begun to connect Buena Vista Street to Downey Avenue, which ran from the river to Mission Road. The names of Buena Vista and Downey were then changed to North Broadway, but not without significant objections from affected residents and landowners. The bridge, which continued to be referred to as the Buena Vista Street Bridge for a good while, was opened to traffic in late September 1911. Los Angeles' central commercial and entertainment street For more than 50 years, Broadway from 1st Street to Olympic Boulevard was the main commercial street of Los Angeles, and one of its premier theater and movie palace districts as well. It contains a vast number of historic buildings and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Prior to the turn of the 20th century, the city's Central Business District was further north, along Spring and Main streets between the Plaza and 2nd Street. In 1895 J.W. Robinson's opened what was then considered a very large and impressive four-story department store at 239 S. Broadway, signaling of the shift over the next decade and a half of the main shopping district to Broadway below 2nd Street. Retail hub From around 1905 through the 1950s, Broadway was considered the center of the city, where residents went to ornate movie palaces and live theaters, and shopped at major department stores and shops. See the Table of department stores on Broadway and Seventh streets below. The square footage of the four largest department stores alone — Bullock's at , The Broadway at , May Co. at over and J. W. Robinson's (7th St. at Hope) at — totaled over three million square feet, the size of American Dream Meadowlands, America's largest mall today. Among dozens of significant buildings from that era are the Bradbury Building, Ace Hotel Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles Examiner building designed by Julia Morgan. Some of the movie theaters on the street fell into disuse and disrepair, some were replaced with parking lots, but many have been repurposed and/or restored. The department stores closed in the 1970s and 1980s, but Broadway has been the premier shopping destination for working class Latinos for decades. Theater District NRHP refers to the district as the Broadway Theater and Commercial District, while the City of Los Angeles Planning Department refers to the Broadway Theater and Entertainment District. Highest concentration of movie palaces in the world Stretching