Historic Buildings of Downtown Los Angeles

In 2005, the Downtown Neighborhood Council funded an Historic Resources Survey to identify historic or potentially historic buildings within their boundaries. Many downtown buildings have been designated historic on local, state and national registers. These properties include parking garages, former department stores, old banks, movie theaters, warehouses and a wide variety of other building types.The goal of this project was to create a comprehensive database of historic buildings in a format that can be easily accessed by the public.

The results of this project are:

an interactive map with photos and data for each building, including address, construction dates, ZIMAS (city planning department) parcel number and link, builder, architect, and historic status.
a kmz file accessible via Google Earth that shows all of the above information plus building footprints.
a searchable list of historic information and photos.
a printable map of the entire Downtown Neighborhood Council area. These maps are available for free at the Downtown Los Angeles Business Improvement District or at my office in the USC Department of Geography.

The information contained within these documents is accurate to the best of the knowledge of the surveyors. Collection of data was conducted in 2006 and the on-the-ground survey was conducted between August 2006 and January 2007. For more information on the National Historic Register, visit the website of the National Register of Historic Places. For more information on historic preservation in Los Angeles, visit the website of the Los Angeles Conservancy. The Getty Conservation Institute is in the early stages of putting together a complete survey of the City of Los Angeles' historic resources. This survey will investigate all buildings in the city, not just those previously deemed historic.