LOS ANGELES
DOWNTOWN
NEWS Volume 37, Number 51
INSIDE
Urban Scrawl on the Times’ holiday.
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December 22, 2008
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All the latest Health news.
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ven in the best of times, opening a restaurant can be a challenge. In a tough economy, when people are pinching their pennies and bank loans are rarer than steak tartare, it can seem like an impossible dream. Yet since the middle of November, despite the roughest recession in decades, 15 restaurants have opened in
Make your New Year’s plans now.
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Downtown Los Angeles. They range from a high-end Italian spot powered by a celebrity chef to a funky sausage and beer joint in an artsy neighborhood to a collection of eateries in a mega-billion development (for a full list, see p. 7). More are on the way. While the food they serve runs the culinary gamut, they all have two things in common: confident see Restaurants, page 6
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hen the company that manufactured Mother’s Cookies filed for bankruptcy in October and closed without notice, news of its failure set off a mini-frenzy of eBay speculation. Dozens of people bought assortments of the 94-year-old Northern California firm’s products and put them up on the auction site, hoping to squeeze $20 or more for a bag of iced animal cookies that had cost less than $4 at grocery stores. There was no eBay back in 1930 when Bishop & Co., a Downtown Los Angeles candy and chocolate manufacturer for nearly a half century, met a similar fate, six months into the Great Depression. Bishop, which had been one of the largest food manufacturers in the country, merited only a sixparagraph story on Page 14 of the Los
Angeles Times of May 16, 1930, under the headline “New Biscuit Deal Made.” A company that had operated since 1887 and had sold its products throughout the world couldn’t even get its name into the headline on a story about its demise. Officially, the deal was a merger, but the reality was something else. William T. Bishop, a founder of the firm who remained with it until the end, said his company would continue as a subsidiary of Nabisco — which was also known as the National Biscuit Co. Nabisco acquired all assets of Bishop in the agreement. At the time of the acquisition, Bishop had 850 employees between its Los Angeles and San Diego factories. It had been started by Bishop and his uncle, Roland P. Bishop, in 1887 in a single room at Second and Spring streets. see Bishop & Co., page 8
Five great entertainment options.
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17 CALENDAR LISTINGS 20 MAP 21 CLASSIFIEDS
photo by Gary Leonard
Gabriel Morales and Jill Bigelow at Provecho, a 5,000-square-foot Mexican restaurant they opened at 800 Wilshire Blvd. on Dec. 1. It faces competition from more than a dozen other new Downtown arrivals.
‘National’ Treasure Former Bank Building Goes Residential, With 93 Apartments
Downtown’s Bishop & Co. Thrived for 43 Years, but Then the Cookie Crumbled ReseaRch by sésaR caRReño
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AEG officials look at yet another hotel on the L.A. Live site.
W W W. D O W N T O W N N E W S . C O M
The Rise and Fall of A Candy Empire by Jay beRman
A huge free show on Christmas Eve.
Arts District action, a fashion delay, and other happenings Around Town.
Amid the Rough Economy, Downtown Sees 15 New Restaurants In Less Than Two Months by RichaRd Guzmán
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Recession Not on the Menu
city editoR
Sometimes you need flex in the city.
Becca Is Back
photo courtesy of Mark Macrae collection
An invoice from Bishop & Co., complete with a picture of its factory at Seventh and Alameda streets. At its height, the business had nearly 1,000 employees.
photo by Gary Leonard
Brothers and development team Shariar and Shahram Afshani spent $22.5 million to convert the National City Tower at Eighth and Spring streets into 93 apartments.
by Ryan VaillancouRt staff wRiteR
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hen brothers and development partners Shariar and Shahram Afshani bought a dilapidated former bank headquarters at Eighth and Spring streets in 2003, they were planting a seed that they hope will grow into sturdy roots in the Downtown real estate market. The 150,000-square-foot National City Bank tower was their second investment in Downtown Los Angeles, following the 1998 purchase of the old May Company building, a 1 million-square-foot edifice that now houses garment producers.
One day they plan to convert the massive May building to residential use, but first they focused on the smaller bank building, spending $22.5 million — $6.5 million for the property, $16 million on construction — to transform it into 93 high-end apartments. The units, which opened on Oct. 24, will mark the first returns on what the Afshani brothers view as a long-term investment in the community. “One of the reasons that we started out with the idea of having this building as apartments, as opposed to condos, is our strong belief in the future of Downtown,” Shariar Afshani said. see Apartments, page 9
Since 1972, an independent, locally owned and edited newspaper, go figure.