Pershing Square
between Fifth and Sixth streets and Olive and Hill streets
Open 24 hours

Continue east through the park to Hill Street, and you will be in one of the largest jewelry districts in the United States..

This is one of the few remaining sites that is part of the city's original Spanish land grant, then named "La Plaza Abaja," when laid out as a formal Spanish plaza in 1866. It was redesigned in the 1890's and renamed "Central Park." It was redesigned again in 1918 and its name was changed to "Pershing Square" in honor of WWI General John Pershing. During the 1950's, Pershing Square was stripped of vegetation, with many of the specimen trees shipped to Disneyland for the Jungle Cruise ride. The latest revision, in 1994 by noted architect Ricardo Legorreta, incorporates a variety of public artworks including its focal point, the 120-foot high, purple campanile. A wonderfully evocative quote by a leading social critic in the 1940's, Carey McWilliams, is engraved on a stone wall near a fountain where water mimics the tidal activity of the sea. You will also find an earthquake "fault line" and dated picture postcards of how L.A. and Pershing Square once looked.