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85-803: The Broadway was a mid-level department store chain headquartered in Los Angeles, California . Founded in 1896 by English-born Arthur Letts Sr., and named after what was once the city's main shopping street , the Broadway became a dominant retailer in Southern California and the Southwest. Its fortunes eventually declined, and Federated Department Stores (now Macy's, Inc. ) bought the chain in 1995. In 1996, Broadway stores were either closed or converted into Macy's and Bloomingdales , some of which were sold and converted to Sears , including

170-605: A gross metropolitan product of over $ 1.0 trillion, making it the city with the third-largest GDP in the world, after New York and Tokyo . Los Angeles hosted the Summer Olympics in 1932 and 1984 , and will also host in 2028 . Despite a business exodus from Downtown Los Angeles since the COVID-19 pandemic , the city's urban core is evolving as a cultural center with the world's largest showcase of architecture designed by Frank Gehry . On September 4, 1781,

255-602: A metropolitan area of 12.8 million people (2023). Greater Los Angeles , which includes the Los Angeles and Riverside–San Bernardino metropolitan areas, is a sprawling metropolis of over 18.3 million residents. The majority of the city proper lies in a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending partly through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into

340-478: A diverse economy with a broad range of industries. Despite a steep exodus of film and television production since the COVID-19 pandemic , Los Angeles is still one of the largest hubs of American film production , the world's largest by revenue; the city is an important site in the history of film . It also has one of the busiest container ports in the Americas. In 2018, the Los Angeles metropolitan area had

425-586: A draftsman. After the success of his design for the Lederer leather-goods boutique on Fifth Avenue, he received further commissions for the design of shops, including Ciro’s on Fifth Avenue, Steckler’s on Broadway, Paris Decorators on the Bronx Concourse, and eleven branches of the clothing chain Grayson’s. In 1941 Gruen moved to Los Angeles. He was naturalized as a US citizen in 1943. In 1951, he founded

510-439: A good location in a recently constructed building at the southwest corner of Broadway and Fourth Streets, but had all of its assets seized by their creditors for failure to pay its bills after just four short months of operations. In contrast, Letts was able to pay off all of his creditors in a short period of time after acquiring the assets for the failed store by the quick sale of the same assets and by watching his expenses. In

595-614: A group of 44 settlers known as " Los Pobladores " founded the pueblo (town) they called El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles , 'The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels';. The original name of the settlement is disputed; the Guinness Book of World Records rendered it as "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río Porciúncula "; other sources have shortened or alternate versions of

680-701: A list of the Broadway store numbers with their locations and opening dates: The last Broadway Southwest store was originally planned to be built at Superstition Springs Center mall in Mesa, Arizona . But due to the attempted hostile takeover by The Limited, construction was halted. And as a result, it started doing business as Robinsons-May instead in 1994 (now Macy's since 2006). Strawbridge's added to division in 1996 Meier & Frank added to division in 2002 ; Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution (2001, to Meier & Frank) Los Angeles, California Los Angeles , often referred to by its initials L.A. ,

765-546: A new nine-story building with nearly 11 acres of floor space to be built at the same location (320 W. Fourth St., southwest corner of Broadway, now the Junipero Serra state office building). The building was completed in 1915. The new "New and Greater Broadway store", as it was advertised, had 242 feet (74 m) of storefront along Broadway and 166 feet (51 m) along Fourth Street. It was 9 stories high and covered 11 acres (4.5 ha), stretching from Broadway all

850-415: A newly built store across the street in the new Plaza Pasadena mall. In 1950, the company merged with Sacramento -based Hale Brothers to form Broadway-Hale Stores . In the same year it purchased the year-old Westchester branch of Milliron's and converted it to a Broadway. The store, designed by legendary retail architect Victor Gruen , was a considered a model of ultra-modern retail architecture at

