Third Street Promenade, formerly the Third Street Mall, is a three-block pedestrian shopping, dining and entertainment district stretching from Broadway to Wilshire Boulevard. Known for its street performers, restaurants, shops, movie theaters and outdoor gathering spaces, the Promenade became one of Southern California’s best-known pedestrian retail districts during the 1990s and 2000s. Its distinctive streetscape includes fountains and whimsical dinosaur-shaped topiary sculptures created by artists Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne. Although the district has faced changing retail habits, store closures and other challenges in recent years, it remains one of downtown’s principal public spaces and a major connection between Santa Monica Place, the downtown business district and the beach.

Third Street had long been one of Santa Monica’s main shopping streets, but by the late 1950s downtown merchants were losing customers to suburban shopping centers. In response, the city closed three blocks of Third Street to most automobile traffic and opened the Third Street Mall in 1965, one of the country’s early experiments with a pedestrianized downtown shopping street. The mall enjoyed only limited success and declined further after the enclosed Santa Monica Place opened at its southern end in 1980. During the 1980s, the city and local business community developed a new plan emphasizing entertainment, restaurants and public space. After a two-year, roughly $10 million renovation, the district reopened in September 1989 as Third Street Promenade.

Third Street Promenade

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