Downtown Los Angeles

Trying to persuade L.A. institutions like Dutton's bookstore or Trader Joe's market to move into downtown Los Angeles is one thing. But the success of downtown's future may rest with the investment bankers, real estate developers and others gathered earlier this week in a Manhattan hotel ballroom. Los Angeles business and political leaders were here to pitch downtown's story, complete with upbeat videos of luxury lofts and renderings of glittering buildings under development.

If there was a contest for Los Angeles' ugliest piece of real estate, the Higgins Building would surely be a top contender. The 10-story building in downtown Los Angeles had been in such bad shape that even neighboring landlords on dingy skid row considered it an eyesore. Decades of soot and dirt covered the exterior walls, and broken window blinds twirled in the wind.

With the prospect of a new NFL stadium hovering overhead like the Goodyear blimp, the Los Angeles City Council approved a $2.4-billion downtown redevelopment plan Wednesday that promises new housing, jobs and social services in blighted sections of the city's historic core.

Once upon a time, when downtown Los Angeles was known as the Wall Street of the West, the old Federal Reserve Bank building sturdily symbolized the city's burgeoning importance as a financial center. When it was built in 1930 at the corner of Olympic Boulevard and Olive Street, the five-story granite-clad structure embodied the strength of the federal government at a time when public confidence had been shaken by stock market plunges and bank runs.

With a 120-foot-high bell tower and a giant crucifix built over its hilltop entry, the new Roman Catholic cathedral proposed for downtown Los Angeles is being designed to be noticed. "One of the purposes of the cathedral is to serve as an inspiration to people. And of course, the more easily they can see it, the more readily they will be inspired," Cardinal Roger M. Mahony said Monday at the public unveiling of a preliminary model.

There are those who say Los Angeles is a heartless city, that Downtown is dead. No one heads Downtown to "just hang out," and if they do it's a one-stop affair, perhaps an evening concert at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Once the applause dies down, it's straight back to the 'burbs in the comfort of an automobile.

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.

From a window above the "Big and Tall" men's clothing store he manages, George Kalebdjian scans the surrounding neighborhood near the Convention Center in downtown Los Angeles. He doesn't much like the view. Empty parking lots, boarded warehouses and a nocturnal dance hall line 12th Street between his well-maintained store and the futuristic Convention Center a block away.

Acknowledging that the rapid gentrification of downtown, Hollywood and other parts of Los Angeles is making it harder for the poor to afford housing, the Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday approved a moratorium on the conversion or demolition of low-cost residential hotels across the city.

Walking reveals the soul of a city that is usually hidden to drivers. Pedestrians can peek into wedding chapels on Broadway, stroll through the sawdust-strewn Grand Central Market and even touch purple flowers snaking up chain-link fences. And they never have to leave downtown Los Angeles. Those are some of the sights along the route of a self-guided walking tour of the downtown area that was kicked off Monday morning.