, from Temple to 3rd, opened a year and a half later on July 30, 1952. Further sections opened over the next two years. The Golden State Freeway took shape in the early 1960s.
Hillsman Wright on March 31, 2010, at 10:10AM – #1
"Encircled" as opposed to surrounded and cut-off... Nevertheless, sure kept things alive downtown - for awhile.
Chris Loos on March 31, 2010, at 11:16AM – #2
If they only knew the damage they were doing to LA and the time it would take to undo that damage...yeesh.
Guest on March 31, 2010, at 12:31PM – #3
Chris, what damage are you speaking of? The only section of urban freeway that was really all that damaging was the co-signed sections of the 5/10 through Boyle Heights.
Unlike most US cities, LA was coming of age when the freeways were built, instead of them all being built after the city had become established as a mega population center.
The freeways certainly didn't damage LA's economic trajectory; in fact they fueled it. Social/cultural amenities? Honestly, I feel like there aren't many places out there where you can "have it all" as easily as you can in LA. If only our transit network were as developed as our freeways', but both are integral parts of the eventual comprehensive network this city will have.
Guest on April 02, 2010, at 08:15PM – #4
The damage referred to is the damage of urban sprawl, the death of LA's streetcar system, and the utter destruction of downtown LA's vibrant economy. The freeways may not have caused downtown's decline, but it made it worse by giving people the option to live far far away from downtown yet still work in the new office towers being built on the recently razed Bunker Hill.
Guest on April 06, 2010, at 06:17AM – #5
Actually, the streetcars enabled people to live far from the city center. Look at a map of the system; it really does seem to coincide with the routes of the freeways. Van Nuys, Panorama City, San Fernando, Pasadena, you name them, the streetcar lines were run and the real estate speculation began.
Also worth noting is that by the end of WWI (that's right, before the 1920s), Los Angeles had more automobiles than households. What really pushed the streetcars out were the escalating levels of congestion in the city center, and an increasing number of accidents between streetcars and automobiles, which disrupted service and annoyed drivers.
Finally, Los Angeles is not "sprawled." A sprawled city is like Houston or Atlanta, where the development just spreads outward from a city center. Los Angeles is a polycentric city, meaning that it is home to many centers. What has been observed in Los Angeles is really an instance of all of these local centers growing into each other, but very little of it is actually "sprawl." A key component of "sprawl" is low density, and LA just doesn't have that. Even the single family housing tracts are fairly dense, with minimal lot sizes. Los Angeles has medium to medium-high density, and that just does not fit the definition of sprawl.
Now, I'm not asserting that freeways haven't caused any unintended consequences as a result of their construction because very valid arguments exist--but they didn't kill anyone's puppies either.
Alan Worman on April 06, 2010, at 09:02AM – #6
Well said, Guest #5.
Guest on April 06, 2010, at 09:59PM – #7
That's strange. I guess everything I've been taught in USC's architecture and planning schools has been wrong then. I've never once heard that Los Angeles isn't a "sprawl" city.
Density isn't the only thing that determines if a city is sprawled.
Guest on April 07, 2010, at 11:39AM – #8
As a senior resident of Los Angeles, who also writes about it, http://www.travel4seniors.com i remember when the freeways were built and they were necessary for the development of the new city, especially after the decisions were made to get rid of the rapid transit system even today we are still trying to restore.
TBerry on May 27, 2011, at 07:29PM – #9
Guest #3... what other factors beyond density and pattern of growth determine whether a city is considered a "sprawl"? I'm interested in this debate and it would be great to see a more elaborate response to Guest 1 (comment #5)'s assertion that LA is not a sprawl.