Photos: A changing Broadway

When talking about the British capital, the 18th Century British essayist and biographer Samuel Johnson is reported to have once said,”Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.”

With apologies to London, the same words could be applied to one of L.A.’s most famous streets, Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. The street, which cuts through the heard of downtown, is block for block, maybe the most interesting and historic thoroughfares in the city, a street where generations of Angelenos have gathered and where so much of L.A.’s civic history has played out.

Currently, Broadway is in the midst of a commercial and demographic shift as new stores open and people move in.

Broadway is one of the oldest streets in Los Angeles, dating back, according to some accounts, to a city plan laid out in 1849. The historic core of Broadway, stretching from 1st Street to Olympic Boulevard, was long L.A.’s main commercial street, home to glittering department stores and movie palaces. Many of Broadway’s buildings, like the Bradbury Building, are on the National Register of Historic Places. (Photo: Saul Gonzalez)