The mall features a central building designed to resemble an ocean liner surrounded by a small village of cottage-style bungalows.

In 1931, after Charles H. Crawford's death, his wife Ella decided to build a multi-national outdoor market that would feel like "a permanent world's fair with a cosmopolitan atmosphere" on the land where her husband was shot.

The Screen Actors Guild, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Jackson Browne and Alfred Hitchcock used to rent offices there.

In January 2019, the Los Angeles City Council approved the project to revamp the Crossroads of the World in a move to revitalize the district.

[4][5] These rent stabilized apartments are occupied by a decades-old, tight-knit community of largely low-income, predominantly Latino residents.