Sixty Seven Years Ago: Broadway Welcomes Santa Claus

I hope this is Downtown’s last year with pretty much zero holiday spirit (except for Clifton’s who have always done a great job inside).

I want to see Holiday lights, a candy cane…something.

Hopefully 2008 will be the upswing year for Downtown since LA Live’s retail should be completed in 2008 and more housing around Downtown is almost completing.

Im looking forward to the new year! 2008!

Now whos having a party?

The Hollywood Xmas parade should become the LOS ANGELES Xmas parade. Imagine the parade going through Broadway again….

I agree! Downtown needs a big holiday parade! Maybe Macy’s can have 2 Thanksgiving Parades. One on the East coast and one on the West Coast. Start at Union Station and end at Macy’s Plaza?

I, too, wish downtown businesses were more inclined to celebrate the Christmas season with decorations and lights. I think if the city wants to encourage this, it might want to consider creating some kind of financial incentive, say a tax rebate for participating businesses. Just a thought.

Lately, as I’ve been driving home in the evening from my kids’ daycare, I pass through the Toy and Fashion Districts. As we all know, these places basically shut down at the end of the business day. Those rolldown gates are a dreary sight. I wondered if these districts would ever consider special evening hours for holiday shopping? It would be fun taking the kids to the Toy District during the holidays with the place all light up. Last year I noticed that Macy’s Plaza and 7th & Figueroa had extended holiday hours during the holiday season. I wonder what it would be like to shop Santee Alley in the evening with the place all light up with Christmas lights? I also wonder if the local galleries will mark the holiday season during the next monthly art walk?

While I think the chances of these business districts embracing special holiday hours any time soon is pretty remote, the point is if these businesses had a financial interest (i.e. attracting customers and making sales), I’m sure they’d put up lights to drive their business. This is a win-win situation for everyone. Businesses make money. Customers gain convenience of extended shopping hours. The community gets lit-up for the holidays.

Obviously, making something like this happen would take a major effort and real leadership on the part of one of the business districts. Overcoming inertia would probably be the biggest challenge. So many downtown businesses are wedded to the 9-5/M-F hours. Overcoming that mindset will be tough. But, if there’s money to be made, at least a case could be made.

One thing you might want to consider doing is sharing photos of downtown locations and their Christmas light displays. Pershing Square is the obvious place to start. But, everything from the modest (Christmas tree in the door of Rite-Aid at 7th & Los Angeles) to the more elaborate (Cathedral, Union Station, Olvera Street, etc.). It might make for a nice photo essay. Or you could spruce up the blog with these images for the holiday season. Could be fun. I’m sure readers could make plenty of suggestions.

the official tree lighting for the christmas tree at the music center is on monday, november 26th at 5pm - will everybody be there? patina is providing free hot chocolate (while it lasts).

Free hot chocolate by Patina? Sounds good, I’ll be there. I’ve wondered the same thing about downtown and general atmosphere lighting. The North side of 6th street between Grand and Olive has very nice lights on the trees but not on the Southside. Simple things like lights on trees on major boulevards can make a huge difference in the atmosphere of an area.

I doubt the city would ever get around to these smaller quality of life/community concern issues but maybe the Downtown BID can help set it up. Imagine if we had lights up and down the Historic Core, 7th from Los Angeles to Fig. and down Fig. to Staples.

Lastly, since Celia brought up Patina; kudos to our two Michelin awardees: “The seafood bastion Water Grill and Cal-French restaurant Patina each received one star, which means “a very good restaurant in its category,” according to the 107-year-old Michelin Guide.” I can’t afford either place but nice to know they are around!

When I was a child my parents brought me downtown to see the lights. Hollywood was the same way. We would go shopping and then go to the railroad yards to pick a Christmas tree. It was our tradition when I was a kid. I never saw so many trees. They were everywhere. AT least a dozen cars were filled with trees. Hundreds everywhere. It is funny that I am downtown this time of year. Pershing Square reminded me of my youth. I would like to thank the powers that be. I wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. I love you all.

Last year I participated in a new holiday tradition downtown, the “Jingle Bell Sing” program, put on by the LA Music Center (through its ‘Active Arts’ campaign, which aims to get locals involved more in the downtown arts scene).

I know that it was at least partially sponsored by the Downtown BID through some partnership with the Music Center. Basically a lot of amateur singers who wanted to have a chance of their own to perform in public practiced together a number of times and then went around downtown and sang Christmas Carols during people’s lunch hours. I felt that it was a lot of fun and a great yearly tradition to start. Unfortunately this year I didn’t have time to make it to the practices so I didn’t sign up, but I still plan on going to at least one of the public “singalongs” that will take place throughout downtown in the coming weeks.

Check it out:

http://www.musiccenter.org/jbsing.html

Why is LA always 3-hours behind the times?! All they need to do is take a lesson from every other major city in the world. New York, London, Paris, Hong Kong. They all light up and encourage shop owners to do the same. It pays off! Look at the tourist traffic to New York alone at Christmas just to shop and see the store windows!

Maybe a good place to start would be the Downtown BID, get the businesses involved and active first. Since the nitwits at City Hall never seem to get anything done to benefit the communities.

Why don’t we start in Pershing Square and rival NY’s Rockefeller tree?! Turn off that bathtub spigot and put a HUGE tree up with the works? How difficult can that be?

The inability, or lack of desire, to do that in downtown is one of the unfortunate results of over 60 years of Los Angeles’s prosperity being funneled to outlying communities, including areas like Beverly Hills, Century City and the southern half of Orange County. The city has paid a big price for being on the receiving end of a major, serious degree of exodus to the suburbs.

I was just in San Francisco for the Thanksgiving weekend. Union Square was so full of shoppers, you could barely walk.

As others have mentioned, the Christmas season is huge in other cities, as well as in every Southland mall. It should be huge in Downtown L.A. as well. But it isn’t.

Just because the CBD isn’t a mall doesn’t mean it can’t get organized and make the effort. Sometimes, it seems like downtown businesses aren’t even interested in trying. Maybe that’s unfair, but that’s what it seems like, anyway.

If area groups and businesses would add a bit of pizazz to the streets for the holiday season, they could easily draw thousands of more Angeleno shoppers.

Decorations, a parade, Christmas trees, Santa Claus. These are the things great memories (and holiday $$$) are made of.

Of course, such efforts aren’t free. But it takes money to make money. Events and decorations are an investment that everybody seems willing to make, except for DTLA businesses.

I was in Chicago a couple of weeks ago. It was quite a sight to see Michigan Avenue lit-up for the holidays. The city turned it into a massive Christmas festival. Yes, the street was packed.

I did notice the Fashion District was packed all weekend. But, as usual, the place shuts down as the evening hours approach. A large part of the problem, as Joel points out, is that downtown businesses are locked into a 9-5/M-F mindset. Frankly, I get the sense many of them are perfectly content with this way of doing business. Clearly, leadership on the part of the business community is lacking.

Does Downtown L.A. have it’s own Chamber of Commerce? I mean, one of it’s own (as opposed to the L.A. Area Chamber Of Commerce, which is not focused on DTLA)? If it doesn’t, it should.

Note: I don’t mean a BID, or a convention district, or whatever. These are important for what they do. But what I mean is a chamber of commerce whose focus is to promote retail and commerce within the bounds of Downtown L.A.

An entity like that could help bring all the various retail areas together toward a single goal. Within this group, DTLA’s businesses could begin to think more strategically about how best to bring more shoppers to the area, whether by creating a parade, adding street decorations, etc.