Pacific Boulevard is a street and principal commercial thoroughfare in the city of
Huntington Park, CaliforniaHuntington Park is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 61,348.- History :...
. It runs from Vernon and Santa Fe Avenues in Vernon to Cudahy Avenue in South Gate before changing to
Long Beach BoulevardLong Beach Boulevard is a street that starts off as a continuation of Pacific Boulevard south of Cudahy Avenue in South Gate. The Metro Green Line serves a station underneath Interstate 105. The Metro Blue Line falls in the middle of the boulevard from Willow Street to 1st Street in Long Beach...
. The Pacific Boulevard commercial district is the third highest grossing commercial district in the County of Los Angeles. The Christmas Lane Parade, seen in millions of homes via television throughout the United States and parts of Europe, has run down Pacific Boulevard since 1946.
Pacific Boulevard is a street and principal commercial thoroughfare in the city of
Huntington Park, CaliforniaHuntington Park is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 61,348.- History :...
. It runs from Vernon and Santa Fe Avenues in Vernon to Cudahy Avenue in South Gate before changing to
Long Beach BoulevardLong Beach Boulevard is a street that starts off as a continuation of Pacific Boulevard south of Cudahy Avenue in South Gate. The Metro Green Line serves a station underneath Interstate 105. The Metro Blue Line falls in the middle of the boulevard from Willow Street to 1st Street in Long Beach...
. The Pacific Boulevard commercial district is the third highest grossing commercial district in the County of Los Angeles. The Christmas Lane Parade, seen in millions of homes via television throughout the United States and parts of Europe, has run down Pacific Boulevard since 1946. As many as 300,000 people attend the annual
Carnaval Primavera (Spring Carnival) held on Pacific Boulevard each year. Pacific Boulevard is well known to Latino residents of the L.A. area, and a magnet for commerce, culture, and night life.
People come to buy clothes for special occasions like
baptismIn Christianity, baptism is the ritual act, with the use of water, by which one is admitted to membership of the Christian Church and, in the view of some, as a member of the particular Church in which the baptism is administered.The usual form of baptism among the earliest Christians was for the...
s,
first communionThe First Communion is a Roman Catholic ceremony. It is the colloquial name for a person's first reception of the sacrament of the Eucharist. Roman Catholics believe this event to be very important, as the Eucharist is one of the central focuses of the Roman Catholic Church...
s,
quinceañeraThe Quinceañera, Quinceañero, or Quince años , in Latin American culture, is a coming of age ceremony held on a girl's fifteenth birthday. The term Quinceaños refers to the birthday of the celebrant, and the term Quinceañera refers to the celebrant herself...
s, formal events and
weddingA wedding is the ceremony in which two people are united in marriage or a similar institution. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes...
s. (
Id.) Several bars and restaurants feature live music in the evenings, and it is a common location for remote broadcasts from local Spanish language media stations. Television stations often profile successful businesses and popular festivals that attract hundreds of thousands of people, bringing national attention to the area.(
Id.) The Pacific Blvd. commercial area is arguably the most important area to the
CityHuntington Park is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 61,348.- History :...
because of the
taxTo tax is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law.Taxes are also imposed by many subnational entities...
revenue it generates and the significant amount of employment available for residents. It is the center of the City’s Business Improvement District (B.I.D.), an organization established in 1988 to focus on community and business revitalization efforts vis-à-vis the commercial business sector.(
Id.)
Pacific Boulevard presents a "Hispanic Mecca" for shopping, culture, and people watching.
History
A New York Times article observed that Pacific Boulevard was once, "the apotheosis of the postwar California dream, an all-white working-class Beverly Hills with swank department stores, auto dealerships and first-run cinemas." To its residents, it was an idyllic spot: "Pacific Boulevard in Huntington Park was truly magical for me, with Christmas decorations stretched across the wide boulevard, decorated store windows and the Christmas parade on Pacific."
