Talk:Wilshire Center, Los Angeles

Keep Koreatown and Wilshire Center pages distinct

I and many others do object to the merging of the Koreatown and Wilshire Center pages. The Wilshire Center is live and well. It is a place which has a rich history and a great future. There are many who call the area bounded by 3rd Street on the north, 8th Street on the south, Hoover Street on the east, and Wilton Place on the west as Wilshire Center. And there are many who are working to make Wilshire Center a better place to live, work and shop. All one has to do is visit the Wilshire Center Business Improvement District web site at www.wilshirecenter.com to see some of the Wilshire Center story. Glra (talk) 19:04, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Even though everyone in the area refers to most of Wilshire Center as "Koreatown", they ARE distinct historically. Please only list buildings on the page that refers to the district in which they are located. I would rather see several notices on the "Koreatown" page saying "See Wilshire Center article" than have the two pages duplicate a lot of information. Downtowngal (talk) 23:48, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Wilshire Center no longer exists, except maybe as just the buildings that front Wilshire between Hoover and Wilton - a sub-neighborhood of Koreatown at this point despite its historical importance. I'd rather see Wilshire Center be a part of the Koreatown Page. EmergentProperty (talk) 23:48, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

There are also buildings from the early 20th c. on 6th St., 7th St., 8th St., New Hampshire and possibly others. I would be open to including a more prominent link to "See also (Koreatown)" on the page, and vice versa, and a more prominent disclaimer that some residents (not all) refer to both as "Koreatown." From a FUNCTIONAL point of view, they are similar, but Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and I think it's valuable to preserve the historic uniqueness of Wilshire Center. Downtowngal (talk) 21:43, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I didn't mean that there aren't historic buildings off of Wilshire, but rather that the cultural place-name "Wilshire Center" only applies now to Wilshire Blvd itself, and even then it is a part of Koreatown and not a distinct neighborhood. The buildings as physical objects may have been built when the area was called Wilshire Center, but what happens in them and around them today is Koreatown. I agree that it's important to discuss the historic neighborhood of Wilshire Center, but it seems confusing rather than helpful to have totally separate articles for them. That's why I think it would be better for Wilshire Center to be a section of the Koreatown article (with a redirect from just "Wilshire Center"), so we could talk about the history and the current activity without too much duplication of effort.EmergentProperty (talk) 00:35, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I would be willing to have you incorporate the entire "History of Wilshire Center" as a subhead on the Koreatown page, with the redirect, but that section would be quite long. I think it's also important to make clear that historically these were different areas. Do you want to take a stab at it?Downtowngal (talk) 22:16, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I would enjoy doing that. As you can see, I'm a sporadic editor, but I'll do it soon (unless someone else does it first - I won't be offended). I'll have to research how to move/retain this page's history first. EmergentProperty (talk) 01:26, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, it seems from this help page that history is retained simply by linking to this source page, which will keep its history even after turning into a redirect. It is suggested that a tag proposing the merger be added for a while first, so I've done that. EmergentProperty (talk) 18:27, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I must object to the merging of the Koreatown and Wilshire Center pages. Though Koreatown is a neighborhood inside the larger Wilshire Center, and both are a part of the Mid-Wilshire District, there is an obvious distinctness of the neighborhood, thus being labeled Koreatown. Many historical facts on Wilshire Center do not figure into the history of Koreatown, nor would most facts lend any weight to the current status or future development of Koreatown. When people talk of the 1992 LA Riots, I have never heard or read of the massive damage of the Wilshire Center during the riots. They speak of the massive damage suffered by Koreatown. When one looks at the gentrification of LA, I have never seen anyone cite Wilshire Center as the beginning and focal point of the transition. Koreatown is noted as the focal point of the city's gentrification. When the city council adopted the smart-growth vision, it was the mayor who said Koreatown will be made the model for the Los Angeles of the future, he didn't mention Wilshire Center at all. Of course some history of Wilshire Center is part of the Koreatown history, but simply redirecting pages or merging histories dilutes both Wilshire Center and Koreatown and strips them of their identity and culture.

Los Angeles is part of California and both are part of the United States. Shall we redirect LA's history to California's or maybe merge both LA and CA's history into US History? Of course not. Ripper777 (talk) 09:35, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the articles should be merged. Other than the one reference in the Wilshire Center article, I've never heard of anyone distinguishing the "two" neighborhoods in practice. In fact, the areas labeled as "Wilshire Center" in the eponymous article are all called "Koreatown" these days, and the signs leading into the area are very misleading and contradictory. It seems to me that the "two" neighborhoods share enough overlap to be called one neighborhood with two names, where the two names refer to two stages in the history of the region's development. I strongly favor redirecting Wilshire Center to Koreatown, and having a special section or two describing the history of the neighborhood under the "Wilshire Center" name, and on nomenclature. I respectfully disagree with Ripper777, in that I don't think that the Koreatown-Wilshire Center nomenclature issue is parallel to a comparison of LA, California, and the US. The latter three terms are not interchangeable, while Koreatown and Wilshire Center are (at least as far as I've heard from residents and non-residents alike). --SameerKhan (talk) 19:41, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

We have to think of why people would be using Wikipedia. They aren't just potential residents. Some people WILL run into the term "Wilshire Center" in their historical researches and so we should retain a section for it. At minimum, it should have a) the historical information and b) an explanation of today's official and unofficial nomenclature. Furthermore, I don't consider the area west of Wilshire and Western "Koreatown", yet anyway. The term doesn't really cover all of Wilshire Center.Downtowngal (talk) 00:53, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

If a Wilshire Center section was created in the Koreatown, Los Angeles, California‎ article, "wilshire center" (and varieties of spelling and capitalization) would redirect to the Wilshire Center section of the Koreatown article. In other words, folks searching would find what they are looking for.

It appears that the general consensus above is that Wilshire Center should be merged into Koreatown. Additional comments/discussion...? --guyzero | talk 16:54, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Merge Wilshire, Los Angeles, here

The Wilshire, Los Angeles, article as presently constituted does not have any sources to show it is an actual neighborhood. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 00:54, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

The article mentioned above has been redirected to Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 01:36, 28 December 2015 (UTC)