Santee Alley is a covered corridor of clothing and accessory stalls. Wholesale showroom buildings from the 1920s stand a few blocks over.
What Fashion District looks like
The Fashion District is a business improvement district rather than an official neighborhood, and the city's own map of it does not agree with the district's. Both agree on , a covered corridor of clothing and accessory stalls running from Olympic Boulevard south to 12th Street, between and Maple Avenue. The district runs for 107 blocks and borders Skid Row directly. It holds more than 4,000 independently owned wholesale and retail businesses.
A banner strung across the alley welcomes shoppers by name. Folding tables and rolling racks line both sides under awnings joined into one continuous roof. Vendors sell belts, T-shirts, bridal gowns and quinceañera dresses.
The New Mart is a twelve-story showroom building from the 1920s, the same decade as the nearby. The is three thirteen-story towers a few blocks south, built between 1963 and 1979, its entrance on Olympic Boulevard between Main Street and Los Angeles Street.
Santee Street, one block over, has the same trade in ordinary storefronts instead of market stalls. Prom and bridal shops there hang dresses in the windows rather than setting them out on racks.
Shot in Fashion District
Santee Street carried a chase scene for Predator 2 in 1990. Santee Alley turned up decades later in the Hulu series Marvel's Runaways, still selling the same kind of merchandise on screen as it does today.
Marvel's Runaways
The quinceañera shopping trip
Played Santee Alley
In the season two episode Last Waltz of the Hulu series Marvel's Runaways, the group shops in Santee Alley for Molly's quinceañera. Karolina also meets Xavin there for the first time.
What Fashion District can double for
Canal Street in Manhattan, New York
Santee Alley's rolling racks and joined awnings match Canal Street in Manhattan, where market stalls line the sidewalk under awnings for several blocks and shoppers move the same way, three and four abreast. Canal Street stalls sit in the open rather than under a continuous covered roof, so a shot looking straight down Santee Alley's own awning line is the harder one to match. California license plates need to stay out of any wider frame. Try searching market stalls under awnings now.
Garment District in Manhattan, New York
The New Mart and the Cooper Building are wholesale showroom towers built in the 1920s, the same decade Manhattan's own Garment District went up in loft buildings between twelve and thirty stories for the same trade. Those Manhattan blocks step back above the tenth floor and open onto wider avenues, so a tight shot on the lower floors here holds the New York illusion better than a wide one. Try searching wholesale showroom loft building now.
Dallas Market Center in Dallas, Texas
The California Market Center's three towers, built between 1963 and 1979 for a wholesale clothing business, are the same kind of purpose built trade center as Dallas's own Apparel Mart. The Dallas building is a 1960s wholesale fashion building that grew to seven stories and two thousand showrooms by 1984. Dallas's Apparel Mart is one long low building around an atrium rather than three separate towers, so a shot needs to stay close on a single entrance rather than take in the whole complex to hold the match. Try searching wholesale trade center building now.