935-425: A profit; the other, according to an analysis of contemporary newspaper reports, was the 1932 Summer Olympics , also held in Los Angeles. Racial tensions erupted on April 29, 1992, with the acquittal by a Simi Valley jury of four Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers captured on videotape beating Rodney King , culminating in large-scale riots . In 1994, the magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake shook

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1020-622: A series of battles, culminating with the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13, 1847. The Mexican Cession was formalized in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which ceded Los Angeles and the rest of Alta California to the United States. Railroads arrived with the completion of the transcontinental Southern Pacific line from New Orleans to Los Angeles in 1876 and the Santa Fe Railroad in 1885. Petroleum

1105-419: A short period of time, the business was doing so well, that it had to expand into adjacent store fronts. Between 1900 and 1910, the population of Los Angeles more than tripled. Bullock's , in 1907, and Hamburger's (later May Co. ), in 1908, had both opened stores occupying entire city blocks. It was clear to Letts that The Broadway needed a new, much larger building. In 1912 The Broadway announced plans for

1190-507: A single type, where industrial uses were prohibited. The proscriptions included barns, lumber yards, and any industrial land use employing machine-powered equipment. These laws were enforced against industrial properties after the fact. These prohibitions were in addition to existing activities that were already regulated as nuisances. These included explosives warehousing, gas works, oil drilling, slaughterhouses, and tanneries . Los Angeles City Council also designated seven industrial zones within

1275-607: A trend in California to give places Spanish, or Spanish-sounding, names and pronunciations. In 1908, librarian Charles Fletcher Lummis , who argued for the name's pronunciation with a hard g ( / ɡ / ), reported that there were at least 12 pronunciation variants. In the early 1900s, the Los Angeles Times advocated for pronouncing it Loce AHNG-hayl-ais ( / l oʊ s ˈ ɑː ŋ h eɪ l eɪ s / ), approximating Spanish [los ˈaŋxeles] , by printing

1360-438: Is Mount San Antonio , locally known as Mount Baldy, which reaches 10,064 feet (3,068 m). Further afield, the highest point in southern California is San Gorgonio Mountain , 81 miles (130 km) east of downtown Los Angeles, with a height of 11,503 feet (3,506 m). The Los Angeles River , which is largely seasonal, is the primary drainage channel . It was straightened and lined in 51 miles (82 km) of concrete by

1445-651: Is a common problem in this population. Although Serieys et al. 2014 find selection of immune genetics at several loci they do not demonstrate that this produces a real difference which helps the bobcats to survive future mange outbreaks . Los Angeles is subject to earthquakes because of its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire . The geologic instability has produced numerous faults , which cause approximately 10,000 earthquakes annually in Southern California, though most of them are too small to be felt. The strike-slip San Andreas Fault system, which sits at

1530-452: Is complicated by rugged terrain, which has necessitated having different grids for each of the valleys that Los Angeles covers. Major streets are designed to move large volumes of traffic through many parts of the city, many of which are extremely long; Sepulveda Boulevard is 43 miles (69 km) long, while Foothill Boulevard is over 60 miles (97 km) long, reaching as far east as San Bernardino. Drivers in Los Angeles suffer from one of

1615-437: Is divided into many different districts and neighborhoods, some of which had been separately incorporated cities that eventually merged with Los Angeles. These neighborhoods were developed piecemeal, and are well-defined enough that the city has signage which marks nearly all of them. The city's street patterns generally follow a grid plan , with uniform block lengths and occasional roads that cut across blocks. However, this

1700-502: Is expected to continue to drop in the coming years because of aggressive steps to reduce it, which include electric and hybrid cars, improvements in mass transit , and other measures. The number of Stage 1 smog alerts in Los Angeles has declined from over 100 per year in the 1970s to almost zero in the new millennium. Despite improvement, the 2006 and 2007 annual reports of the American Lung Association ranked

1785-452: Is regarded by many as a dramatically ruthless re-imagining of a former immigrant tenement neighborhood (Gans, O'Conner, The Hub). In 1956, Gruen drafted a comprehensive revitalization plan for the central business district of downtown Fort Worth, Texas , but most components of the plan were never realized. Dr. ETH Ing. Walid Jabri, the architect and structural engineer, designed the 55,000 square-meter business complex Centre Gefinor, which

