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  #61  
Old Posted May 8, 2007, 4:32 AM
DJM19 DJM19 is offline
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Hopefully its less "upgrades" to pershing square, and more tearing that sucker down and starting over
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  #62  
Old Posted May 10, 2007, 4:25 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DJM19 View Post
Hopefully its less "upgrades" to pershing square, and more tearing that sucker down and starting over
Secretly everyone wants that. It amazes me how the city completely messed up. It would have been easier, and probably cheaper, just to duplicate what Pershing Sq looked like in the 1940s.
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  #63  
Old Posted May 11, 2007, 10:57 AM
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Pershing Square needs to emulate what was done in SF's Union Square.

Here are some pics of Union Square and what Pershing Square COULD potentially resemble (but of course not COPY).

NOTICE THE USE OF TERRACED LEVELS because Union Square is above a parking structure just like Pershing Square is:














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  #64  
Old Posted May 12, 2007, 12:15 AM
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^ i would hope for way more trees than that.
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  #65  
Old Posted May 12, 2007, 12:45 AM
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^ You're missing the point. You can add trees, fountains, whatever. The idea is to terrace Pershing Square in a similar fashion to elevate the park somewhat to increase visibility and accessibility.
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  #66  
Old Posted May 12, 2007, 1:02 AM
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Elevating Pershing Square is pretty much the only thing LA can take back from Union Square. Union Square doesn't have an atmosphere to it nor is it anything special. It is merely a vast space where people gather to sit for maybe 5-10 minutes after doing some serious shopping and/or walking.

Despite that, Union Square is leagues above Pershing Square. I'm curious as to what's in store for Pershing Square. Hopefully something along the lines of maybe Bryant Park or Millennium Park, both of which really have a sense of place to them. Just something that's unique to Los Angeles while not being over the top.
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  #67  
Old Posted May 12, 2007, 2:02 AM
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^ I think a raised platform/terraced setup like SF's Union Square incorporated with the lush and verdant scheme of Bryant Park leaving room for an ice-skating rink would be ideal.

Imagine "xmas time in the city" in LA (because we don't really have a "city")! The only place that even remotely feels quixotic around the holiday season in LA is the Golden Triangle in Beverly Hills (and maybe Old Town Pasadena to a smaller extent). Downtown LA in the future will offer an area that becomes a place where you can walk and shop and people-watch. Having a revamped Pershing Square is imperative to accomplishing that goal.
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  #68  
Old Posted May 12, 2007, 2:40 AM
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I guess every decade or two someone decides that Pershing Square was not designed well and remakes it in the image of whatever open space is considered fashionable at that time. Personally, I don't think that Pershing Square is that bad as it is. It could be a decent gathering place and it's biggest drawback is really that there's not much going on there, mostly because of the surrounding neighborhood. It's basically a homeless hangout and it will remain so until there are activities either there or nearby that draw crowds.
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  #69  
Old Posted May 12, 2007, 3:16 AM
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^ It's one of the ugliest urban parks I've ever seen. It fails in almost every way when it comes to providing a place people want to be. Union Square in SF has homeless there too, but it's got something Pershing Square doesn't have, which is accessiblility to pedestrians and transparency.

Pershing Square was designed to KEEP PEOPLE OUT. It was designed with homeless people in mind. How can that kind of goal ever yield a great park? It hasn't. PS is surrounded by a wall, literally, with access into it from "strategic" areas at the corners. A park of that size should be accessible on pretty much all four sides like Union Square in SF.

Accessibility, design/aesthetics, activities, and safety/cleanliness are the criteria that Pershing Square must fulfill if it is to become a great park in the future. Currently, it fails miserably in pretty much all check-points (except MAYBE acitivities).
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  #70  
Old Posted May 12, 2007, 3:25 AM
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Im all for recreating what it looked like in say...the 30s.
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  #71  
Old Posted May 13, 2007, 1:04 AM
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^ i'm with you on that.
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  #72  
Old Posted May 13, 2007, 3:59 AM
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LAB, Pershing Square is elevated:


From Flickr, by ExperienceLA
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  #73  
Old Posted May 13, 2007, 4:18 AM
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And I do believe that Pershing Square is a lot better than what most people make it out to be:


From Flickr, by predsprowl
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  #74  
Old Posted May 13, 2007, 4:05 PM
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What was supposed to be Pershing Square's biggest feature is actually its greatest liability. It was designed as a sequence of private 'rooms'. The idea was that people would feel more secure that way, because they would be more isolated from the dirty, noisy street.

Individually, none of these rooms are designed that badly. It's the park as a whole that is a failure, because the designer was focused on creating isolation and compartmentalization, rather than connectivity and flow.

In one way, the 'rooms' analogy works. Pershing Square is like a house where the front door leads into the bathroom. (The corner entrances are notorious for their use as urinals.)
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  #75  
Old Posted May 13, 2007, 4:21 PM
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BTW, the park is already terraced, much like Union Square. That's about all you can do when you're building on top of a parking structure like the PSq garage.

I think a number of relatively small incremental improvements would go a long way.

I think a lot could be done by simply removing a lot of the walls and the barrier-style landscaping, and replacing them with wide stepped entry-ways into the park.

Also, remove the little useless lawns that you aren't supposed to sit on anyway, and vast areas where you're supposed to just stand (I guess). Replace these with gardens of trees and flowers, with clearly-marked, well-lit paths with benches and lamps.

Finally, assign a cop or two to walk the beat and prevent lawlessness in the park. Or at least some BID cops.
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  #76  
Old Posted May 14, 2007, 8:12 PM
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Thumbs up LA Live Rendering . . .

New to this forum . . .

Thought I'd contribute by uploading a rendering of some of the L.A. Live buildings . . .

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  #77  
Old Posted May 14, 2007, 8:24 PM
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wow, fantastic... how did you get/do that? I wish it was the updated rendering of the Ritz...

I also noticed that in that rendering, there is a bridge connecting the hotel to the smaller high-rise (uhh mid-rise) towers... I don't like that at all... ugh!

also, welcome to SSP!!!

Last edited by LAMetroGuy; May 14, 2007 at 9:48 PM.
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  #78  
Old Posted May 14, 2007, 11:07 PM
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Wow LACityRat, great first post and welcome!

Now about the midrise connected to the Ritz, is this part of the LA Live development or is that just a future proposal? And that bridge, I don't like it either. Those things take pedestrian life away from the streets. I don't remember seeing that bridge in the current design.
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  #79  
Old Posted May 14, 2007, 11:31 PM
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The only problem with the rendering is that the hotel is supposed to be facing in the East/West direction.
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  #80  
Old Posted May 14, 2007, 11:54 PM
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^ Well, the Nokia Theater design looks out of date and the hotel is also the old design, but it's still pretty fun to look at. It gives us an idea of the scale of this thing.

Welcome to the boards, LACityRat. Great first post!
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