Water and Power Associates Informing the Public about Critical Water and Energy Issues facing Los Angeles and California

Historical Notes

The Loew's State Theater is noted for the seated Buddha located in a niche above the proscenium arch. The exterior has an elaborate "silver platter" chased ornamentation above the ground story.

In 1998, Metropolitan Theaters stopped showing movies at the State and leased the space to the Universal Church. As of 2008, the State was being operated as a Spanish-language church.*^

Historical Notes

In 1922 the price of admission to the Hollywood Bowl was only 25 cents.

Historical Notes

The 1st shell at the Hollywood Bowl did not go in until 1929..

Historical Notes

The Arnold Building seen above served as the framework for the Statler Hotel in 1951.

Historical Notes

In 1921 the 1893-built Vogel Block would be demolished to make room for Loew's State Theatre (currently United Building).

Historical Notes

Loew's State Theatre was built as the west coast showcase for the product of the Loew's subsidiary Metro Pictures. The opening was on November 12, 1921 at one of downtown's busiest intersections, 7th and Broadway. Loew's State once used entrances on both streets. The 7th St. entrance was closed in 1936.

Historical Notes

The Loew's State Theater is noted for the seated Buddha located in a niche above the proscenium arch. The exterior has an elaborate "silver platter" chased ornamentation above the ground story.

In 1998, Metropolitan Theaters stopped showing movies at the State and leased the space to the Universal Church. As of 2008, the State was being operated as a Spanish-language church.*^

Historical Notes

In 1922 the State Normal School was demolished and 5th Street was straightened to run through the property.  The remainder of the site was eventually occupied by the Los Angeles Central Library (1925). 

Click HERE to see the connection between the State Normal School and UCLA.

Historical Notes

Click HERE to see more Early Views of the State Normal School. 

Click HERE to see the connection between the State Normal School and UCLA.

Click HERE to see more on the Construction of the LA Central Library.

Click HERE to see more Early Views of the LA Central Library.

Historical Notes

William Wrigley, Jr. (1861-1932), chewing gum industrialist and founder of the William Wrigley Jr. Company, played an instrumental role in the history of Catalina Island. He bought the island from Joseph and Hancock Banning in 1919, and improved it with public utilities, new steamships, a hotel, the Casino building, and extensive planting of trees, shrubs, and flowers. Wrigley was the owner of the Chicago Cubs baseball team, which held its annual spring training on the island.

In 1920, William Wrigley Jr. and David M. Renton had a small casino built to serve as an entertainment and gathering place for Catalina Island's visitors. In a short period of time though, this establishment - the Sugarloaf Casino, proved to be too small to accommodate the growing number of guests, and in February 1928 it was demolished to make room for a much larger building. The Catalina Casino Ballroom, also known as Avalon Ballroom, was built on the same spot - adjacent to Sugarloaf Rock by architects Sumner A. Spaulding and William Webber. Sugarloaf Rock was eventually blasted away in order to enhance the view from the Casino. Wrigley's budget for the design and construction of the Catalina Casino was $600,000, but when all was said and done, he ended up spending $2 million.^

Historical Notes

The S.S. Catalina, known as "The Great White Steamer", was laid down on December 26, 1923, christened on May 3, 1924, completed in 1924, and took its maiden voyage on June 30, 1924. The 301-foot ship, originally built at a cost of $1 million dollars, was in service from 1924 and carried about 25 million passengers between Los Angeles and Avalon Harbor until she was retired on September 14, 1975.^

Historical Notes

The S.S. Catalina has been recognized as a Historic-Cultural Monument, No. 213 (Click HERE to see the LA Historic-Cultural Monuments List) and also California State Historic Landmark No. 894 (Click HERE to see more California Historic Landmarks in LA). She was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

Historical Notes

Wrigley Field, built on 10 acres of land in South Los Angeles between San Pedro Street (on the west), Avalon Blvd (to the east), E. 41st Place (to the north), and E. 42 Place (to the south), served as host to minor league baseball teams in the region for over 30 years, and was the home park for the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League. Chewing gum magnate, William Wrigley, Jr. purchased the Angels in 1921 for the (then) astronomical sum of $150,000 and then built a stadium for the team a few years later.

