Disney Hall Has a Ripple Effect

Downtown Los Angeles has long been known as mostly a part-time city -- a place hustling and bustling during the week with workers who disappear come weekend.

That’s no longer the case at 1st Street and Grand Avenue, however. Throngs of people have been gathering at the corner on a daily basis, with cameras flashing and eyes glued to the city’s shiny new attraction: the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

The 2,265-seat venue is drawing crowds for its architecture in addition to its music. Proof of the public’s fascination with architect Frank Gehry’s steel-and-glass extravaganza can be seen in the hundreds of fingerprint smudges visitors have left on Disney Hall’s otherwise sleek exterior.

“People actually feel the need to touch the building,” Mark Slavkin, the Music Center’s vice president for education, said Saturday. “It’s a nice problem.”

An average of 1,000 people a day toured Disney Hall, the Music Center’s fourth venue, for free when it opened to the public in November. About 7,000 people stopped by last month even after fees were instituted for guided and self-guided tours.

Countless visitors, meanwhile, have enjoyed the outdoor gardens, which are open to the public, as is the first-floor lobby, which features a cafe and gift shop.

“I think some of Frank’s thought about it being the living room for the city is in fact true,” said Catherine Babcock, a spokeswoman for the Music Center. “The garden is used regularly by downtowners to take a break from the workday.”

“I’ve never made it to Bilbao, and I just wanted to see a piece of this spectacular brand of architecture,” said Debvvy Altman of Denver, referring to a museum in Spain designed by Gehry that has become a site of architectural pilgrimage. “It’s such a dynamic building, from every angle you look. It’s fun seeing so many different types of people walking about, to see such excitement about a building.”

Peering through the windows, she said the mixed use of metal and wood created a refined warmth that could only be sensed from up close.

Alix Maultiz, a USC student, said the hall’s location made it even more remarkable. “It’s an amazing building, and it adds badly needed life to downtown,” she said.

Sisters Jane and Anna Hoffman of Pasadena dropped by over the weekend with their grandfather, a retired structural engineer visiting from Chicago. “I like how you can’t see any of the screws or bolts,” said Anna Hoffman of the building’s gleaming exterior, which she captured from numerous angles with her camera. “It’s so beautiful,” her sister added.

“I’m so happy to be here today,” said Indio resident Don C. Garcia, who said he has watched the project develop over the years. “It was hard to visualize how it was going to look.”

The place was teeming Saturday morning with several hundred children and parents who showed up to catch a performance of “Pillow Theatre,” which was moved from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to Disney Hall. After enjoying a performance by a group of mimes, the children retreated to the gardens to make puppets.

Not even mimes and crafts could upstage Disney Hall, however. Christy Schnabel said her daughter, Isabella, 2, was more “enamored with the building than the theater.”

“They’re loving running through the corridor and exploring all the nooks and crannies,” said Schnabel, a resident of Santa Monica, as she hung out in the gardens with Melissa Di Rienzo and her nearly 3-year-old son, Ethan.

“It’s a big open space,” added Di Rienzo.

Long Beach resident Yolanda Johnson, a self-described “Disney person” who holds an annual passport to Disneyland, came with her son, Christopher, 5, and husband, Sanford. She snapped a picture of a fountain fashioned from broken blue and white Delft porcelain into the shape of a rose -- a tribute by Gehry to the late Lillian Disney, whose $50-million gift in 1987 set in motion what would become Disney Hall.

“I love it. It’s great. It’s wonderful,” Johnson said. “My husband was just commenting how downtown is shaping up and getting better.”

“I work downtown but I don’t often bring the kids here,” said Caprice Young, the former Los Angeles school board president turned chief executive of the newly formed California Charter Schools Assn. “We love that you can go exploring all around the building.”

Young, who visited Disney Hall with her mother, husband and three children, said her family also planned to swing by the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and have lunch at Grand Central Market.

Nearby restaurants have reported a modest ripple effect, with observers wondering whether Disney Hall can sustain the boost past the busy holiday season.

“Our sales have always been strong at our Wells Fargo Center location,” said Sarah Grover, a spokeswoman for California Pizza Kitchen. “However, since the opening of Disney Hall it has added additional business to our evenings and weekends.”

Chef Joachim Splichal, who moved his famed eatery, Patina, from Melrose Avenue to Disney Hall, said business at his downtown restaurants, which include Cafe Pinot, Nick and Stef’s Steakhouse and Zucca Ristorante, is up 15% to 18% since Disney Hall opened. He attributed part of the increase to the attention that has been showered on downtown, as a result of Disney Hall as well as the neighborhood’s burgeoning housing market and other developments.

“All that is important for driving business downtown,” Splichal said. “We will see what contribution Disney Hall will make on its own.”

Times staff writer Azadeh Moaveni contributed to this report.