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Xeni Jardin reported on NPR's Day to Day about one of my favorite unofficial Wilshire Boulevard landmarks. One Wilshire, once a prestigious office tower, was converted long ago into a carrier hotel. Most of the thirty floors hold only switches, cables and boxes connected to the Internet. She writes:"Some of the most important communications infrastructure in the country....The occupants: connection hardware from nearly 300 Internet and telecommunications giants from around the world. Familiar U.S. companies such as AT&T and Google are here, but so are carriers from Europe, India and Asia." One Wilshire marks the eastern end of the boulevard, built in the early 1960s on the parking lot where Wilshire's destiny to become a cross-town thoroughfare stopped in 1930 (it had been intended to stretch east over the river to Boyle Heights.) One Wilshire has inspired art exhibits and a Center for Land Use Interpretation treatment (see last item) and of course is a landmark on the downtown skyline. Technical note: One Wilshire isn't even on the boulevard, but has a Grand Avenue address.
Hat tip to blogdowntown, where Eric Richardson also posts about his encounter with a bleeding, frightened woman under the Sixth Street bridge on the edge of downtown: "It's only a mile or so from my apartment to where this all took place, but it might as well be in a different world. My day to day life has no need to interact with life under the bridge and along the river. If I wanted to I could ignore the problem areas of Downtown and be completely oblivious. As a Downtown, though, we must not do that."
Photo: Live Search Maps