nick f2007
The "Miracle Mile," Wilshire Boulevard, 1973
I'm standing at the corner of Wilshire and Ridgeley Drive on a quiet Sunday morning. The photo looks east. We're taking the long way from the Westside to the Coliseum and a Rams-Saints game. We would always stop at Du-par's bakery here for a few donuts and pastries to take with us for the game (Roger Owens, the famous "Peanut Man" who tossed bags behind his back across ten rows at the Coliseum, didn't offer anything like Du-par's stuff.)
Even at this age it was not lost on me what I was being surrounded by. To the east, behind the cigarette billboard, is the Moderne 1931 Dominguez-Wilshire building; promiment at center is the 1929 Desmonds tower, which also incorporated the Silverwoods store. Those two retail names were prominent on the Southern California retail scene through the eighties. The same mostly goes for Phelps Meager, the bricked building to the west. A real mid-century-modern gem is at the right: the 1949 Stiles Clements-designed Mullen Bluett building, by this time a Harris & Frank clothing-store branch. This building was deemed expendable and demolished in 2006 in favor of the usual "mixed-use post-modern" development.
The Miracle Mile, Wilshire from Fairfax to La Brea Avenues, took its shape and style in the middle third of the twentieth century. Originally it was thought by many Angelenos to be a gamble for retailers to set up shop this far from downtown, where mostly all commerce took place. But Los Angeles was a small town then, and it grew, and grew, and so Wilshire became Los Angeles's most fashionable shopping area. By 1973 its prominence had given way to the Westside , the San Fernando Valley, Orange County, and other areas as the Southland exploded in growth. Many of the Miracle Mile's buildings remain and many have vanished, but a loyal core of people still celebrate what was.
The "Miracle Mile," Wilshire Boulevard, 1973
I'm standing at the corner of Wilshire and Ridgeley Drive on a quiet Sunday morning. The photo looks east. We're taking the long way from the Westside to the Coliseum and a Rams-Saints game. We would always stop at Du-par's bakery here for a few donuts and pastries to take with us for the game (Roger Owens, the famous "Peanut Man" who tossed bags behind his back across ten rows at the Coliseum, didn't offer anything like Du-par's stuff.)
Even at this age it was not lost on me what I was being surrounded by. To the east, behind the cigarette billboard, is the Moderne 1931 Dominguez-Wilshire building; promiment at center is the 1929 Desmonds tower, which also incorporated the Silverwoods store. Those two retail names were prominent on the Southern California retail scene through the eighties. The same mostly goes for Phelps Meager, the bricked building to the west. A real mid-century-modern gem is at the right: the 1949 Stiles Clements-designed Mullen Bluett building, by this time a Harris & Frank clothing-store branch. This building was deemed expendable and demolished in 2006 in favor of the usual "mixed-use post-modern" development.
The Miracle Mile, Wilshire from Fairfax to La Brea Avenues, took its shape and style in the middle third of the twentieth century. Originally it was thought by many Angelenos to be a gamble for retailers to set up shop this far from downtown, where mostly all commerce took place. But Los Angeles was a small town then, and it grew, and grew, and so Wilshire became Los Angeles's most fashionable shopping area. By 1973 its prominence had given way to the Westside , the San Fernando Valley, Orange County, and other areas as the Southland exploded in growth. Many of the Miracle Mile's buildings remain and many have vanished, but a loyal core of people still celebrate what was.