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Originally Posted by retina
I have to say women shoppers will never feel safe walking down Broadway which is filled with drunk or high homeless
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You're generally correct, but the fact that all the swapmeets somehow manage to hang on, & assuming most of their customers are women instead of men.....the DNA for shopping isn't as common in you guys as it is in women....indicates the hesitancy of ppl of both genders....but who also have lots of discretionary income....to stroll down broadway isn't due to just a concern about personal safety, but also due to the street being full of so much grime & junk.
The swapmeets' ability to lure in enough shoppers....mainly working class Latina women who are dependent on the MTA to get to dtla....indicates the street does have at least enough of a captive audience in one category to allow the owners of all those bldgs to keep dilly dallying before doing anything about fixing up their properties. That's why I keep hoping those women will finally feel so turned off by the street, that they'll drop it like a rock & go to newer, cleaner shopping dists in other parts of the city.
In comparison, this new devlpt does show that if something appeals to the type of ppl who aren't thillred by broadway, they'll make an effort to visit dt.....
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Making Sense of The Broad: A Milestone in the Revitalization of Downtown Los Angeles
by Thomas Musca
Unlike most American cities, which spent the 20th century radiating out into suburbia, Los Angeles befuddles outsiders because it doesn’t really have a definite center. The phrase “LA” is loosely used to refer to a collection of small yet distinct cities across the Los Angeles basin that grew together over time. Traditionally, a handful of these localities have been the cultural centers and tourist destinations (Hollywood, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Silverlake, etc). While these districts thrived, “downtown” sat largely neglected; its financial towers and retail spaces had severe occupancy issues for much of the 90’s and 2000’s. Ten years ago, downtown street life outside of working hours was virtually nonexistent.
DTLA wasn’t just the butt end of jokes (Family Guy: “There’s nothing to do downtown!”) it was treated with disdain. Even Frank Gehry said on record that he wished the Walt Disney Concert Hall had been constructed 12 miles away in Westwood (near UCLA). He went on to add that he felt the current attempted revitalization of downtown was: “both anachronistic and premature.” Ouch.
It’s little wonder then that when prominent Southern California billionaire art collectors Eli and Edythe Broad sought to “give back to the city” by funding a $140 million contemporary art museum, they shopped around for the perfect location. The Broads considered Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, even Culver City, before eventually selecting an unoccupied downtown lot on Grand Avenue across the street from Gehry's Disney Concert Hall and adjacent to the Colburn School and MOCA; likely thanks to an appealing government subsidy and low income housing deal with the city.
To anyone familiar with Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s original renders, it’s difficult not to be filled with a sense of disappointment when gazing at the structure. You grieve for what might have been. This is no fault of the architects. The Broads are currently involved in a lawsuit with Seele Inc, the German engineering firm in charge of manufacturing the museum’s facade. The debacle resulted in a 15 month delay, $20 million cost overrun, and a watered down design. Seele claimed that the original facade was too difficult to manufacture, and wouldn’t withstand a Los Angeles earthquake. This is unfortunate; the building’s exterior is now decidedly less distinct than the original design and suffers in comparison to Gehry’s adjacent masterpiece.
Despite the compromised exterior, the Broad’s gallery spaces are exquisite. After a dramatic escalator ride through a womb-like tunnel that pierces the vault, visitors find themselves transported from the cramped lobby to the airy main gallery on the third floor. It's an absolute joy to meander about the column-free space. Hundreds of sensor-activated sunshades embedded into the roof refract indirect sunlight into the space through the myriad skylights in the "veil," lighting the art naturally and uniformly.
The whole experience has a very West Coast sense of informality, and is downright refreshing, especially compared to the LACMA docents who bark if you look too intensely at the art.
No matter what one thinks of the Broad’s architecture, a four block long mass of people waiting to see what all the fuss is about is a beautiful sight to behold, especially considering the site was an empty parking lot a couple years ago. This place is still hot - as of this writing, tickets are booked through May - and will likely remain so throughout 2016. Anything that can make Angelenos trek downtown for something that isn’t jury duty is welcome in my book.
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