I used to live in an apartment on Bunker Hill that claimed in its advertising that it was "adjacent" to the soon-to-be-built Disney Center. That was fourteen years ago, just after I passed the bar and was earning good money for the first time. Unfortunately, the Disney Center wouldn't even be started for another ten years, and my memories of living and working in Downtown Los Angeles were bleak and depressing. Nothing ever happened there until the Troubles of April 1992, but by then I had returned to the glamour and excitement of the Valley.

Anyway, tonight the Frank Gehry-designed concert hall opens to the public for the first time. In the past year, two major architectural accomplishments (Our Lady of Angels Cathedral opened last year) have been completed in the Downtown area, and the people of this community are starting to get a civic center that they can go to, rather than escape from.