It was 1929 when the prestigious Bullock's department store opened its doors on Wilshire Boulevard. Property owners wanted to attract other classy shopping establishments. They decided their target audience was ladies who shopped. Matt Roth, historian with the Automobile Club of Southern California, says property owners set about making Wilshire "female friendly."

"They contribute money for special lamp posts, for trees, they're effectively making it into a kind of refined park-like atmosphere. Which is specifically geared to women shoppers. This is a gendered environment. And they actually take, consciously take elements of park design, as it evolved in the 19th century, which was able to kind of stipulate areas for middle class women, white women, by the kinds of plantings and carriage roads – as opposed the areas set aside for the noisier pursuits of middle class park uses. So they create refined areas as a procession of consumption."

Today, the only thing consumed at the Bullocks Wilshire building is legal knowledge. What used to be L.A.'s most elegant department store is now the law library at the Southwestern School of Law.

(Airdate for this story: 12/22/07)