Pershing Square, Los Angeles
Looking southwest on Olive Street.

ca. 1886
In 1866, the Los Angeles City Council passed an ordinance designating an area bounded by Fifth, Sixth, Hill and Olive Streets as a public square. The square was initially known as "the Public Square." It later became known as "St. Vincent Park," "Los Angeles Park," "Sixth Street Park" and when the city began developing other parks it was officially named "Central Park." St. Vincent's College, completed in 1884, can be seen to the left of the image at the corner of Sixth and Hill Streets. On the extreme right on Olive Street the spire of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, erected in 1884, can be seen. Most of the other structures around Central Park, then a suburb of Los Angeles, are private residences.

1986
The difference of the same area 100 years later is dramatic. What was a suburb on the outskirts of the city is now part of downtown Los Angeles and the last residential building in the area is a distant memory having been replaced by massive office buildings. Between 1911 and 1912, the square's serpentine walkways were changed to diagonals, the bandstand and many of the trees were removed. Immediately after World War I, the park was renamed "Pershing Square" after General John "Black Jack" Pershing. Later, a parking lot was constructed under the square. The Biltmore Hotel (hidden behind The Gas Company Tower in the image) occupies the site of St. Paul's Church in 1922. The area around Sixth and Hill Streets is the jewelry district of Los Angeles. While no structure remains from the nineteenth century, an indication of the area's early history can be seen in the name of a building on that corner.


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