Century City, Los Angeles, California

Encyclopedia : C : CE : CEN : Century City, Los Angeles, California

"Century City" redirects here. For , see .

Century City Skyline on an unusually smog-free day as seen from Runyon Canyon. Feb. 19th, 2006

View of the Century City skyline from the Getty Center. Downtown Los Angeles (Bunker Hill district) can faintly be seen to the north-west of Century City. Taken December 22, 2004.

Century City is a 176 acre (712,000 m²) commercial and residential district on the West Side of Los Angeles, California. It is bounded by Westwood on the west, Rancho Park on the southwest, Cheviot Hills and Beverlywood on the southeast, and the city of Beverly Hills on the northeast. Its major thoroughfares are Santa Monica, Olympic, and Pico Boulevards (its northern boundary, central artery, and southern boundary, respectively), as well as Avenue of the Stars and Century Park East and West.

Century City is an important business center, and many law firms and executives--particularly those with ties to the film, television, and music industries--have offices there. Its Westfield-owned shopping mall is one of the major retail centers in Los Angeles. It is one of the original edge cities in the country, although it has always been a part of the city of Los Angeles.

Skyscrapers

The high-rise buildings along Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood appear to blend in with those of Century City when seen at a distance, although they are separated by over three-fourths of a mile (1.2 km).

Its gleaming high-rises stand in stark contrast to the small apartment buildings and single-family detached homes in the lower-density neighborhoods surrounding it, and were some of the first skyscrapers built in Los Angeles after the lifting of earthquake-related height restrictions in the early 1960s.

One of the buildings of Century City is Fox Plaza, most well known for being Nakatomi Plaza in the movie Die Hard.

History

Fox Plaza up close.

Once a backlot of 20th Century Fox, which still has its headquarters just to the south, the Fox studio commissioned a master-plan development from Welton Becket Associates, which was unveiled at a major press event on the 'western' backlot in 1957. In 1963 the first building, Century City Gateway West, was complete, followed the next year by Minoru Yamasaki's Century Plaza Hotel.

It originally was planned to be served by the Beverly Hills Freeway and on a rapid transit corridor. However, neither of these transportation improvements came to pass, and so Century City is a source of traffic irritation for the residents of Cheviot Hills to the south, since there is no direct freeway access to the center. It is likely that any westward extension of the Los Angeles MTA's Metro Red Line subway will include a stop at Century City.

Skyline of Century City from a parking lot at USC.

External links

[Maps and aerial photos] Coordinates: [34.05556° -118.41694°]
* Street map from [Google Maps] or [Yahoo! Maps]
* Topographic map from [TopoZone]
* Aerial image or topographic map from [TerraServer-USA]
* Satellite image from [Google Maps] or [Windows Live Local]
[Los Angeles Times, Real Estate section, Neighborly Advice column: "Century City: Upscale living in Tinseltown's back lot" (11 Jan 2004)]

[History of the Century Plaza Hotel]

At the southern end of Century City, Fox Plaza towers over the nearby neighborhoods.

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