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1870-488: Is rich in native plant species partly because of its diversity of habitats, including beaches, wetlands , and mountains. The most prevalent plant communities are coastal sage scrub , chaparral shrubland, and riparian woodland . Native plants include: the California poppy , matilija poppy , toyon , Ceanothus , Chamise , Coast Live Oak , sycamore , willow and Giant Wildrye . Many of these native species, such as

1955-411: Is the most populous city in the U.S. state of California . With an estimated 3,820,914 residents within the city limits as of 2023 , it is the second-most populous city in the United States, behind only New York City ; it is also the commercial, financial and cultural center of Southern California . Los Angeles has an ethnically and culturally diverse population, and is the principal city of

2040-413: The 1916 New York City Zoning Ordinance did. Second, the residential zones did not distinguish types of housing; they treated apartments, hotels, and detached-single-family housing equally. In 1910, Hollywood merged into Los Angeles, with 10 movie companies already operating in the city at the time. By 1921, more than 80 percent of the world's film industry was concentrated in L.A. The money generated by

2125-805: The Army Corps of Engineers to act as a flood control channel. The river begins in the Canoga Park district of the city, flows east from the San Fernando Valley along the north edge of the Santa Monica Mountains, and turns south through the city center, flowing to its mouth in the Port of Long Beach at the Pacific Ocean. The smaller Ballona Creek flows into the Santa Monica Bay at Playa del Rey . Los Angeles

2210-547: The Hillside Stranglers murder cases in 1977–1978. In early 1984, the city surpassed Chicago in population, thus becoming the second largest city in the United States. In 1984, the city hosted the Summer Olympic Games for the second time . Despite being boycotted by 14 Communist countries , the 1984 Olympics became more financially successful than any previous, and the second Olympics to turn

2295-487: The Los Angeles sunflower , have become so rare as to be considered endangered. Mexican Fan Palms , Canary Island Palms , Queen Palms , Date Palms , and California Fan Palms are common in the Los Angeles area, although only the last is native to California, though still not native to the City of Los Angeles. Los Angeles has a number of official flora: The city has an urban population of bobcats ( Lynx rufus ). Mange

2380-567: The San Fernando Valley , with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to its east. It covers about 469 square miles (1,210 km ), and is the county seat of Los Angeles County , which is the most populous county in the United States with an estimated 9.86 million residents as of 2022 . It is the third-most visited city in the U.S. with over 2.7 million visitors as of 2023. The area that became Los Angeles

2465-556: The Stonewood Center and Whittwood Town Center locations. In 1895, J. A. Williams formed J. A. Williams & Co., built and opened his J. A. Williams & Co. Dry Goods Store on August 29, 1895 in the new Hallett & Pirtle Building designed by Frederick Rice Dorn , who would later design the Marsh-Strong building and The Broadway Hollywood . Williams had a 30-foot storefront along Broadway, occupying only part of

2550-505: The respelling under its masthead for several years. This did not find favor. Since the 1930s, / l ɔː s ˈ æ n dʒ əl ə s / has been most common. In 1934, the United States Board on Geographic Names decreed that this pronunciation be used by the federal government. This was also endorsed in 1952 by a "jury" appointed by Mayor Fletcher Bowron to devise an official pronunciation. Common pronunciations in

2635-507: The 20th century, Los Angeles substantially reduced the amount of housing that could be built by drastically downzoning the city. In 1960, the city had a total zoned capacity for approximately 10 million people. By 1990, that capacity had fallen to 4.5 million as a result of policy decisions to ban housing through zoning. Racial tensions led to the Watts riots in 1965, resulting in 34 deaths and over 1,000 injuries. In 1969, California became

