Has it come up before how the Miracle Mile got where it is and looks like it does/did? I can't find it. I'll try to keep this brief.
As everyone knows, AW Ross wanted to develop an upscale shopping street, with plenty of parking, to cater to automobile drivers, as opposed to the downtown pedestrian shopping experience. In 1921 Ross picked a spot on Wilshire that was within four miles of the city's wealthiest neighborhoods and bought land. The site was outside city limits, but Ross figured it would be annexed eventually and zoned for business.
However, Ross didn't realize the hysterical and angry reaction he'd get from the downtown merchants who felt threatened by his plan. When annexation came, the jealous merchants waged a ferocious and expensive propaganda campaign, supported enthusiastically by the LA Times (dependent on the downtown retailers for ad revenue), against commercial zoning for Ross' land, scaring residents with visions of gas stations, dance halls, dye works, dive bars, hot dog stands, shady characters and
norish doings. When the zoning question was put to the vote, Ross lost. He lost his appeal to the courts too.
Level-headed people could see that the situation had become impossible. Wilshire already had too much noisy traffic for homes and, if the land wasn't rezoned for businesses, it was worthless and blighted. Ross decided to take his case to the city one parcel at a time for "spot-zoning". Each building, and the business it housed, had to be dignified enough, grand and luxurious enough, to justify a zoning variance (a decent architect practically guaranteed a variance). In this way Ross actually got a much more upscale, better, more architecturally-rich shopping district than he had envisioned, all built on land zoned R1. The downtown merchants, not wanting to be left out, got on board by opening branch stores, but, of course, the icing on the cake was Coulter's (LA's oldest retailer) total abandonment of downtown in favor of the Miracle Mile.
Desmonds (GS Underwood, 1929)
dbstavels/flickr,
May Co (AC Martin, 1940)
dick wittington
Of course the Miracle Mile lost out in the end to suburban malls, but that's another story.
(Info from
Fabulous Boulevard Hancock, Ralph -Funk & Wagnalls, 1949)
P.S. Here's one I really miss on the far east end of the Miracle Mile district
It capped the streetscape off beautifully.
I loved the six palms pinned in place on the west side of the building and it
certainly handled signage much better than the poor E. Clem Wilson Building
(Myer & Holler, 1930) with its awkwardly added hat.
anoxlou/flickr
shootthepianoplayer
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) or I haven't found the right map - yet.
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