Explore the past, present and future of downtown L.A.’s Grand Avenue
Artists, architects and critics discuss the past, present and future of Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles.
Walk the length of Grand Avenue from Temple to 5th Street, and you’ll encounter one of the most vital arts hubs in the city. You might be tempted by the collections at MOCA and the Broad or the multiple music offerings at the Colburn School and Walt Disney Concert Hall. Perhaps the opportunity to experience acclaimed architecture is a draw. Or theater. Or dance.
Let us take you on a tour of the area’s history and development — and the potential of art to change your life. Your cultural immersion starts here.
City of angels, city of culture
Los Angeles Times executive editor Norman Pearlstine shares his impressions of the Grand Avenue project in downtown Los Angeles.
Timeline: How Bunker Hill transformed Los Angeles and Grand Avenue
Bunker Hill once bloomed with mansions and services for the wealthy, but declined as Angelenos found other places to live — only to be eventually rebuilt with a large concentration of arts institutions on Grand Avenue.
How Grand Avenue elevated L.A.'s music scene
Over the last half-century Grand Avenue has become Los Angeles' music mecca, first with the Music Center's Dorothy Chandler Concert Hall, then Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall and now with the new halls Gehry is designing for the Colburn School
One work of architecture has transformed a neighborhood and the city beyond
How Disney Hall changed everything it touched: the orchestra, the audience, the music — and Los Angeles itself.
Eli Broad: The man who transformed Grand Avenue
Entrepreneur and philanthropist Eli Broad looks back at the arts institutions he’s had a hand in creating, including MOCA, Disney Hall and the Broad museum.
Must-see — and little-known — art highlights along Grand Avenue
There are plenty of walkable art hubs in Los Angeles, and the densest among them might be on Grand Avenue, where the Broad museum, MOCA, Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion are clustered together.
Four blocks along Grand Avenue offer a sketch of shifting ideas in public art
From the Music Center on Bunker Hill to the Central Library at West 5th Street, Grand Avenue runs just over half a mile. But those four city blocks contain an enticing thumbnail sketch of shifting ideas in mostly 20th century public art.
Grand Avenue is on a mission to delight, enrich and educate
Not content to be a cloistered community on a hill, the arts organizations along Grand Avenue have made it their mission to reach out via a series of educational programs and free or low-cost events.
Ten great places to eat and drink near Grand Avenue
You’ll find a vast array of restaurant options, from Japanese omakase breakfast to plates of Indonesian curry to a highball bar. Because there’s nothing like a bowl of satsuki rice porridge with Santa Barbara uni after an afternoon spent with Chris Burden and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Bunker Hill once was a neighborhood. Then progress came to town
As construction begins on Frank Gehry’s Grand Avenue project, there is renewed chatter about “revitalization,” a word which has meant progress for some, erasure for others.
Can big names and big money make the Grand a great civic place?
According to current plans, the $1-billion-plus development, designed by Frank Gehry and developed by Related Cos., will, by 2021, contain a residential tower, a hotel, 27,000 square feet of shopping and dining and a public plaza that spills onto Grand Avenue.
Imagining a street that is a destination for everyone
What role in the community should Grand Avenue play in the future? Frank Gehry, Klaus Biesenbach, Hernan Diaz Alonso, Christopher Hawthorne and others have some answers.
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