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2720-458: The Angels'. The present-day city has the largest Roman Catholic archdiocese in the United States. Two-thirds of the Mexican or ( New Spain ) settlers were mestizo or mulatto , a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry. The settlement remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820, the population had increased to about 650 residents. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in

2805-658: The Downtown flagship store evolved in size as follows: In 1931, The Broadway bought the B. H. Dyas Hollywood store which became the Broadway-Hollywood . In 1940, The Broadway built a landmark three-story store in Pasadena , at the corner of Colorado and Los Robles on the site of the old famous Maryland Hotel. The striking Streamline Moderne building had a 117-foot tower with a marquee facing both streets, and parking for 400 cars. It would be abandoned in 1980 for

2890-629: The Los Angeles area include the 1933 Long Beach , 1971 San Fernando , 1987 Whittier Narrows , and the 1994 Northridge events. All but a few are of low intensity and are not felt. The USGS has released the UCERF California earthquake forecast , which models earthquake occurrence in California. Parts of the city are also vulnerable to tsunamis ; harbor areas were damaged by waves from Aleutian Islands earthquake in 1946, Valdivia earthquake in 1960, Alaska earthquake in 1964, Chile earthquake in 2010 and Japan earthquake in 2011. The city

2975-502: The Los Angeles area was the headquarters of six of the country's major aircraft manufacturers ( Douglas Aircraft Company , Hughes Aircraft , Lockheed , North American Aviation , Northrop Corporation , and Vultee ). During the war, more aircraft were produced in one year than in all the pre-war years since the Wright brothers flew the first airplane in 1903, combined. Manufacturing in Los Angeles skyrocketed, and as William S. Knudsen , of

3060-548: The Los Angeles region. In 1846, during the wider Mexican-American war , marines from the United States occupied the pueblo. This resulted in the siege of Los Angeles where 150 Mexican militias fought the occupiers which eventually surrendered. Mexican rule ended during following the American Conquest of California , part of the larger Mexican-American War . Americans took control from the Californios after

3145-685: The Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex, Los Angeles suffers from air pollution in the form of smog. The Los Angeles Basin and the San Fernando Valley are susceptible to atmospheric inversion , which holds in the exhausts from road vehicles, airplanes, locomotives, shipping, manufacturing, and other sources. The smog season lasts from approximately May to October. While other large cities rely on rain to clear smog, Los Angeles gets only 15 inches (380 mm) of rain each year: pollution accumulates over many consecutive days. Issues of air quality in Los Angeles and other major cities led to

3230-523: The National Defense Advisory Commission put it, "We won because we smothered the enemy in an avalanche of production, the like of which he had never seen, nor dreamed possible." After the end of World War II Los Angeles grew more rapidly than ever, sprawling into the San Fernando Valley . The expansion of the state owned Interstate Highway System during the 1950s and 1960s helped propel suburban growth and signaled

3315-696: The San Fernando Valley. Other hilly parts of Los Angeles include the Mt. Washington area north of Downtown, eastern parts such as Boyle Heights , the Crenshaw district around the Baldwin Hills , and the San Pedro district. Surrounding the city are much higher mountains. Immediately to the north lie the San Gabriel Mountains , which is a popular recreation area for Angelenos. Its high point

3400-527: The Southern Californian coast, is subject to a late spring/early summer weather phenomenon called " June Gloom ". This involves overcast or foggy skies in the morning that yield to sun by early afternoon. More recently, statewide droughts in California have further strained the city's water security . Downtown Los Angeles averages 14.67 in (373 mm) of precipitation annually, mainly occurring between November and March, generally in

3485-765: The Spanish founded the Pueblo de Los Ángeles . Iyáangẚ has also been translated as "the valley of smoke". Maritime explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo claimed the area of southern California for the Spanish Empire in 1542, while on an official military exploring expedition, as he was moving northward along the Pacific coast from earlier colonizing bases of New Spain in Central and South America. Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí reached

