Spotlight Turned On L.A.'s Broadway

The neon lights aren't bright on this Broadway, a grungy downtown strip of abandoned movie houses, vacant buildings and discount stores. But that could change with an ambitious city plan that seeks to turn Broadway back into the theater and nightlife hub it was early last century.

The $36.5 million "Bringing Back Broadway" plan to be introduced Monday envisions the street as a bustling neighborhood of entertainment venues, small shops and residential units housed within restored buildings, some of them still displaying intricate stonework facades and concealing vestiges of their ornate interiors.

"Our vision is to bring back Broadway to its heyday," said City Councilman Jose Huizar, whose district includes Broadway. "It's a shame that we allowed it to get to its current state, that we neglected it so much."

For Huizar and the plan's other supporters, Broadway is the thread that would stitch together the major development projects popping up all over downtown Los Angeles.

Critics wonder about the scale of the proposal, especially with the economy slowing down.

"A lot of these government agencies operate like they're in a bubble," said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp.

But Maritza Madera, a saleswoman at a small jewelry store that has windows crowded with thick gold bracelets, felt the improvements would be good for business.

"When it's lively, people like to come. Right now, people don't want to come," she said.

The city has set aside $16.5 million in local, state and federal seed money, Huizar said. Property owners have pledged a total of $20 million, and some have agreed to make their old theaters functional again for movies or New York-style Broadway shows, he said.

"There's a vitality that we can bring back to Broadway. That's part of the plan _ it's not just theaters," said Steve Needleman, who owns the Orpheum Theater, the first of the street's theaters to be renovated into a full-time performance venue. The Orpheum has hosted episodes of the TV shows "American Idol" and "So You Think You Can Dance."

Most of the street's historic theaters are shuttered or being used for other purposes. A gutted Art Deco venue called The Roxie is now a store cluttered with stacks of tube socks and tight women's pants wrapped around mannequin legs. Seedy pawn shops and check cashing operations operate beside dress shops and discount electronics stands.

But under the grime and behind the garish signs, 12 classic theaters from Broadway's golden age survive within a seven-block area, the nation's first and largest historic theater district recognized by the National Register of Historic Places, said Cindy Olnick of the Los Angeles Conservancy.

Among those still standing is Los Angeles' first movie palace, The Million Dollar Theater, built in 1918 by Sid Grauman. His later Hollywood venues _ the Egyptian and Chinese theaters _ eventually helped lure filmgoers away from downtown.

Other survivors include the French baroque-style Los Angeles Theater. Charlie Chaplain financed the completion of that theater in 1931, during the cash-strapped days of the Great Depression, so he could premiere "City Lights" there. The other theaters were owned and run by studios and would not show Chaplain's film, since he operated outside the studio system.

Along with the Orpheum, the Los Angeles Theater is the only other theater that has been restored, with heavy chandeliers, a gilt ceiling in the lobby and a mural of circling cherubic angels decorating the dome over the nearly 2,000-seat auditorium. But even some of the others still bear traces of their former interior decor.

"There are some gems that we have but they've been covered with paint and plastered with signs," Huizar said. "We want to take that off and show all these beautiful gems."

Broadway's heyday as a film and vaudeville mecca continued through the1940s, Olnick said. It began its decline as movie theaters moved to Hollywood _ and later to Southern California's malls and multiplexes.

Periodic attempts to revive Broadway's nightlife failed, partly because landlords were satisfied with the rents they collected from discount merchants and were reluctant to gamble on the street's rebirth, said Hamid Behdad, who worked on revival plans as a community development official with three consecutive Los Angeles mayors before entering the private sector.

But property owners may see more of an upside to a Broadway renaissance today because of the growing demand for downtown condos and apartments, he said.

"I think there is a little bit of a light at the end of the tunnel," Behdad said.