Construction for Wrigley Field began in 1924 and the 21,000-seat, million-dollar stadium opened on September 29, 1925. For 33 seasons (1925-1957) the park was home to the Angels, and for 11 of those seasons (1926-1935 and 1938) it had a second home team in the rival Hollywood Stars. The Stars eventually moved to their own new ballpark, Gilmore Field. Prior to 1925, the Angels played at their former home at Washington Park, and before that, at Chutes Park.^

Historical Notes

The Fairfax District was little more than bean fields at the turn of the century when Arthur Fremont Gilmore set out to dig a well on his 256-acre dairy farm near West 3rd Street in Fairfax Avenue. But instead of water, Gilmore struck oil. His 1901 discovery is credited with prompting an oil exploration boom in the area- later called the Salt Lake oil fields. Gilmore helped build the Fairfax area into one of the city’s best-known commercial areas (Farmers Market). +#

Historical Notes

Chaplin Airfield was located on leased property that is now bounded by Wilshire Boulevard, Fairfax Avenue, and San Vincente Boulevard. The Syd Chaplin Aircraft Corporation advertised that it “maintained a fleet of newest Curtis one and two-passenger aeroplanes, large shops with complete equipment and hangars for our own ships as well as those belonging to business firms and individuals.”

Syd Chaplin was the brother of famed actor Charlie Chaplin.

Historical Notes

The Chaplin Aircraft Company offered observation flights for $10 and round-trip flights to San Diego for $150 (at a time when the average wage was $1,200 per/year). Obviously, the cost of air travel was very steep and Chaplin’s enterprise had a brief life span. Around 1920 Chaplin sold out to Emory H. Rogers, a business partner, who renamed it Rogers Field.

Click HERE to see more in Aviation in Early L.A.

Historical Notes

The main reason that San Vicente Boulevard runs diagonally as it does is because it was built on the Los Angeles Pacific Electric Railway Right-of-way in the early 1900s.  Named for the Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica that had previously occupied the area, it begins at Venice Boulevard between Crenshaw Boulevard and La Brea Avenue and travels in a northwesterly direction towards Beverly Hills. The roadway splits into two streets past La Cienega Boulevard, with the western branch becoming Burton Way, which eventually becomes Santa Monica Boulevard South and connects directly to downtown Beverly Hills. San Vicente Boulevard itself continues north into West Hollywood and ends at Sunset Boulevard.

A separate stretch of road with the same name, San Vicente Boulevard, runs from Brentwood to Santa Monica. Originally, this  boulevard ran from the Soldiers' Home (Sawtelle Veterans Home) in Los Angeles to Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. This tree-lined street was 130 feet wide, with trolley lines used by the Los Angeles Pacific Electric Railway running down its center.*^

Historical Notes

In 1922, J. Harvey McCarthy developed an upscale residential district along the San Vicente Boulevard line of the Pacific Electric Railway, bounded by Wilshire Blvd. on the north, Fairfax Avenue on the east, Olympic Blvd. on the south and Schumacher Drive on the west. McCarthy originally named the district Carthay Center (Carthay being a derivative of the developer's last name). The areas to the south of Olympic Boulevard remained undeveloped until 1933, when developer Spyros George Ponty built several hundred homes in two districts later named "South Carthay" and "Carthay Square." *^

Historical Notes

Cecil B. DeMille founded the Mercury Aviation Company ( aka Mercury Air Lines ) in 1919. Mercury was the first American airlines to carry air freight and passengers commercially on regularly scheduled runs. It scheduled service to Santa Catalina Island and San Diego, later San Francisco, with Junker-Larsen JL-6 monoplanes. Inaugurated five months before KLM began operations in Europe.^^^

Click HERE to see more in Aviation in Early L.A.

Historical Notes

In the 1890s, dairy farmer Arthur F. Gilmore found oil on his land, probably in the vicinity of the La Brea Tar Pits. The field was named after the Salt Lake Oil Company, the first firm to arrive to drill in the area. The discovery well was spudded (started) in 1902.

