"Will This Time Be Different?"

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Dominating the front page of the LA Times' California section today is a picture of 7th+Fig's metal not-roof framed against a high-rise. Below the picture runs an article on Downtown development that asks, "Will This Time Be Different?"

This is not downtown's first attempt at revitalization.

In the decades before World War II, the area was a destination point for people across Southern California — what Ken Bernstein, director of preservation for the Los Angeles Conservancy, calls "Third Street Promenade, Old Town Pasadena plus CityWalk all rolled into one."

People would travel for miles — many via streetcar — to shop at downtown's grand department stores: Bullock's at 7th and Broadway; Robinsons at 7th and Hope Street; the Broadway at 4th and Broadway; and May Co. at Broadway and 8th Street. They would find entertainment at a profusion of lavish movie palaces, restaurants and nightclubs nearby.

But after World War II the rise of the suburbs — and the shopping malls that came with them — began the steep decline of downtown's retail core.

As Carol Schatz says in the piece, the difference this time is residential. The region desperately needs housing, and right now Downtown's one of the few places where it's being built. A mall will never revitalize a Downtown, but thousands of new residents have a much better shot.