Downtown Market Gets a Face Lift : Grand Central Will Fete 70th Birthday With Beauty Restored
The Grand Old Lady of Broadway will turn 70 in 1987, and she’s already getting ready for her birthday with some beauty treatments that will make her look decades younger.
She is the Grand Central Public Market, and like the Statue of Liberty, she’s getting a “a real cosmetic overhaul,” as Ira Yellen describes it. He expects the first phase to be completed by the end of this year.
Yellen--who grew up in Van Nuys and always liked the downtown market as “an active place filled with people, food and smells”--heads a partnership that bought the property, including the market, on Broadway between 3rd and 4th streets, last year for about $6 million.
“I don’t know what the long-range cost to fix up the tower and the rest of the property will be,” he conceded, but he estimated that Phase 1 expenditures will amount to $600,000 to $700,000--not including what the merchants themselves are investing.
Reflect Market’s Heyday
The first phase involves painting and cleaning, as well as changing the signs--from “‘50s plastic to ‘40s neon,” says Brenda Levin, project architect.
The style might be called “the new look of tradition” as it will reflect the market’s heyday, which Tracy Lyon, manager/partner of the market, figures was between the late ‘30s and early ‘50s.
“We never entirely lost that look,” he said, “because the showcases are the same as they were 40 years ago.”
Lyon is only 37, but his grandfather created a master floor plan for the market in 1939 that is still in use. “Only two families have been owners of the property in all these years,” he said, “the Laughlins and the Lyons.”
‘Always Had a Store’
Homer Laughlin Sr. bought the land in 1896 and commissioned architect John Parkinson to build the six-story structure that houses the market. “The ground floor always had a store in it,” Lyon said.
“When the building was completed in 1898, the store was the Coulter Dry Goods Co. Then, in 1905, the building was expanded. The back wall was chopped off.” The ground floor was extended to Hill Street, and two stories were added overhead.
By 1908, he said, the ground level housed a department store that was supposed to compete with the May Co. and the Broadway, which had opened nearby.
“The department store lasted until 1917, when the market opened almost overnight,” Lyon recalled hearing. “The department store’s lease ran out in August, and a new lease was signed for the market in September.”
The Metropolitan Water District occupied offices on the upper floors of the Broadway building for years, and the Central Library was located on the two upper floors of the Hill Street expansion from 1906 to 1908, Lyon said. With time, the upper floors of the Broadway building were vacated, and the upper floors of the annex were used for storage.
Turned Down Buyers
The Lyon family was involved in the market from its inception, first strictly in a management role, then gradually in an ownership position. “My father and aunt were majority owners when Ira (Yellen) bought it,” Lyon said. By then, the Laughlins were minority owners.
“My dad said ‘no’ so many times to people who wanted to buy it, but he finally said ‘yes’ when Ira showed that he intended to preserve and restore the buildings,” Lyon said.
“There was a lot of publicity when the property was sold to Ira, but the whole intent was to bring me back in as a partner and to renovate the place, as the family couldn’t afford to do.”
This is actually the market’s third renovation. The first was in 1940. The second was in 1961, under the direction of Lyon’s father, Beach Lyon, who installed the current facade. Yellen’s goal is to have a new facade in place during 1987.
Most From Broadway
The most noticeable changes until then will be on the Broadway side of the market, which Lyon said “we recognize as our doormat.” An estimated 80% of the market’s shoppers leave or enter the market from Broadway, and most of those shoppers are Latinos, although the market has always reflected immigration patterns through its shoppers and vendors, Lyon noted.
Even now, 20 languages are spoken by the merchants, and Yellen expects this diversity to grow as the part of town where the market is situated is redeveloped.
Even so, he said, “Grand Central was a neighborhood grocery store, and it still is, though the neighborhood has expanded to include East Los Angeles.”
He and Lyon want to show that they are trying to respond to the Latino community’s needs. Levin even chose a paint for the interior that is black with flecks of hot pink, green and purple--”to tie in with the community,” she said.
Family-Oriented Store
Latinos “love to shop on Broadway and in the market,” Lyon observed, “but we want to clean up both, add more security and provide more food uses.”
Because he and Yellen perceive the market and the Latino community as being family oriented, a business that has operated on the Broadway side for 45 years is being eliminated.
The business: a beer bar--”the only place in downtown L. A. that is allowed to sell beer on the sidewalk,” Lyon said.
Added Yellen: “It isn’t something I think people should experience as soon as they walk into Grand Central Market.”
Most Tenants to Stay
It will be replaced by a restaurant, expected to be open by January or February, next to a juice bar and produce stand, which is being rebuilt.
Some clothing and dry-goods vendors also will be replaced in the next few months, but most tenants will remain. “We have some going back 30 to 40 years,” Yellen said, and one man, William Dolgenow, who operates a deli, has been there 52 years.
By Christmas 1987, Yellen hopes to be redoing the Hill Street side of the market, which caters to Bunker Hill office workers and residents, with “some exciting restaurant operations,” the first planned to be open by Thanksgiving.
Then he’ll start concentrating on the rest of the buildings: the two upper stories in the annex and the five floors or 60,000 square feet of abandoned office space. The whole project is slightly more than 100,000 square feet, with the market occupying 40,000 to 55,000.
Parking Structure
“We’ve been approached by a culinary school for those upper floors, and we’re also considering the idea of creating a food center, with the market on the ground floor, kitchenware on another floor and so on.” Levin said, “It’s a possibility that we’ll put in escalators to bring it all together.”
Yellen’s group also acquired the site between the market and 3rd Street on Hill Street for a parking structure, not for office users, but for shoppers at the market and anyone going to the adjacent Million-Dollar theater building, which Yellen has been looking to buy.
Whether or not he ever owns it, though, he hopes that the parking facility will help bring the rest of the building, which has not shared the popularity of the movie house, “back to life.”
It’s part of a vision he shares with Bruce Corwin, president of Metropolitan Theatre Corp. (the theater-operating company), and Roger Luby, who is redeveloping the former Broadway (department-store) building at 4th Street and Broadway.
‘Grandest Theaters’
“We’ve formed a nonprofit corporation to help see that Broadway, Spring and Hill are all revitalized,” he announced, “and we hope to make a proposal to the city before Christmas.”
He was vague about proposal specifics but said, “There is no reason we couldn’t have a theater community resurrecting these old buildings. Did you know that we have some of the grandest theaters in the world on Broadway? We believe the area could be like Westwood (in terms of vitality).”
The nonprofit corporation is called “Miracle on Broadway,” but Yellen appears to be a realist. He is 46 and is married, with two children.
Developed Shopping Centers
He attended Princeton and Harvard before starting his eight-year Beverly Hills legal practice. He worked for 10 years developing shopping centers and office buildings with Fred Nicholas before leaving on what he terms his “first solo project,” putting together the Grand Central Public Market.
No, Yellen is not just dreaming, he asserts. “A few other private investors and I all feel that it’s only a matter of time before the whole area around Grand Central changes.” And now that he’s taken the lead in changing the market, he’s certain that the rest will follow.
The Grand Old Lady of Broadway could be at the head of a parade.