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3570-483: The United Kingdom include / l ɒ s ˈ æ n dʒ ɪ l iː z , - l ɪ z , - l ɪ s / loss AN -jil-eez, -⁠iz, -⁠iss . Phonetician Jack Windsor Lewis described the most common one, / l ɒ s ˈ æ n dʒ ɪ l iː z / , as a spelling pronunciation based on analogy to Greek words ending in -‍es , "reflecting a time when the classics were familiar if Spanish

3655-488: The architectural firm "Victor Gruen Associates", which was soon to become one of the major planning offices of that time. After the war, he designed the first suburban open-air shopping facility called Northland Mall near Detroit in 1954. After the success of the first project, he designed his best-known work for the owners of Dayton Department stores, the 800,000-square-foot (74,000 m ) Southdale Mall in Edina, Minnesota,

3740-769: The birthplace of the Internet, as the first ARPANET transmission was sent from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park . In 1973, Tom Bradley was elected as the city's first African American mayor, serving for five terms until retiring in 1993. Other events in the city during the 1970s included the Symbionese Liberation Army 's South Central standoff in 1974 and

3825-632: The boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate , passes through the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The segment of the fault passing through Southern California experiences a major earthquake roughly every 110 to 140 years, and seismologists have warned about the next "big one", as the last major earthquake was the 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake . The Los Angeles basin and metropolitan area are also at risk from blind thrust earthquakes . Major earthquakes that have hit

3910-485: The boundary of a Mediterranean climate ( Köppen : Csb on the coast, Csa otherwise). Daytime temperatures are generally temperate all year round. In winter, they average around 68 °F (20 °C). Autumn months tend to be hot, with major heat waves a common occurrence in September and October, while the spring months tend to be cooler and experience more precipitation. Los Angeles has plenty of sunshine throughout

3995-554: The building's ground floor. Other tenants included Pearson Draperies, the La Veta restaurant, medical offices, apartments, and later on the Hotel Savoy. In February, 1896, Williams went bankrupt and his store was liquidated. Arthur Letts bought the (by then "The Broadway Department Store") name, assets, fixtures, and lease for $ 8,377. On February 24th of that year, The Broadway started operating under Letts. The previous owners had

4080-404: The city as the most polluted in the country with short-term particle pollution and year-round particle pollution. In 2008, the city was ranked the second most polluted and again had the highest year-round particulate pollution. The city met its goal of providing 20 percent of the city's power from renewable sources in 2010. The American Lung Association's 2013 survey ranks the metro area as having

4165-537: The city is 342 miles (550 km). Los Angeles is both flat and hilly. The highest point in the city proper is Mount Lukens at 5,074 ft (1,547 m), located in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains at the north extent of the Crescenta Valley . The eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains stretches from Downtown to the Pacific Ocean and separates the Los Angeles Basin from

4250-560: The city, causing $ 12.5 billion in damage and 72 deaths. The century ended with the Rampart scandal , one of the most extensive documented cases of police misconduct in American history. In 2002, Mayor James Hahn led the campaign against secession, resulting in voters defeating efforts by the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood to secede from the city. In 2022 , Karen Bass became the city's first female mayor , making Los Angeles

4335-497: The city. However, between 1908 and 1915, the Los Angeles City Council created various exceptions to the broad proscriptions that applied to these three residential zones, and as a consequence, some industrial uses emerged within them. There are two differences between the 1908 Residence District Ordinance and later zoning laws in the United States. First, the 1908 laws did not establish a comprehensive zoning map as

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4420-598: The continued growth of the city. Because of clauses in the city's charter that prevented the City of Los Angeles from selling or providing water from the aqueduct to any area outside its borders, many adjacent cities and communities felt compelled to join Los Angeles. Los Angeles created the first municipal zoning ordinance in the United States. On September 14, 1908, the Los Angeles City Council promulgated residential and industrial land use zones. The new ordinance established three residential zones of

4505-477: The demise of the city's privately owned electrified rail system , once the world's largest. As a consequence of World War II, suburban growth, and population density, many amusement parks were built and operated in this area. An example is Beverly Park , which was located at the corner of Beverly Boulevard and La Cienega before being closed and substituted by the Beverly Center . In the second half of