The stretch of Pacific Boulevard in downtown Huntington Park was a major commercial district serving the city's largely working-class residents, as well as those of neighboring cities such as
BellBell is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 36,664 at the 2000 census.Bell is located on the west bank of the Los Angeles River and is situated north of South Gate...
,
CudahyCudahy is a city located in southeastern Los Angeles County, California. In terms of area, Cudahy is the second smallest city in Los Angeles County with one of the highest population densities of any incorporated city in the United States...
, and
South GateSouth Gate is a city in the Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is part of the Gateway Cities region of southeastern Los Angeles County. As of January 1, 2009, the city had a total population of 102,770. The "City of South Gate" was incorporated on 20 January 1923 by the Los Angeles...
. However, the thoroughfare was located three miles (5 km) from any freeway, and it was ill served by that feature in the freeway-oriented pulse of the region; by 1968, more than sixty of its storefronts were vacant. During the 1980s, the strip appeared to be derelict with vacancy rates up to 50 percent in its commercial spaces. But a wave of "nearly 100 percent Latino immigrants ... transformed Huntington Park's main commercial thoroughfare from what was one of the most blighted districts in central Los Angeles into one of the most profitable and heavily trafficked in the region." After its resurgence, Pacific Boulevard "competes with downtown’s
BroadwayBroadway is a major thoroughfare in Downtown Los Angeles, California. It starts off at Mission Road in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood and heads due west...
and Beverly Hills'
Rodeo DriveRodeo Drive of Beverly Hills, California is a shopping district famous for designer label and haute couture fashion...
for the region’s highest sales volume per square foot." And it has become "an important site not only economically but socially and culturally as well."
Attractions
El Gallo Giro (Lat. Am. Sp., for "The Yellow Rooster") is ranked among the 10 highest grossing restaurants in the Los Angeles area.
El Gallo Giro was started in 1990. By the year 2000, it had become the 7th most profitable restaurant in L.A. county ranked by annual gross sales, with receipts of $6.7M that year. Despite its casual dining and working class clientele, its sales were such that it out-earned such glitzy competitors as the Parkway Grill in
PasadenaPasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States; and is a satellite city of Los Angeles. Famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and the Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home of many leading scientific and cultural institutions, including the...
, the Pacific Dining Car in
HollywoodHollywood is a district in Los Angeles, California, United States, situated west-northwest of Downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word "Hollywood" is often used as a metonymy of American cinema...
, the Paradise Cove in
MalibuMalibu is an incorporated city in western Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city population is 12,575....
, and the Bel Air Hotel.
The
Warner Huntington Park is an
Art DecoArt Deco was a popular international art design movement from 1925 until the 1940s, affecting the decorative arts such as architecture, interior design, and industrial design, as well as the visual arts such as fashion, painting, the graphic arts, and film...
motion picture palace that was opened in 1930. The architect was
B. Marcus PritecaBenjamin Marcus Priteca was born in Glasgow, Scotland. A theater architect, he is best-known for his work for Alexander Pantages. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1907 and later attended the Royal College of Art...
, the architect who created the
Pantages TheaterThe Pantages Theatre, formerly known as RKO Pantages Theatre, is located at Hollywood and Vine , Hollywood, California in the United States of America. Designed by architect B. Marcus Priteca, it was the last theatre built for the impresario Alexander Pantages...
in Hollywood. The Warner Huntington Park is the sister theater to the Warner Beverly Hills and the Warner Grand in San Pedro. The Warner Huntington Park Theatre originaly seated 1,468 people. Huntington Park also boasted of the third
Pussycat Theater to open in California. It was called The Lyric and was located at 7208 Pacific Boulevard.
Local Transportation
Metro LocalMetro Local is a bus service in Los Angeles County, operated by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. This retronym designation was placed to differentiate it from the Metro Rapid service...
line 60 and
Metro RapidMetro Rapid is a bus rapid transit system in Los Angeles County, California, mainly operated by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority with two routes operated by the Santa Monica Big Blue Bus...
line 760 operate on Pacific Boulevard, in addition to parts of Metro Local line 251 and Metro Rapid 751.
External links