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Miracle Mile
The Miracle Mile is located in the Mid-Wilshire area of Los Angeles
and consists of a roughly mile long stretch of Wilshire Blvd. between
Fairfax Ave. and La Brea Ave. and the surrounding neighborhoods. The
Miracle Mile District is bordered by the Fairfax District on the north,
Hancock Park on the northeast, Mid-City on the southeast, West Pico on
the south, and Carthay on the southwest.
In the early 1920s, Wilshire Boulevard west of Western Avenue was
an unpaved farm road, running through dairy farms and bean fields.
Visionary developer A.W. Ross saw potential for the area, however, and
developed Wilshire as a commercial district to rival downtown Los
Angeles.
Ross's insight was that the form and scale of his Wilshire strip
should attract and serve automobile traffic rather than pedestrian
shoppers. He applied this insight to the street itself, and the
buildings lining both sides. Ross gave Wilshire various 'firsts':
dedicated left turn lanes, the first timed traffic lights in the US,
and he required his merchants to provide private automobile parking
lots, all to aid traffic flow. Major retailers such as Desmonds,
Silverwood's, May Co., Coulter's, Mullen Bluett, and Seibu eventually
spread across Wilshire Boulevard from Fairfax to La Brea. Ross required
that all building facades along Wilshire be engineered to be best seen
through a windshield. This meant larger, bolder, simpler signage;
longer buildings in a larger scale oriented towards the boulevard; and
architectural ornament and massing perceptible at 30 MPH (50 km/h)
instead of at walking speed. These simplified building forms were
driven by practical reasons but contributed to the stylistic language
of Art Deco and Streamline Moderne. All of this was unprecedented, a
huge success in commercial terms, and influential.
As newcomers and wealth poured into the fast-growing city, Ross'
parcel became one of the most desirable areas of the city. This stretch
of Wilshire near the La Brea Tar Pits received the name of "Miracle
Mile" for its improbable rise to prominence. After a slow period in the
80's and 90's, Miracle Mile's importance as a retail and business
center, returned thanks to the addition of several museums and the
construction of several commercial high-rises. The Los Angeles County
Museum of Art (LACMA) and La Brea Tar Pits museums, among others,
positioned "Museum Row" on the Miracle Mile as a serious cultural
destination. Today, the district is one of the city's most vibrant.
This return as an important commercial, residential and cultural
hub for the city of Los Angeles and its environs continues with the
huge expansion of LACMA and the complete updating of what was formerly
the People's Bank building. The increase in residential properties due
to the commencement of several residential buildings demonstrates
Miracle Mile's continued importance and contribution to city living in
Los Angeles.
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