Development of the field was fast, as oil wells spread across the landscape, with drillers hoping to match the production boom taking place a few miles to the east at the Los Angeles City field. Peak production was in 1908.  By 1912, there were 326 wells, 47 of which had already been abandoned, and by 1917 more than 450, which had by then produced more than 50 million barrels of oil.  After this peak, production declined rapidly. Land values rose, corresponding to the fast growth of the adjacent city of Los Angeles, and the field was mostly idled in favor of housing and commercial development. The early wells were abandoned; many of their exact locations are not known, and are now covered with buildings and roads.*^

Historical Notes

During the final decade years of the nineteenth century, the first large land development in what would later become West Hollywood—the town of "Sherman"—was established by Moses Sherman and his partners of the Los Angeles and Pacific Railway, an interurban railroad line which later became part of the Pacific Electric Railway system. Sherman became the location of the railroad's main shops, railroad yards, and "car barns". Many working-class employees of the railroad settled in this town. It was during this time that the city began to earn its reputation as a loosely regulated, liquor-friendly (during Prohibition) place for eccentric people wary of government interference. Despite several annexation attempts, the town elected not to become part of the City of Los Angeles.  In a controversial decision, in 1925 Sherman adopted "West Hollywood", "...a moniker pioneered earlier in the decade by the West Hollywood Realty Board" as its informal name. though it remained under the governance of Los Angeles County.*^

Click HERE to see more Early Views of the Town of Sherman and West Hollywood.

Historical Notes

Westwood and UCLA were developed on the lands of the historic 'Wolfskill Ranch', a 3,000-acre parcel that was purchased by Arthur Letts, the successful founder of the Broadway, and Bullock's department stores, in 1919. Upon Arthur Lett's death, his son-in-law, Harold Janss, vice president of Janss Investment Company, inherited the land and started to develop the area in 1922.*^

Click HERE to see more of Westwood and UCLA in Early Views of UCLA.

Historical Notes

Rancho San Jose de Buenos Ayres remained intact until John Wolfskill's death in 1913, the last of the ranchos to do so. In 1919 the Wolfskill heirs sold much of the rancho to Englishman Arthur Letts, of The Broadway and Bullock's fame. A huge $2 million investment. He planned to subdivide and develop the northern portion into estates, but died without being able to realize his vision.^#^

Historical Notes

The view above, from about the time of the Letts purchase, shows the land with the Wolfskill ranch house (center left), located on what is today the northwest corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Beverly Glen.

Historical Notes

Harold Janss of Janss Investment Company, Arthur Letts son-in-law, was more interested in middle-class homes, as opposed to estates. He started with the southern part of the parcel, diverted the springs into underground pipes, filled in the streams and platted 1,000 home and business lots in a development he named Westwood Hills. "Janss Investment Company" was stamped repeatedly in the wet concrete of the sidewalks. It was known as a "country district". Many families bought three house lots, particularly south of the P.E. tracks, where they were cheaper, using the extra space to grow vegetables and raise chickens and rabbits. Some wealthier homeowners added a tennis court to one extra lot and a swimming pool to the other. Homes had fireplaces for heat and backyard incinerators for trash. With rising land prices after WWII, most of these extra lots were sold off for new houses. One can still notice the pattern in the ages of the homes.

Model homes were built, the usual CC&R's were added, including, as well as the racial ones, the restriction of architecture styles to English, Spanish or Mediterranean, and lots offered for sale as early as 1922. Westwood Village, very large home lots and UCLA will be developed in 1928-29 north of Wilshire.^#^

Historical Notes

The large empty parcel, upper left, within the platted area is the Wolfskill ranch house, on the P.E. route, at the T-junction with Overland Ave, standing alone on twenty-five plus acres. The Harold Lloyd Motion Picture Company's Westwood studio ranch occupied this site a bit after this photo was taken. The northern portion was sold off to build the Saint Paul the Apostle RC church and school circa 1930. Lloyd's declining fortunes caused him to sell the rest to the LDS church in 1937. The church finally built the LDS Temple there in 1956.

The area immediately to the east of Fox Hills Drive, once Tom Mix' ranch, will become the present home of 20th Century Fox Studios, stretching from Pico on the south, where it forms a T-junction with Motor Ave. to Santa Monica Blvd on the north. The northern half of the studio will become Century City in the early 1960s. The Los Angeles Country Club, at its third home since 1911, is above the future home of Fox Studios and slightly to the east. Rancho Country Club, taking up the lower quarter of the photo will become Rancho Park Recreation Center and Cheviot Hills Park, to the west of Motor Ave, and Hillcrest Country Club to the east. Beverly Hills and the Beverly Hills Oil Field are on the right margin.^#^

Historical Notes

The community of Bel-Air was founded in 1923 by Alphonzo Bell. Bell owned farm property in Santa Fe Springs, California, where oil was discovered. He bought a large ranch with a home on what is now Bel Air Road and then subdivided and developed the property with large residential lots. He also built the Bel-Air Bay Club in Pacific Palisades and the Bel-Air Country Club. His wife chose Italian names for the streets. She also founded the Bel-Air Garden Club in 1931.

