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The Historic Core of Los Angeles (Images of America) | 
 enlarge | Authors: Curtis C. Roseman, Ruth Wallach, Dace Taube, Linda Mccann, Geoffrey Deverteuil
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $19.99
Buy New: $12.20
You Save: $7.79 (39%)
New (14) Used (5) from $10.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 471288
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 126
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.3 x 0.3
ISBN: 0738529249
Dewey Decimal Number: 979.49400222
EAN: 9780738529240
ASIN: 0738529249
Publication Date: November 16, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New Book! Delivered direct from our US warehouse in 3-6 days (Expedited) or 10-14 days (Standard). Expedited shipping recommended for speedy delivery. Over 1 million satisfied customers.
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| Customer Reviews:
"O 2 B N L A" December 11, 2006
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is a very informative book on the development and growth in downtown Los Angeles. The book needed to spend more time regarding the growth and business climate of South Broadway and their impact to Los Angeles County! Fantastic pictures that let you feel as if you were stepping back in time yourself. This would be a nice addition to your library.
sad tale of decay September 29, 2006
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
A sense of loss and fallen grandeur pervades this book. It chronicles the core neighbourhood of downtown Los Angeles. This area, centred on Main Street, saw its glory before World War 2. Very upscale, with ornately carved stoneworks on many buildings. Fancy hotels clustered together. All this revolved around the rail networks and the proximity to Union Station, which was completed in the 1930s. The many detailed photos attest to the vibrancy and upscale nature of that time and place. You might wistfully peer into these photos, looking for a vanished milieu.
Alas, the book goes on to tell what happened after the war. As autos became far more common and convenient than trains, Los Angeles grew immensely outwards, into far flung suburbs. New fancy shopping centres and hotels arose elsewhere, no longer needing to be close to railway lines. We see a 60 year decline in the core. Once posh hotels for the wealthy degenerated into single resident only (SRO) flophouses. The core became Skid Row. Littered with junkies and homeless. Exacerbated by the drug epidemics of the 1980s and 90s.
The one benefit, if it may be called that, is that the sheer depression of the area has acted to scare away developers tempted to tear down the buildings. If you go today to some of the streets shown in the book's photos, and look upward, the skyline is largely how it was in the 1930s.
The authors suggest that now, in the early Naughties, the core might be turning around. Maybe.
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