Spring Street Financial District

About this property

Spring Street is one of the oldest streets in Los Angeles. A section of the street in Downtown Los Angeles, from just north of Fourth Street to just south of Seventh Street, is the NRHP-listed Spring Street Financial District, nicknamed Wall Street of the West, lined with Beaux Arts buildings and currently experiencing gentrification. This section forms part of the Historic Core district of Downtown, together with portions of Hill, Broadway, Main and Los Angeles streets. Originally named Calle Primavera, Spring Street was renamed in 1849 by city surveyor Edward Ord. He named the street after a woman he was wooing, one whom he'd given the nickname “mi primavera, my springtime”. The original section of Spring Street begins in the south from the intersection of 9th Street. At 7th Street, the Spring Street Financial District begins, ending just after 4th Street. This section of Spring ends at a three-way junction with Cesar Chavez Avenue. One block east of this junction, N. Spring Street continues northeast through Chinatown, terminating at College Street. This section was originally called Calle de la Eternidad (Eternity Street), then Upper Main Street and then by 1897, San Fernando Street. One block east of that junction, another portion of North Spring Street continues northeast, at a gradually more easterly angle, crosses the Los Angeles River into Lincoln Heights, and terminates at a junction with North Broadway and Avenue 18. This section originally bore the names San Fernando Street, Olympia Street and Downey Street. The historic district includes 23 financial structures, including the city's first skyscraper, and three hotels all located along a stretch of South Spring Street from just north of Fourth Street to just south of Seventh Street. In the first half of the 20th century, this stretch of Spring Street was the financial center of Los Angeles, with the important banks and financial institutions being concentrated there. At least ten of the buildings in the district were designed in whole or in part by John Parkinson, who designed many of the city's landmark buildings in the early 20th century, including the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles City Hall, Bullocks Wilshire, and Union Station. Ten of the buildings in the district have been designated as Historic-Cultural Monuments by the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission. Due to the large percentage of historic bank and financial buildings that remain intact in the district, the area was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The Los Angeles Conservancy offers walking tours of the Spring Street Financial District on the fourth Saturday of each month at 10 a.m.; the tour lasts approximately 2-1/2 hours and costs $10 for the general public (reduced rate for Conservancy members).

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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