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DTLA Los Angeles centers on ROW DTLA, a commercial district at the intersection of the Fashion District, Skid Row, and the Arts District. It grew from the historic Alameda Square complex, where the Seventh Street Produce Market began in nineteen seventeen. Walk the market campus, then look for the old rail-side buildings.
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The Market Campus
Start at the edge of ROW DTLA, where the Fashion District, Skid Row, and the Arts District meet. This is the old Alameda Square complex, repurposed into a commercial district that spans thirty acres. The Seventh Street Produce Market occupies a five-acre area inside the campus, and it began in nineteen seventeen. Look for the long market lanes, the rail-side buildings, and the scale of the old produce trade. At one point, the majority of the region's produce business was conducted here. Walk toward the open-air market area, then look for the buildings that still feel like a working wholesale campus.
Rail and Produce
Follow the logic of the railroad. The Terminal Market was designed by John Parkinson and constructed between nineteen seventeen and nineteen twenty-three. It sat at the terminus of the Southern Pacific Railroad, connecting the port with downtown by rail. That link helped the campus become a hub for produce growers. Between the nineteen twenties and the nineteen eighties, the complex housed two of Los Angeles' largest wholesale produce markets, Seventh Street and Ninth Street. In nineteen eighty-six, operations were consolidated under the Los Angeles Wholesale Produce Market. Walk the rail-side campus, then look for the port-to-downtown rail connection.
Sunday Food and New Life
Come back on Sunday, when the Seventh Street Produce Market becomes Smorgasburg, a food market inside ROW DTLA. The district also carries newer layers: it opened in two thousand seventeen, and until the late two thousand tens the site served as American Apparel's headquarters and manufacturing base. The mixed-use development includes one hundred retail stores, restaurants, and commercial workspace. The marketplace occupies a five-acre area within the larger thirty-acre district. Walk the converted market aisles, then look for the contrast between produce-market history and the food stalls that fill the same open-air footprint.