History

The more L.A. changes...

| 4 Comments

Injected this quote into the Wilshire book tonight, and had to share it.

“The street traffic congestion problem of Los Angeles is exceeded by that of no other city."

The year was 1924.

It's from a respected study led by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. called "A Major Traffic Street Plan for Los Angeles." Big changes resulted from this report. Suddenly a bunch of narrow streets all over the city were widened into boulevards, a mile apart. On Wilshire that meant cutting the boulevard east through MacArthur Park (then called Westlake Park). Between the park and downtown, tiny residential Orange Street was widened and renamed Wilshire. To make room, the luxurious-for-its-day Rex Arms apartments simply cut off the front 10 feet or so of the building.

Of course, traffic stayed bad. And one reason (among many) is that the same year, ridership on the vaunted street cars peaked and began to go down -- even though the population was soaring. It's one of L.A.'s dirty little secrets: people didn't really like the mythologized Red Cars. They wanted to drive.

Edited 5:20 p.m.


More by Kevin Roderick:
Standing up to Harvey Weinstein
The Media
LA Times gets a top editor with nothing but questions
LA Observed Notes: Harvey Weinstein stripped bare
LA Observed Notes: Photos of the homeless, photos that found homes
Recent History stories on LA Observed:
Kevin Starr, 76, the historian of California
Winter solstice cave pictograph at Burro Flats
Pink Lady of Malibu Canyon
LA's first presidential election was different
Pink Lady of Malibu Canyon: 50 years ago
James Dean died 61 years ago today. Now the famous gas station is gone
Code 7 in Sherman Oaks: A little bit of history
1932 Olympics tourist map


 

LA Observed on Twitter