Selling Downtown's Amenities

Re that Visconti map - the Dorothy Chandler and the Disney Music Hall are between Grand and Hope, not Hope and Fig. The DWP people are going to be mighty pissed when they walk in on Monday and there are a bunch of tuba players practicing in their lobby.

Ditto for whoever used to own the Bunker Hill Apts, until Disney Music Hall got moved on top of it.

Hmmm. My place in the Fashion District is apparently now in the “garment district”… funny - I don’t seem to recall moving… (Biscuit Co. map). To give them a little credit though - they have one of the nicest (and biggest at 11x17 inches) marketing brochures I’ve seen for any of the loft developments - and the brochure doesn’t have the faulty map in it. Maybe they figure that if you found your way to the sales office and picked up a brochure there’s really no need for a map to get you where you already are. Then again it is a sign of the times - when there arethe “Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim” and the “Los Angeles Times (of Chicago)”, not to mention that on many European tourist maps of this region Los Angeles is shown as a small suburb of this huge metropolis called “Hollywood”.

At some level, this sloppiness on the part of the marketers doesn’t surprise me. The selling of downtown and the loft life is based on some pretty dubious assumptions which I strongly suspect remain unfulfilled for most. The whole idea of living downtown as some transformative experience is total hype. That anyone would buy into this idea is pretty pathetic. None the less, that downtown is some hipster paradise has incredible legs since it still has traction in marketing circles after all these years. (Or perhaps this reflects creative exhaustion on the part of the marketing types.) I’ve found the recent marketing campaigns for the Roosevelt Building and Library Court incredibly banal and full of sexual innuendo. Basically, they say move downtown and get laid. Yeah, right. Given this level of ‘sophistication’ on the part of the marketers, that their maps are full of basic errors should be expected. Furthermore, I don’t think the people creating the promotional materials really venture downtown. Probably thrown together quickly by some junior copywriter. I figure the marketing materials tell us more about the marketing people and less about the developments being sold.

Now I say this all as a downtown advocate and a long-time resident. Obviously, I think downtown is a wonderful place to live. What puzzles me is that most of the new developments are actually great buildings and have plenty to offer to prospective residents. Why sell the sizzle when the steak is excellent? Go figure.

Still, I think it would be interesting to hear how people’s expectations about downtown have matched up to the reality of living downtown.

chalk up another winner in the visconti map…grand central market and angels flight placement is all kinds of whack. and i too love the fact that they left out all the pertinent streets between grand and alameda.

great post eric, this kind of stuff is right up my alley.

RE: David Kennedy — Excellent post and points. I suppose it is to be expected that marketers and advertisers would follow the tired, threadbare Madison Avenue formula of “glitz, sex and booze” when trying to sell lofts to a certain target market - namely the “Men’s Journal/Maxim/_____ sports mag” set. There seems to be a big ploy to tie the very different parts of Downtown together as some sort of adjunct to Staples Center, as though Downtown would be nonexistent without that admittedly important, but rather narrowly focused venue. Focusing on that audience tends to rule out the need to be accurate or concise for rather obvious reasons… One of the things I enjoy most about DTLA is the diversity - and diversity freaks marketers out, as it means a fragmented “target market”. Why did I leave Orange County for DTLA… and why did I choose to live in a loft in a historic building??? Well - in a word, the D-I-V-E-R-S-I-T-Y. The biggest attraction of DTLA for me is not some nebulous “transformative experience” (which I can create for myself anywhere) but the fact that I am not in a santized, bland, monochromatic environment (i.e. the OC). I am an architect - I am attracted to the buildings, both historic and modern, as well as the street scene. It is nice to think that in a few more years there should be a reinvigorated evening scene as well - hopefully including some more good multicultural restaurants and venues. I am a person who likes to experience the unfamiliar fairly regularly… What do you find most compelling about being Downtown?

For too long our cities have become a doughnut with a huge hole in the middle, a city with no true identity, soul, culture.

Look at all the new “cities” that have sprung up overnight all over the West, Mid West, and Florida. They are just a collection of low rise homes and office parks spread across the land. Shopping malls with vast parking lots as far as the myopic eye can see. At night the streets are empty, the lots are cold and barren.

Urban revitalization has been abandoned, to give way to sprawl, spraaawwwlll, more sprawl. Is there any reason to call it a city anymore? Being a virtual nowhere man, sitting in a nowhere land, it makes no difference every street corner is an identical clone.

Downtown L.A. is not Downtown Disney or the Vegas Strip. It is a unique community with unique points of interest. Sure, you may see things or smell odors that repulse you, but no one can deny this place is alive. It is not a giant mall built to satisfy our consumer whims, or force us to drop money on cheesy entertainment. It is a functional city, a community, it lives because we walk the streets.

I suspect we are here for many of the same reasons, although I wouldn’t use the word diversity. Diversity has become such a loaded term. I’m not sure if there’s a single term which I’d use. Urban seems the default word I’d use. Yet, it isn’t as precise as I’d like.

What I love about downtown is the fact that everything and everybody is here. Downtown is such a mismash of people and businesses. Think of all the districts encompassing the place. I love the fact that no one owns it. It is not some ghetto of affluence or single ethnic group. Name a demographic which is not present. I love the fact that there is so much going on. Could I possibly attend all the cultural activities happening here? Could I eat regularly at all its restaurants? I love the old buildings and I love to see them finding new life. Where else can I have major cultural destinatiions like Disney Hall or the Central Library or MOCA at my doorstep? I love that the place is the hub of the public transit and freeway system. I can’t wait for those trolleys. Oh yeah, that ice rink every year is very sweet.

But, more than anything, my heart belongs to Broadway. Everyone loves to run down the street and complain about every aspect of it. Me, I love it. I love the life and grit of it. I love how it has thrived despite the neglect of the city. I love how it has managed to survive and preserve much of the city’s architectural heritage despite the official neglect. I love how it soldiers on oblivious to all the suggested improvements of those who do not appreciate it for what it is, but only for what they think it ought to be.

That’s a little of why I live downtown. Basically, I couldn’t find this world anywhere else in the city. Obviously, there’s no way the marketing pinheads can encapsulate this into a marketing strategy with benefits which make sense to affluent consumers.

What I wonder is: Do new residents see through the marketing hype? Do they actually continue to buy into the hype once they get here and block out all the information obviously contradicting the hype? (I’m sure their friends on the westside seize on this at every opportunity.) Or do they end up making peace with the reality of where they now live? I’m sure plenty decamp back to the ‘normal’ places from whence they came. I’m sure the truth of the matter really boils down to each individual and their story of moving downtown. Still, I’d like to know.

Unfortunately the marketing hypes that these realtors push are coming true, a self fulfilling prophesy.

Blocks are being saturated with upscale condos, that working wages cannot afford. Artists, crafters, and Mom and Pop stores, the people who made Downtown special are being driven out of town by rising rents.

New neighborhoods are forming inside gated seclusion, as residents don’t really seem connected to the streets below. There is no bad guy here. It’s just the evolution of the city.