4590-617: The difference between the average daily low and the average daily high is over 30 °F (17 °C). The average annual temperature of the sea is 63 °F (17 °C), from 58 °F (14 °C) in January to 68 °F (20 °C) in August. Hours of sunshine total more than 3,000 per year, from an average of 7 hours of sunshine per day in December to an average of 12 in July. Due to

4675-510: The first enclosed shopping mall in the country. Opening in 1956, Southdale was meant as the kernel of a full-fledged community. The mall was commercially successful, but the original design was never fully realized, as the intended apartment buildings, schools, medical facilities, park and lake were not built. Because he invented the modern mall, Malcolm Gladwell , writing in The New Yorker , suggested that "Victor Gruen may well have been

4760-407: The form of moderate rain showers, but sometimes as heavy rainfall during winter storms. Rainfall is usually higher in the hills and coastal slopes of the mountains because of orographic uplift. Summer days are usually rainless. Rarely, an incursion of moist air from the south or east can bring brief thunderstorms in late summer, especially to the mountains. The coast gets slightly less rainfall, while

4845-584: The future mayor of Vienna, and they became friends. As an architect he worked for Peter Behrens , and in 1933 opened his own architectural firm in Vienna. His firm specialized in remodeling of shops and apartments. When Germany annexed Austria in 1938, he emigrated to the United States. Short and stout, he landed "with an architect's degree, eight dollars, and no English." Arriving in New York he changed his name to Gruen from Grünbaum and started to work as

4930-575: The gradual transformation of the inner city into a pedestrian zone , of which only some parts have been implemented, including Kärntner Straße and Graben . In a speech in London in 1978, Gruen disavowed shopping mall developments as having "bastardized" his ideas: "I refuse to pay alimony for those bastard developments. They destroyed our cities." Gruen died on February 14, 1980. He was married four times and had two children. Gruen's book The Heart of our Cities: The Urban Crisis, Diagnosis and Cure

5015-482: The historic district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street , the oldest part of Los Angeles. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, and the pueblo now existed within the new Mexican Republic . During Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles the regional capital of Alta California . By this time, the new republic introduced more secularization acts within

5100-501: The industry kept the city insulated from much of the economic loss suffered by the rest of the country during the Great Depression . By 1930, the population surpassed one million. In 1932, the city hosted the Summer Olympics . During World War II Los Angeles was a major center of wartime manufacturing, such as shipbuilding and aircraft. Calship built hundreds of Liberty Ships and Victory Ships on Terminal Island, and

5185-521: The inland and mountain areas get considerably more. Years of average rainfall are rare. The usual pattern is a year-to-year variability, with a short string of dry years of 5–10 in (130–250 mm) rainfall, followed by one or two wet years with more than 20 in (510 mm). Wet years are usually associated with warm water El Niño conditions in the Pacific, dry years with cooler water La Niña episodes. A series of rainy days can bring floods to

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5270-575: The largest U.S. city to have ever had a woman as mayor. Los Angeles will host the 2028 Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games , making Los Angeles the third city to host the Olympics three times. The city of Los Angeles covers a total area of 502.7 square miles (1,302 km ), comprising 468.7 square miles (1,214 km ) of land and 34.0 square miles (88 km ) of water. The city extends for 44 miles (71 km) from north to south and for 29 miles (47 km) from east to west. The perimeter of

5355-514: The longer name. The local English pronunciation of the name of the city has varied over time. A 1953 article in the journal of the American Name Society asserts that the pronunciation / l ɔː s ˈ æ n dʒ əl ə s / lawss AN -jəl-əs was established following the 1850 incorporation of the city and that since the 1880s the pronunciation / l oʊ s ˈ æ ŋ ɡ əl ə s / lohss ANG -gəl-əs emerged from

