Los Angeles mayors George E. Cryer (in office 1921-1929), Frank Shaw (1933-1938) and Fletcher Bowron (1938-1953) will be the subjects of a trio of Saturday afternoon lectures at the Central Library. "Growth, Graft, Grandeur: Three Los Angeles Mayors" kicks off this weekend and runs through July. — Continued Inside...

|Photo Gallery| On February 23, 1965, a pair of City Council committees voted to back a plan to build a new Los Angeles Convention Center in the heart of Elysian Park. 63 of the parks 575 acres would have been given up to the $10 million plan, which seemed to have all the backing it needed before it was eventually undermined through a campaign organized by the Citizens Committee to Save Elysian Park. — Continued Inside...

The L.A. Times' Steve Harvey yesterday dedicated his Then and Now column to the Long Beach Spit 'n' Argue Club, a group that for 75 years would gather to chew tobacco and debate just about anything.

Harvey includes a mention of Downtown's own debate scene, which for decades was the defining feature of a visit to Pershing Square. — Continued Inside...

While the 1999 passage of the Adaptive Reuse Ordinance is credited with spurring Downtown's now decade-long rebirth, the city's first real conversion of an outdated office building to residential uses occurred two decades earlier.

In January of 1978, Robert Maguire announced plans to convert the 1922 Pacific Telephone building at 740 S. Olive into 310 units of affordable senior housing. The building opened, 100% leased, in May of 1979. — Continued Inside...

On December 31, 1940, an estimated 500,000 people packed Broadway between 3rd and 8th to celebrate the start of a new year. Warnings against the throwing of confetti were disregarded, but the celebrants were on the whole well-behaved.

It's unclear exactly what year that tradition died out, but mentions of Broadway festivities had vanished from the L.A. Times by the early 1950s. — Continued Inside...

|Photo Gallery| In the heyday of Los Angeles' department store history, shoppers would descend on Downtown each holiday season to gaze at intricate displays set up in the windows of stores such as May Company, Bullocks and Robinsons. The displays were "Downtown's unique Christmas attraction," according to the Downtown Business Men's Association (the group that would later become the Central City Association). — Continued Inside...