LOS ANGELES
DOWNTOWN
NEWS Urban Scrawl on the city attorney’s race.
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Shopping at Downtown’s ‘Thai Costco.’
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A mom’s tale, complete with scooters.
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A new Patina, paper yachts, and other happenings Around Town.
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Skid Row service providers look to catch momentum from ‘The Soloist.’
W W W. D O W N T O W N N E W S . C O M
May 4, 2009
Volume 39, Number 18
INSIDE
Mother’s Day in Downtown
The New Face Of Fashion A $130 Million, ‘Commercial Condo’ Facility Lands in the Fashion District by Ryan Vaillancourt staff writer
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rom a distance, it looks like a glass-encased, futuristic cruise liner, moored on San Pedro Street just north of the Santa Monica Freeway. The aqua windows also suggest an aquarium, and invite curiosity about what’s behind all the glass, steel and concrete. In reality, the structure is the latest mega-mall for the wholesale fashion business to open in
Downtown’s Fashion District. Though it pales in comparison to the 3 million-square-foot California Market Center, at 200 showrooms and 300,000 square feet the Los Angeles Fashion Center, also known as L.A. FACE, is the largest commercial development in the Fashion District in the last decade, said Kent Smith, executive director of the Fashion District Business Improvement District. see Fashion, page 11
photo by Gary Leonard
The Los Angeles Fashion Center, also known as L.A. Face, has 200 “commercial condos” for wholesale fashion showrooms. The building at 1458 S. San Pedro St. holds its grand opening May 20.
The Former Clash of the Downtown Dead Zone Chambers Though Long Gone, Chinatown Site Held One of City’s Earliest Cemeteries
Two Downtown Organizations Both Aim to Serve Latino Businesses by Richard Guzmán city editor
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One venue, two musicals.
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An old, and reliable, Misbehavin’.
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photo courtesy of Monsignor Francis J. Weber
The Calvary Cemetery, on the site of the current Cathedral High School, once held the remains of members of Los Angeles’ most prominent early families. It opened in 1844. by Jay Berman research by Sésar Carreño
Five great entertainment options.
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17 CALENDAR LISTINGS 18 MAP 21 CLASSIFIEDS
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f students at Cathedral High School find that local history seems to come easily to them, it could be because they’re right on top of it. Cathedral, in Chinatown just a few blocks north of the Civic Center, has been in operation since 1925. But nearly a century before the school was built, the area was the site of the city’s first Catholic cemetery. Broadway was known as Buena Vista Street in 1844 when Catholic officials set aside a 12-acre parcel adjacent to it for burial purposes.
Bishop Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno authorized the local priest to bless what would be known as Calvary Cemetery “as soon as it is properly fenced in.” Monsignor Francis J. Weber, archivist for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, wrote in the 2006 history of the archdiocese he co-authored that the cemetery began “with an adobe building, probably a receiving vault or chapel...” The City Council claimed that the graveyard was municipal property, Weber wrote, but the bishop countered that it belonged to the church see Cemetery, page 9
owntown Los Angeles is filled with rivalries in which two entities provide roughly the same service: Philippe’s and Cole’s battle over French dip supremacy; Famima and 7-Eleven both strive to be the area’s leading convenience store. Now there is a new battle: Who gets to be the go-to place for representing and helping small Latino businesses? While neither the new Latino Business Chamber of Greater Los Angeles nor the nearly 35-yearold Latin Business Association say they alone deserve the job, it is clear that there is overlap between the two. The Latino Business Chamber
launched last month with speeches from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Robert Mooney, deputy director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and others. The event touted the commitment of the organization, which is based at 634 S. Spring St., to provide technical and loan assistance, as well as educational and advocacy resources, to the Latino business community. “A lot of us got together and we felt we really weren’t participating at any tables in corporate America or government, and we thought we needed an organization that could get some good dialogue, some input, participation and leadership in many of these areas,” said Jorge see Businesses, page 8
photo by Gary Leonard
Jorge Corralejo, chairman of the recently launched Latino Business Chamber of Greater Los Angeles, wants to make his organization the go-to place for business owners. He has a rival in the 34-year-old Latin Business Association.
Since 1972, an independent, locally owned and edited newspaper, go figure.