5440-490: The lowest is 28 °F (−2 °C), on January 4, 1949. Within the City of Los Angeles, the highest temperature ever officially recorded is 121 °F (49 °C), on September 6, 2020, at the weather station at Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Woodland Hills . During autumn and winter, Santa Ana winds sometimes bring much warmer and drier conditions to Los Angeles, and raise wildfire risk. Owing to geography, heavy reliance on automobiles, and

5525-505: The lowlands and mudslides to the hills, especially after wildfires have denuded the slopes. Both freezing temperatures and snowfall are extremely rare in the city basin and along the coast, with the last occurrence of a 32 °F (0 °C) reading at the downtown station being January 29, 1979; freezing temperatures occur nearly every year in valley locations while the mountains within city limits typically receive snowfall every winter. The greatest snowfall recorded in downtown Los Angeles

5610-449: The majority of locations were converted to the Macy's nameplate. Several stores in affluent areas where Macy's already had locations, South Coast Plaza , Sherman Oaks Fashion Square , Century City Shopping Center , Beverly Center , and Fashion Island Newport Beach, were closed, refurbished and reopened as Bloomingdale's . Federated sold many of the remaining stores to Sears . This is

5695-433: The most influential architect of the twentieth century." Until the mid-1970s, his office designed over fifty shopping malls in the United States. Gruen was the principal architect for a luxury housing development built on the 48-acre (190,000 m ) site of Boston , Massachusetts' former West End neighborhood. The first of several Gruen towers and plazas was completed in 1962. This development, known as Charles River Park

5780-546: The mountainous terrain of the surrounding region, the Los Angeles area contains a large number of distinct microclimates , causing extreme variations in temperature in close physical proximity to each other. For example, the average July maximum temperature at the Santa Monica Pier is 70 °F (21 °C) whereas it is 95 °F (35 °C) in Canoga Park, 15 miles (24 km) away. The city, like much of

5865-597: The nation's worst smog, and fourth in both short-term and year-round pollution amounts. Victor Gruen Victor Gruen was born on July 18, 1903, in a middle-class Jewish family in Vienna , Austria. He studied architecture at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts . A committed socialist , from 1926 until 1934 he ran the "political cabaret at the Naschmarkt "-theatre. At that time he came to know Felix Slavik ,

5950-411: The painting to Michael, resulting in a landmark case in the New York Supreme Court and Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals ruled the basis of inter vivos gifts, including the plaintiff having the burden of proof to a clear and convincing standard that the chattel was a gift and the required elements of a gift. Kemija Gruen claimed that if the painting was to be given after death, even if such arrangement

6035-452: The passage of early national environmental legislation, including the Clean Air Act . When the act was passed, California was unable to create a State Implementation Plan that would enable it to meet the new air quality standards, largely because of the level of pollution in Los Angeles generated by older vehicles. More recently, the state of California has led the nation in working to limit pollution by mandating low-emission vehicles . Smog

6120-486: The present site of Los Angeles on August 2, 1769. In 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel , the first mission in the area. On September 4, 1781, a group of 44 settlers known as " Los Pobladores " founded the pueblo (town) they called El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles , 'The Town of Our Lady the Queen of

6205-536: The rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and became part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850, five months before California achieved statehood . The discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The city was further expanded with the completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, which delivers water from Eastern California . Los Angeles has

6290-563: The rest of the surrounding landscape. Most construction is done in separate units, rather than wall-to-wall . However, Downtown Los Angeles itself has many buildings over 30 stories, with fourteen over 50 stories, and two over 70 stories, the tallest of which is the Wilshire Grand Center . Los Angeles has a two-season semi-arid climate ( Köppen : BSh ) with dry summers and very mild winters, but it receives more annual precipitation than most semi-arid climates, narrowly missing

6375-598: The time, with rooftop parking and striking, angular design designed to attract passing motorists. The Broadway bought out competitors in Los Angeles (B.H. Dyas, Milliron's , and Coulter's ), and expanded into new markets through acquisitions of small local chains: Marston's in San Diego and Korricks in Phoenix . In later years the Broadway opened stores in Nevada ( Las Vegas ), New Mexico , and Colorado . In 1979, it

