Broadway & 87th Street shopping center

Broadway & 87th Street shopping center was an early retail complex in Los Angeles, California, located at 8701–8765 South Broadway between 87th and 88th streets in what is now known as the Broadway-Manchester neighborhood. Designed by Wisstein Bros. and Surval, the center was constructed in stages between 1936 and 1939. Architectural and urban-history researcher Richard Longstreth has characterized it as the first true neighborhood shopping center, reflecting an important transition in American retail from individually distributed storefronts toward coordinated local shopping destinations. The center was notable for assembling several large-format or widely recognized retailers in one location. Its anchor tenants included a Mayfair's Foodtown supermarket, Thrifty Drug Stores, Owl Rexall Drugs, Woolworth's, and Newberry's. The combination of a supermarket, drugstores, and variety stores gave nearby residents access to groceries, household goods, medicines, and general merchandise in a single district-serving complex. Mayfair's Foodtown was especially representative of the period's evolving supermarket format. The physical arrangement differed from many later shopping centers. Each store presented an individual street-facing façade rather than sharing a unified architectural treatment. Display windows faced Broadway and the other public streets, while the rear parking area was treated primarily as a practical service and access space, with no comparable retail display frontage. This arrangement preserved the visual character of a traditional street retail district while introducing a more coordinated property and tenant plan. The center also incorporated a shared rear parking lot for approximately 280 cars. The lot was roughly equal in area to the combined footprint of the stores and was considered an innovation when the development was built. Customers could continue to park along the street in front of the shops, while the rear lot provided a larger common parking resource. The combination of multiple anchors, shared parking, and a neighborhood-oriented tenant mix anticipated features that later became standard in suburban and urban shopping-center development. Over time, portions of the property changed use. The northernmost buildings were used as an indoor swap meet or bazaar. The property at 8701 South Broadway was sold on September 15, 2020, for $2.03 million. By March 2021, marketing materials described the site as the former South Los Angeles swap meet, indicating that the indoor swap-meet operation had ended or was no longer operating under that description. The available reference material does not establish a single current operator, owner, or unified retail brand for the entire complex.

Broadway & 87th Street shopping center was developed in stages between 1936 and 1939 at 8701–8765 South Broadway, between 87th and 88th streets, in Los Angeles's present-day Broadway-Manchester neighborhood. Wisstein Bros. and Surval designed the center. Its development belongs to an early period in the history of planned retail complexes, before the postwar spread of enclosed malls and large suburban commercial centers. The center's historical importance lies in its neighborhood scale and coordinated tenant program. It brought together a Mayfair's Foodtown supermarket, Thrifty Drug Stores, Owl Rexall Drugs, Woolworth's, and Newberry's. This mix combined food retail, pharmaceuticals, and general merchandise and allowed local shoppers to handle several routine purchasing needs at one destination. Richard Longstreth, a researcher and author of American commercial architecture, has described the property as the first true neighborhood shopping center. Its design combined conventional urban storefronts with an early shared-parking arrangement. Individual stores had separate façades facing the streets, and their display windows addressed pedestrians and passing traffic. There was no single unified façade or architectural treatment for the complex. The rear of the buildings faced a shared parking lot for about 280 cars, which was approximately the same size as the combined store area. At the time, providing a large common parking area behind a group of stores was an important innovation. The arrangement retained street parking and sidewalk-oriented storefronts while adding automobile access for a substantial number of customers. The treatment of the parking lot also reflects contemporary attitudes toward retail design. The shops did not provide major display windows or retail presentation toward the rear lot. Parking was understood mainly as a utilitarian function rather than as a principal public face of the shopping center. In this respect, the property combined older street-retail conventions with emerging planning ideas that would later become common in automobile-oriented commercial development. The center's later history is less fully documented in the available material. The northernmost buildings were used as an indoor swap meet, also described as a bazaar. The property at 8701 South Broadway changed hands in a sale recorded on September 15, 2020, for $2.03 million. By March 2021, the site was being marketed as the former South Los Angeles swap meet, indicating that the swap-meet operation had ended or was no longer active under that name. The sources do not identify a current unified owner, operator, tenant roster, or confirmed redevelopment plan for the broader property. As a result, the complex is best understood both as a surviving historic commercial site and as an example of the changing uses of early neighborhood shopping-center real estate.

• 2021

  Former swap-meet designation appears

  [1]Broadway & 87th Street shopping centeren.wikipedia.org

  By March, marketing materials refer to the site as the former South Los Angeles swap meet, indicating that the indoor swap-meet use had ceased or changed.

• 2020

  8701 South Broadway property sold

  [1]Broadway & 87th Street shopping centeren.wikipedia.org

  The property at 8701 South Broadway is sold on September 15 for $2.03 million.

• 1939

  Multi-stage development completed

  [1]Broadway & 87th Street shopping centeren.wikipedia.org

  The shopping center is built out through a series of stages, establishing its group of street-facing stores and shared rear parking.

• 1936

  Construction begins

  [1]Broadway & 87th Street shopping centeren.wikipedia.org

  Construction of the Broadway & 87th Street shopping center begins on South Broadway in Los Angeles.

A historically significant urban neighborhood shopping center serving South Los Angeles through a coordinated mix of grocery, drugstore, and variety-store tenants, distinguished by shared rear parking and multiple street-facing storefronts.

• Supermarket

  Mayfair's Foodtown

  A supermarket anchor that supplied groceries and related food merchandise. Its presence was significant because the supermarket format represented a modernized approach to neighborhood food shopping during the period when the center was developed.

• Drugstore

  Thrifty Drug Stores

  One of the shopping center's two drugstore anchors. It contributed prescription, over-the-counter, health, and convenience merchandise to the center's neighborhood-oriented retail mix.

• Drugstore

  Owl Rexall Drugs

  A second drugstore anchor, complementing the supermarket and variety stores with pharmaceutical and everyday health-related retail services.

• Variety store

  Woolworth's

  A nationally recognized variety-store tenant offering general merchandise. Its inclusion helped broaden the center's appeal beyond grocery and pharmacy shopping.

• Variety store

  Newberry's

  A variety-store anchor that formed part of the center's unusually large collection of major tenants for an early neighborhood shopping center.

• Local marketplace

  Indoor swap meet

  The northernmost buildings were later used as an indoor swap meet or bazaar, providing a different, more informal retail format from the original supermarket, drugstore, and variety-store configuration.

1. 1Broadway & 87th Street shopping centeren.wikipedia.org