Twin Towers Shopping Mall
Los Angeles, California - circa 1980s?
These two postcards both simply say: "Shopping Mall, Twin Towers, Los Angeles" on them (which I'm not familiar with). Online searches mostly turn up information related to Richmore Gardens Twin Towers Apartments, and Century City, both in Los Angeles, but I'm not sure if these are actually related in any way to either.
Can anyone out there help me in positively identifying what "shopping mall" we're looking at here? I'm sure a few of you can and will. :) If so, I'll then update this entry with all the proper links and details.
posted by Keith @ 10/21/2006
10 Comments:
I've always known it as Arco Plaza though it might not be called that anymore. The towers were built in the early 70's and yes they do have an underground shopping center.
The reference to the "twin towers" is very eerie considering it is now often used to refer to the former WTC. These buildings are not even half that height.
Same comment - that's the Arco Plaza.
Yep Arco Plaza.
Yes, it would be the Arco Plaza. The towers were opened in 1972. No Major anchors were at the Arco Plaza, one of Downtown Los Angeles many malls, including Broadway Plaza (later Macy Plaza), The LA Mall, and 7th and Fig.
Most Downtown LA malls lack stores but have a lot of restaurants and food shops for hungry business people.
Yep, ARCO Plaza. It has large sets of escalators that lead down to the two level mall. It still looked like the postcards when I moved away in 1991. But it seems to have had a makeover.
blogdowntown has it as City Nat'l Plaza now.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericrichardson/215388624/
I remember Broadway Plaza had a Broadway dept store that changed to Macy's after the Federated buyout. 7th Market Place had a Bullocks that became Robinsons-May around the same time (JW Robinsons closed its downtown flagship around then as well)
7th and Fig had both a Bullocks and Robinsons (later Robinsons-May)
The Bullocks was subdivided into stores and a Golds Gym around 96 when the Broadway a block away became a Macys. Macys opted to keep the Robinsons May open as a Macys.
The Twin Towers thing also threw me for a moment, at first I thought that the pictures showed the interior of the World Trade Center concourse, until I realized that the buildings looked entirely different and that they are located on the other end of the continent as well.
Still, there is some nice late 1970s murkiness in those interior shots.
There's a story in the Downtown L.A. News about the refurbishment of the towers and underground mall.
http://www.ladowntownnews.com/articles/2006/11/06/news/news03.txt
Acro has long since been a 5 level mall. They've closed the mall years ago due to lack of downtown activity. There is now just a lower level eating, coffee, and food mart floor. The 80's style skinny elevators still go down further, but are barricaded by boards. Very sad.
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