Artesia does not have a traditional historic preservation program, but has established an ordinance that led to the designation of the city historic district, which includes the city’s old fire station.  The Community, Culture and Economic Element in the City’s 2010 General Plan identifies some significant sites, including the Artesia Water Tower and Artesia DES (Divino […]

As original residents left Wilshire for the suburbs, historic neighborhoods filled with new populations who have made these areas their own. The MacArthur Park area is now predominantly Latinx (including large numbers of people from Southern Mexico and Central America), and the area around Wilshire Center represents the highest population of Koreans outside of Seoul. […]

I remember the Ambassador Hotel, May Company, Petersen Museum (formerly Ohrbach’s, which had the best Japanese restaurant on the top floor), and many other stores and theaters between San Vicente and La Brea. We used to shop and eat along the nice stores and restaurants along Wilshire. One of my first jobs after high school […]

Throughout the 1980s, much of the Los Angeles basin and San Fernando Valley were being built out. Open agricultural land and undeveloped hillsides had once offered a blank slate for development; in the 1980s the emphasis of development shifted to the challenge of infill projects, additions, redevelopment for denser uses, and preservation. Yet even the […]