The hub of Downtown’s historic core, Pershing Sq was LA’s first public park in 1866 and is now a postmodern concrete patch enlivened by public art, summer concerts, a holiday-season ice rink and the hulking 1923 Millennium Biltmore Hotel .
LA’s most illustrious defender of the grand-hotel tradition, it has hosted presidents, kings and celebrities, plus the 1960 Democratic National Convention and eight Academy Awards ceremonies. Its sumptuous interior boasts carved and gilded ceilings, marble floors, grand staircases and palatial ballrooms decorated by White House muralist Giovanni Smeraldi.