Bell was a native and lifelong resident of Los Angeles whose family had deep financial and historical ties to the area, and played a key role in the history and development of Southern California. He was the son of James George Bell, who established Bell Station Ranch (now the site of the City of Bell), in the Santa Fe Springs area in 1875, and of Susan Albiah Hollenbeck. His uncle, Ed Hollenbeck, who arrived in California in the 1850s, founded the First National Bank, created Los Angeles's public transportation trolley system, and developed eastern portions of Los Angeles County.*^

Historical Notes

On the undeveloped hillsides of original Bel Air in 1922, Alphonzo Bell built water and sewage pipes, installed underground electric and telephone lines, and planted thousands of trees along winding streets traversing the hilly terrain. *^

Historical Notes

Alphonzo Bell refused to sell the original Bel Air allotments to anyone in the film business, though changed his mind with the arrival of the Great Depression. A design committee existed (and still exists to the present day) to preserve the “architectural harmony” of the community, with restrictions including low masses, horizontal lines, pitched roofs, and unobtrusive and harmonious colors, and deed restrictions required land purchasers to spend a minimum of $20,000 on home construction. *^

Historical Notes

Bel-Air is situated about 12 miles west of Downtown Los Angeles and includes some of the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains. It lies across Sunset Boulevard from the northern edge of the main campus of the University of California, Los Angeles. At the heart of the community sits the Bel-Air Country Club and the Hotel Bel-Air. *^

Historical Notes

The Bel-Air Country Club was started by Alonzo Bell as a social club. It inlcuded tennis courts and an 18-hole golf course designed by famed golf architect, George C. Thomasand (also designed the Riviera Country Club in 1927) .

Historical Notes

Alonzo Bell incorporated the Bel-Air Country Club on May 8, 1925. The construction of the clubhouse and golf course was completed in late 1926.  The now famous "Swinging Bridge" walkway over the ravine at hole no. 10 quickly became the Club's architectural landmark. *^

Historical Notes

Bell continued to own (and subsidize) the Bel-Air Country Club until 1940 when he transferred to the members of the club legal title to the property and improvements. He died in 1947, at age 72. *^

Historical Notes

Together with Beverly Hills and Holmby Hills, Bel-Air forms the Platinum Triangle of Los Angeles neighborhoods.

Historical Notes

Of several entrances, there are two main ones: (1) the East Gate at Beverly Glen and Sunset Boulevards and (2) the West Gate at Bellagio Drive of UCLA and Sunset Boulevard (seen here), opposite an entrance to UCLA. Bel Air is generally subdivided into three distinct neighborhoods: East Gate Old Bel Air, West Gate Bel Air, and Upper Bel Air.*^

Historical Notes

Lincoln Park was originally created by the City of Los Angeles in 1881, from land donated by John Strother Griffin. It was one of Los Angeles' first parks. It was originally called East Los Angeles Park. By 1901 it had become a major amusement center for the people of Los Angeles, and it was at this time that the name was changed to Eastlake Park. On May 19, 1917, the park was renamed Lincoln Park after Lincoln High School.^

Historical Notes

In 1911 William Selig opened a zoo on the northern edge of Eastlake Park, and this became one of the main attractions; in 1914 a carousel was added, which drew 150,000 riders a year; and a short while later, an arboretum was erected on the premises that housed a large greenhouse (hothouse) with rare and exotic plants.

On May 19, 1917, the City Council responded to a petition from nearby residents and renamed it Lincoln Park, named after Lincoln High School.^

On April 21, 1976 the carousel was designated Historic Cultural Monument No. 153 by the City of Los Angeles, but was destroyed just a few months later. Click HERE to see the LA Historic Cultural Monuments List.

