This week I set out to explore Century City. LA Times’ Mapping LA project describes the neighborhood of Century City as the area bordered by Pico Boulevard on the south, Beverly Glen on the west, Santa Monica on the north, and a combination of Heath Ave and Beverly Hills High School on the east. My trip began at the Century City Westfield Mall through a pedestrian walkway to Century Park, down Century Park to Constellation, from Constellation down to the Avenue of the Stars, and finally to Galaxy. The neighborhood, a business district, is covered in skyscrapers, dotted with hotels and anchored by one of the nicest malls in Los Angeles. Century City is one of many centers in the vast multi-centered metropolitan region of Los Angeles. The neighborhood shares many characteristics with other business-centered districts located within a larger metropolitan area such as in Orange County. Paul Goldberger’s, New York Times architectural critic, description of the “Costa Mesa-Newport Beach-Irvine complex” as the result of post-suburban planning and it’s movement towards a combination of a conventional city and suburb could easily be applied to the area I explored (Kling et al 10)
The first thing I noticed as a passed along Santa Monica Boulevard as I drove into Century City was the specialized notches in the road for buses to pull over; This type of forward-thinking city planning, which is lacking in much of Los Angeles, allows for a much appreciated decrease in congestion. This is a feature certainly needed across Wilshire in Beverly Hills!
I parked in the Westfield mall parking lot (three hours free!), and walked from the mall through the rest of the district. I’ve been to the Century City mall countless times since I was a kid, and it’s been my main viewpoint of the district. I didn’t spend that much time strolling through the mall but should note that it is decidedly upscale. The currency exchange kiosk caught my attention as I exited the mall. The shop exemplifies the cosmopolitan nature of the district; as the mall and district itself draw tourists or traveling business people. The mall is significant as it acts as both a social center via its large movie theatre but also serves residents with it’s supermarket and shopping center.
I exited the outdoor mall and walked onto the pedestrian bridge that arches over Avenue of the Stars and leads into the rest of the neighborhood. The architecture and city development was astounding. There were plenty of observations to note standing on the bridge; this avenue is six lanes wide with a highly developed and vegetated median. The street width is intriguing since it runs only from Santa Monica to Pico (0.9 miles long). Well-maintained trees line the sidewalks. The bridge leads into a plaza with multiple business high-rises. The plaza seems to have been designed with pedestrian traffic between businesses in mind. Carefully designed and maintained planters strategically break up the plaza. Not surprisingly, I saw lots of business types but with ethnically diverse backgrounds as well. I’ve seen several similar pedestrian-based business areas in Downtown Los Angeles. What sets Century City apart from those is its cleanliness; the area was decorated with maintenance and gardening crews. This is probably what the planners of Century City intended.
The walkway/plaza took me all the way to Century Park. There are many more businesses lining this street, some with new upscale cars parked in front. I took a right onto Constellation Boulevard and walked into a second open space. Here I found a large grassy park-like area between several skyscrapers. The area was set up with tables and benches for employees on their lunch breaks. I then noticed I was standing outside of The Annenberg Space for Photography. I exit towards Avenue of the Stars, and immediately encountered an enormous fountain in the middle of the street; the city planners had obviously intended for grandiose presentation.
Avenue of the Stars led me over Olympic Boulevard, overpassing it much like a freeway. Traffic feeds from both these streets in an interchange fashion which one could see in a freeway, this is very peculiar. Anyway, I walk over Olympic and saw the Fox Plaza. Fox Plaza was the setting for the first Die Hard, in which it was called the Nakatomi Plaza. This is the reminence of when Fox used to own all of Century City, and this entire district was part of its backlot. Fox had planned to develop the land into a similar district, but due to some financial losses the company sold Century City to William Zeckendorf (link). Fox studios still comprises much of the real estate in Century City.
Across the street from Fox Plaza is a residential village, which seems like an anomaly in such a business-minded area. Similarly, west of Fox Hills Drive there is a residential district of mostly single family homes that likely preceded the rise of Century City as a business forward area.
What I saw in Century City was a carefully manicured and thriving business district combined with residential high-rises, smaller family homes, and a multi-purpose shopping mall. The neighborhood’s design reflects Rob Kling’s arguments in “The Emergence of Postsuburbia” as the post-suburban area being multinucleated, with it’s city centers having combined characteristics of both cities and suburban areas (Kling et al 11). There is methodical design and urban planning prevalent in Century City, and its planners clearly intended to impress. They certainly succeeded. Century City of today continues to impress as tourists and employees alike.
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