Rodeo Drive

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
For the game show, see Rodeo Drive (game show).
 This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2009)
Rodeo Drive in 2006.
Rodeo Drive sign.

Rodeo Drive (play /roʊˈdeɪ.oʊ/) of Beverly Hills, California is a shopping district known for designer label and haute couture fashion. The name generally refers to a three-block long stretch of boutiques and shops but the street stretches further north and south.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] First European contact

On August 3, 1769 (when California was part of Mexico), Don José Gaspar de Portolà, the first governor of provincial California, and his entourage, the Portola expedition, became the first Europeans known to arrive in the area, having traveled an existing Indian trail (present-day Wilshire Boulevard) to the present-day site of La Cienega Park, named for a large swamp — "ciénega" in Spanish —

While Portolà fell somewhat short of reaching Cíbola, the expedition's chaplain, Friar Juan Crespí, wrote in his journal of

" [a] large vineyard of wild grapes and an infinity of rose bushes. After traveling about half a league we came to a village of this region. People came into the road, greeted us and offered seeds."

Following the death of her Spanish soldier husband, Afro-Latina and early California feminist icon Doña Maria Rita Valdez de Villa was granted the deed to the area in 1838. She operated the Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas there until its sale in 1854 to Benjamin D. Wilson and Henry Hancock for $4000. "Hotel California," the Beverly Hills Hotel, now stands where her adobe home once stood, about a half-mile north of the present-day Rodeo Drive shopping district.

[edit] Modern development

In 1906, Burton E. Green and other investors purchased the property with plans for a mixed-use subdivision. With a nod to the region's heritage, they named their company the Rodeo Land and Water Company and the development's main street Rodeo Drive. However, the main force to Beverly Hills as the exclusive shopping area it is today was the star stud boutique, Giorgios .The shopping district as presently constituted developed in the 1970s. The business district, which extends from Wilshire Boulevard to Santa Monica Boulevard, is an exclusive shopping district, but also a major tourist attraction. The "Rodeo Drive" business district also includes those businesses on the streets that lie for a few blocks in either direction.

[edit] Retailers

[edit] Possible subway link

The Beverly Hills City Council, which had previously opposed the building of a subway line through the city, endorsed the construction of a subway line through the city down Wilshire Boulevard in November 2006. The City has proposed building a station of the Purple Line at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard between Beverly and Rodeo drives.[1] On August 3, 2011, the Rodeo Drive Committee, the street's non-profit association of merchants, landlords and hotelier voted almost unanimously to support construction of a nearby subway station contrary to previous media reports that the merchants were against the project [2].

[edit] See also

Portal icon Los Angeles portal


[edit] References

  1. ^ "The Metro Red Line Extension". City of Beverly Hills Mass Transit Committee.
  2. ^ [1]


[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Rodeo Drive

Coordinates: 34°4′9.23″N 118°24′10.76″W / 34.0692306°N 118.4029889°W / 34.0692306; -118.4029889

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rodeo_Drive&oldid=477728955"
Personal tools
Namespaces
Variants
Actions
Navigation
Interaction
Toolbox
Print/export
Languages