Posted on 08/17/2025 6:21:42 PM PDT by BenLurkin
LOS ANGELES — Downtown in the City of Angels is looking more and more like a ghost town.
The famed Los Angeles neighborhood has become a shadow of its former glory — with rows of boarded up shops, chain stores leaving in droves and hoards of drug-using vagrants sparking major safety concerns for shoppers and business owners alike.
The Post can reveal that there are more than 100 vacant storefronts in the area’s Historic Core, which was the rip-roaring heart of the downtown shopping and entertainment district.
A map of business closures in the Historic Core of LA / Donald Pearsall / NY Post Design
The area’s Art Deco buildings and lavish theater marquees are still there, but they now overlook busted windows, boarded-up storefronts, and throngs of homeless people smoking drugs from glass pipes in broad daylight.
Around one-third of commercial spaces sits empty, according to research firm Avison Young — a higher vacancy rate than Detroit.
Even the most stalwart businesses are being driven out by crime, record-high rents and an ever-shrinking pool of Angelenos with any reason to be downtown, according to business owners.
“Many historical independent restaurants are struggling under the weight of these issues and have already closed, while those remaining are fighting to survive,” wrote the LA’s oldest eatery, Cole’s French Dip, when it announced its forthcoming closure.
And it’s not just mom-and-pop joints — chain stores have also been closing downtown locations at a disastrous clip. Macy’s shuttered earlier this year as part of a massive corporate downsizing, leaving downtown without a department store for the first time in 150 years, according to LA Magazine.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Let me guess. Global warming? Racism?
I guess the geniuses who thought Covid would be a good idea are getting their arses handed to them. Covid destroyed
large cities.
Just like in Minnesota and how the DFL (demoncrats) cheat to win, their tactics have been picked up by the Somali, and now the DFL will be voted out and Ahmed and MO will run the city.
I don’t think the DFL has anyway to beat this.
We are being told by our ‘betters’ that criticism of cities with black mayors and trying to do something to improve things is ‘racist’.
The hundreds of homeless that were just evicted from Washington, D.C. will no doubt work their way out to L.A. in due time.
I don’t go near downtown Los Angeles anymore. I used to have a subscription to the Philharmonic but that was thirty years ago.
They could rename it “Gavintown” or maybe “Bass Ackwards”
Cue the ‘Sanford and Son’ junkyard theme music.
Bingo, Covid or rather poor govt decisions did. All going to plan.
Trillions of dollars invested by the private sector plus zillions of taxpayer dollars given out by government plus tons of charitable gifts and services
And the center of America’s second- largest city is a dangerous dump with hundreds of deserted buildings.
Hum….
Just like downtown SF. Drug addicts & poop
This is what they voted for.
Now they’re getting it good and hard.
L
I walked around and photographed in the shaded area in the beginning of June.
It’s E6th and E7th to the east that are really campgrounds.
All the commercial districts I saw on Los Angeles looked sad, even the ‘Miracle Mile’. The Bernie Sanders restaurant near the Petersen Auto Museum was permanently closed.
Christian fundamentalism. They just won’t take the hint. Just bake the dang cake so it can be all bluebirds and rainbows going forward, okay? /S
2. 75% blacks. 20%hispanics.
Real hard stuff to figure out.
I always wonder where are these bums getting their money to spend on dope? Sure seems like there’s no shortage of that.
Wait. Did the article just say: “businesses are being driven out by crime, record-high rents and an ever-shrinking pool of Angelenos with any reason to be downtown”
Why would rents be record high in an area with high vacancy and crime, and low numbers of customers?
We like to go to L.A. Kings games downtown at the crypto.com arena, (formerly Staple’s ctr) but even that’s getting to be more dangerous all the time.
Karen Bass has been a disaster for L.A.
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