Downtown Los Angeles

When the Concerto high-rise condominium project opens this year in downtown Los Angeles, developer Hassan "Sonny" Astani will be lucky not to lose his shirt. With the market for condos in woeful decline, he already knows he won't make much money -- if any. Progress, at this point, would be to complete the $300-million project while staying out of bankruptcy.

The building that houses one of Southern California's last remaining cafeteria restaurants is going up for sale. And although the family that owns Clifton's Cafeteria intends to stay open for business, the historic restaurant is facing some serious financial challenges. There was a time when the cafeteria was the undisputed king of Southern California dining. Before World War II, the cheap food and sprawling dining halls brought together strangers to the region and created lasting bonds.

For more than four decades, a dreary, two-level jail in a corner of the Los Angeles Police Department's downtown headquarters has been an unwelcome pit stop for thousands of men arrested in the city each year. Accused of petty theft, murder or anything in between, the Parker Center Jail is where one waits -- sometimes for a few hours, sometimes for a few days -- to see a judge. Never a pleasant place, the jail has fallen into increasing depths of disrepair and inadequacy over the years.

In the late 1960s, it was Los Angeles' tallest building -- and a first piece of what became downtown's modern skyline. Now, the 42-story tower at 6th Street and Grand Avenue is making history again, this time as what appears to be the largest "adaptive reuse" project in Los Angeles history.

THERE is no single block that neatly sums up the way downtown Los Angeles is being transformed, condo by condo and loft by loft, into a place with real residential character. Just as there are many downtowns -- South Park, Little Tokyo, the historic core, skid row -- there are many architectural responses to the idea of downtown living in this city. But three residential developments on a stretch of Industrial Street, just off 7th Street near the L.A. River, come pretty close.

As Southern California organizers made final preparations for May Day marches to press for immigrant and labor rights today, officials warned that the protests will snarl traffic, disrupt mass transit and halt some business in downtown Los Angeles and beyond.

Back when Bunker Hill really was a hill and Pershing Square was packed with lush palms, the young writer John Fante roved through downtown Los Angeles in search of stories and fame. He struggled to write his first fiction in a cheap room in the hillside Alta Vista hotel, clambering down the nearby Angels Flight stairs to explore the city and rub shoulders with its charming, seedy characters. For those who revere the work of the acclaimed novelist, Bunker Hill is sacred ground.

Los Angeles Police Capt. Andrew Smith walked north on 8th Avenue, past the bright lights of Times Square, and dreamed of what downtown Los Angeles could be. The streets around him were bustling with shops, restaurants and people -- but there was not a single drug dealer, or homeless person, in sight. "This is what I picture downtown looking like," Smith said. "You don't see people lying on the street, or in physical distress, or screaming at the top of their lungs."

Downtown Los Angeles is expected to get about 9,400 new apartment and condominium units this year and next, a third more than the number built over the last six years combined, according to a new study. An additional 10,181 housing units are planned for construction from 2008 to 2015, according to the study released Thursday by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. and Los Angeles-based Lauren Schlau Consulting. About $12.

Several thousand farmworkers from as far away as Oregon marched in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday to celebrate the life of Cesar Chavez and protest proposed federal legislation that would crack down on undocumented immigrants. The crowd at the march and rally, which culminated with a Mass honoring Chavez at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, was estimated by police at 3,800.