6460-414: The way west to Hill Street, which also had an entrance. On November 10, 1924, The Broadway added another building, 80 feet (24 m) wide and 123 feet (37 m) deep, immediately west of the main building along Fourth Street, thus adding 119,790 square feet (11,129 m) of floor space over ten above-ground and three below-ground floors. It added six passenger and three freight elevators. In summary,

6545-635: The worst rush hour periods in the world, according to an annual traffic index by navigation system maker, TomTom . LA drivers spend an additional 92 hours in traffic each year. During the peak rush hour, there is 80% congestion, according to the index. Los Angeles is often characterized by the presence of low-rise buildings, in contrast to New York City. Outside of a few centers such as Downtown , Warner Center , Century City , Koreatown , Miracle Mile , Hollywood, and Westwood , skyscrapers and high-rise buildings are not common in Los Angeles. The few skyscrapers built outside of those areas often stand out above

6630-582: The year, with an average of only 35 days with measurable precipitation annually. Temperatures in the coastal basin exceed 90 °F (32 °C) on a dozen or so days in the year, from one day a month in April, May, June and November to three days a month in July, August, October and to five days in September. Temperatures in the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys are considerably warmer. Temperatures are subject to substantial daily swings; in inland areas

6715-502: Was 2.0 inches (5 cm) on January 15, 1932. While the most recent snowfall occurred in February 2019, the first snowfall since 1962, with snow falling in areas adjacent to Los Angeles as recently as January 2021. Brief, localized instances of hail can occur on rare occasions, but are more common than snowfall. At the official downtown station, the highest recorded temperature is 113 °F (45 °C) on September 27, 2010, while

6800-557: Was a major influence on Walt Disney 's city planning ambitions and his ideas for the original EPCOT . In 1963, on his 21st birthday, his son New York attorney Michael S. Gruen (then a Harvard undergraduate) was given a painting "Schloss Kammer am Attersee II" by Gustav Klimt . While ownership of the painting was given to his son in 1963, the elder Gruen maintained a life estate on the chattel and continued to hang it in his living room and even paid for insurance and repairs. Upon Gruen's death in 1980, his widow, Kemija, refused to surrender

6885-656: Was built in the late 1960s on Rue Clémenceau in Beirut , Lebanon for which Victor Gruen designed the complete commercial area on the ground floor and the mezzanine after the completion of the skeleton. Gruen also designed the Greengate Mall in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, which opened in 1965, as well as the Lakehurst Mall in 1971 for Waukegan, Illinois . In 1968, he returned to Vienna, where he engaged in

6970-435: Was discovered in the city and surrounding area in 1892, and by 1923, the discoveries had helped California become the country's largest oil producer, accounting for about one-quarter of the world's petroleum output. By 1900, the population had grown to more than 102,000, putting pressure on the city's water supply . The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, under the supervision of William Mulholland , ensured

7055-515: Was not". The settlement of Indigenous Californians in the modern Los Angeles Basin and the San Fernando Valley was dominated by the Tongva (now also known as the Gabrieleño since the era of Spanish colonization). The historic center of Tongva power in the region was the settlement of Yaanga ( Tongva : Iyáangẚ ), meaning "place of the poison oak ", which would one day be the site where

7140-600: Was originally inhabited by the indigenous Tongva people and later claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542. The city was founded on September 4, 1781, under Spanish governor Felipe de Neve , on the village of Yaanga . It became a part of the First Mexican Empire in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence . In 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War , Los Angeles and

7225-454: Was split into two divisions: The Broadway Southern California, based in Los Angeles; and Broadway Southwest, headquartered in Phoenix, for the stores outside California. The Broadway's parent Carter Hawley Hale Stores ran into financial difficulties which resulted from poor management decisions and hostile takeover attempts. In 1996 the chain was acquired by Federated Department Stores and

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