Tom Gilmore

Tom Gilmore is either a genius or a madman. Or maybe he's a bit of both. The developer has a gutsy new vision for the crumbling, 123-year-old St. Vibiana's Cathedral, in a gritty part of downtown. Gilmore, who is spending big bucks to rehabilitate a series of dilapidated buildings on 4th Street, this week announced his intention to repair the earthquake-cracked historic structure and make it, along with the adjacent school and rectory buildings, the centerpiece of a multiuse complex.

In front of St. Vibiana's Cathedral, its facade cracked and peeling and sprouting weeds, the scene these days is one of homelessness and neglect squatting just a few blocks below the glinting towers of Bunker Hill. But Tuesday, at the 123-year-old building that once marked the city's expansion from a dusty old pueblo, dignitaries and activists came to celebrate a vision of downtown's future that recycles pieces of its past.

Clifton's Cafeteria, by some miracle, still stands on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. Opened in the darkest years of the Depression, Clifton's ushers its diners into a fake redwood forest where they can pass the lunch hour agreeably. A tiny creek meanders between some tables and a moose head hangs from the wall. Once, in the heyday of urban cafeterias, Clifton's drew large lunchtime crowds of secretaries, bankers and lawyers.

All across the land, a curious phenomenon is taking place in American downtowns. The phenomenon is known as reaching the "tipping point." Young people rediscover their downtown and, like urban refugees, return to live and work in the ruins. A few pioneers arrive first, then a few more. The process finally blooms into a movement. Abandoned office buildings get converted to apartments. A thousand boarded-up storefronts blossom into cafes and shops. No government help is required.