DISINVESTMENT
South Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles was once known as the "Wall Street of the West" due to the high concentration of financial institutions that operated there. Bank of America had its office headquarters near the corner of 6th and Spring until moving to Bunker Hill in 1972. Next door was the Pacific Stock Exchange, the last major financial institution to leave the area. Although little has changed architecturally on South Spring since the 1960s, the area has seen major changes in just about every other way.
LOTS OF LOTS
Although parking lots were uncommon before WWII, downtown is now loaded
with on and off street parking. It's now easy to park downtown, at least
for a price, but before the war was a different story, as the city's preferred
method of transit was the streetcar. For a very brief period in 1920,
the city even instituted a
ban on parking cars downtown.
The largest operator of parking services in the Downtown area is by far Joe's
Auto Parks. With connections to Five
Star Parking and L & R Investments, Joe's is part of a large conglomeration
of parking service companies that manage open lots, garages, and valet services
around the country. Of the estimated 100,000 parking spaces downtown, Joe's
operates over 10 percent of them. Currently, parking lot managers, like Joe's
are finding offers from condo
and loft developers looking more attractive.