The late-Victorian-era Downtown of Los Angeles in 1880 was centered at the southern end of the Los Angeles Plaza area, and over the next two decades, it extended south and west along Main Street, Spring Street, and Broadway towards Third Street. Most of the 19th-century buildings no longer exist, surviving only in the Plaza area or south of Second Street. The rest were demolished to make way for the Civic Center district with City Hall, numerous courthouses, and other municipal, county, state and federal buildings, and Times Mirror Square. This article covers that area, between the Plaza, 3rd St., Los Angeles St., and Broadway, during the period 1880 through the period of demolition (1920s–1950s).

At the time (1880–1900s), the area was referred to as the business center, business section or business district. By 1910, it was referred to as the "North End" of the business district which by then had expanded south to what is today called the Historic Core, along Broadway, Spring and Main roughly from 3rd to 9th streets.

By the mid-1890s, First and Spring was the center of the business district; the Bradbury Building opened in 1893 at Third and Broadway and is still standing today. By 1910, the area north of Fourth Street was considered the "North End" of the business district and there were already concerns about its deterioration, as the center of commerce moved to what is now known as the Historic Core, from Third to Ninth streets.

The map shows the street grid in 1910, and shows in blue three important road alignment changes that came in the 1920s–1950s:

Cable cars of the Temple Street Cable Railway ran along Temple Street starting in 1886 and were replaced with Pacific Electric streetcars in 1902.

This location was at the time known as Pound Cake Hill. The buildings located here faced New High Street to their east and Broadway to their west. They were as follows:

Currently on the site are:

Adjacent to the south, mid-block, is a portion of Grand Park.