L.A.'s Broadway Theater District is bustling, loud, occasionally squalid, full of rough-hewn charm, and packed with potential. This street was the center of the city's movie theater district from around 1910 to 1930. Nearly all of the buildings the theaters were housed in still exist, although none of them are being used today as a first-run movie theater. We turned out a group of 20 MC101s and guests to tour the district with leaders from the Los Angeles Conservancy. Randy, our group's leader, starts his lesson on the sidewalk.

We were told that the Broadway Theater District (about six blocks) is on the National Register of Historic Places. A big part of its appeal (and historical significance) is that there are very few post-WWII buildings on this segment of the street

Today, the Theater District is all about adaptive reuse. Turns out that these spaces are being used for everything except their intended purpose. This building, which once housed the Arcade Theater, is now home to an electronics store. The marquee of the fomer Cameo Theater is in the background.

	It was very weird to be inside what was once a thousand-seat movie theater, looking at the proscenium arch over where the movie screen once was while standing in a storage area full of boom boxes and TVs.
	The former Rialto Theater is now a place to buy discount clothing.
	The theater in the background--once run by Alexander Pantages, and later a Warner Bros. theater--is now a jewelry mart.

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