Historical Notes

East Los Angeles (also called East L.A.) is an unincorporated area in Los Angeles County, forming part of the East Los Angeles Region. It is located immediately east of the Boyle Heights district of Los Angeles, south of the El Sereno district of Los Angeles, north of the city of Commerce, and west of the cities of Monterey Park and Montebello.*^

Historical Notes

At the beginning of the twentieth century, East Los Angeles became a popular immigrant destination. In the early 1900s, Russians, Jews, Japanese, and Mexicans all had a significant presence in the area. Living east of the LA River and working in nearby factories, or traveling by electric rail into downtown Los Angeles, immigrants and their children helped fuel the prosperity of the growing metropolis. By the onset of World War II, East Los Angeles was a nearly exclusively Latino community, soon reinforced by Mexican workers who arrived to man the machines in the area's burgeoning war industries. Although the face of the city of Los Angeles and its surrounding communities has changed considerably, East Los Angeles has maintained this basic character throughout the last sixty years. ++^

Historical Notes

Between 1917 and 1924, William Fox Studio was firmly established at the expanded Dixon Studios in East Hollywood, at the junction of Sunset and Western.

The site still houses an important part of the film-making process, being the home of Color by Deluxe - film processing and post-production company with strong ties to 20th Century Fox. Deluxe was first on the site in 1917.^*#^

Historical Notes

The eight-story Christie Hotel was considered Hollywood's first skyscraper when it opened in 1922.

Historical Notes

The 12-story Guaranty Building is a Beaux Arts office building built in 1923. It's currently owned by the Church of Scientology.*^

Historical Notes

The school with a student body of 2500 was three blocks from Charlie Chaplin's studio and six blocks from Mary Pickford's and Douglas Fairbanks' studios. The homes bordering the upper side of the campus were just condemned by the city to make room for additional buildings. The original 1905 building is on the bottom right, the Household & Fine Arts building is in the middle of the quadrangle, and the gymnasium is top, center.*

Historical Notes

This is the lot where Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks established the Pickford-Fairbanks Studios in 1922, later to be renamed United Artists. It is still a studio lot, creatively entitled “The Lot.” +^^

Click HERE to see more early views of the Pickford-Fairbanks Studios.

Historical Notes

Rossmore turns into Vine Street north of Melrose Ave in Hollywood.

Vine Street is so named because it went through the vineyard of 1880s US Senator Cornelius Cole. Rossmore was named after Miracle Mile's developer, A.W. Ross. ##*#

Historical Notes

The Mulholland Dam, built in 1924, can be seen at left-center. The dam still exists today but can no longer be seen from this view or from just about anywhere in Hollywood. Click HERE to see more in Mulholland Dam and Hollywood Reservoir.

Historical Notes

John Muir Junior High School, located at 5929 S. Vermont Avenue and 62nd Street, was built in 1922 and named for American conservationist John Muir. It served as a junior high school for approximately 72 years, from 1922 to 1994. In September 1994, the school was reconfigured to serve grades 6-8 and renamed John Muir Middle School.*

Historical Notes

The Farmers and Merchants Bank was the first incorporated bank in Los Angeles, founded in 1871 by 23 prominent Los Angeles businessmen.  The three largest subscribers were Isaias W. Hellman, former California Governor John G. Downey, and Ozro W. Childs who in later years became the founders of the University of Southern California. Other investors included Charles Ducommun, I.M. Hellman and Jose Mascarel. Downey was named the first president. Isaias later served as president of the bank till his death in 1920.*^

Historical Notes

With nearly 70,000 cars passing through each day, the intersection of Adams and Figueroa was the busiest in the United States in the early 1920s .*+*

Historical Notes

The St. Vincent Catholic Church was built in the 1920s and designed by architect Albert C. Martin, Sr. Dedicated in 1925, it was located in what was then one of the wealthiest sections of the city, on land adjacent to the Edward Doheny Mansion and Stimson House. It was the second Roman Catholic church in Los Angeles to be consecrated.*^

Historical Notes

St. Vincent de Paul Roman Catholic Church was a gift from oil magnate and benefactor Edward Laurence Doheny I, who drilled Los Angeles' first oil well in 1892.^

In 1971, Saint Vincent de Paul Church was dedicated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 90 (Click HERE for complete listing).

Click HERE to see more Early Views of the St. Vincent Catholic Church.

Historical Notes

The building pictured here originally served as the Auto Club's main office. It was built between 1922-1923 by architects, Sumner P. Hunt, Silas R. Burns, and Roland E. Coate in the Spanish Colonial Revival style. Today, this building serves as the Los Angeles district office, but the administrative offices are now located in Costa Mesa.^

Historical Notes

The Automobile Club of Southern California was once responsible for producing state road maps, as well as posting thousands of porcelain-to-steel traffic signs throughout the state to create a uniform signing system - which it continued to do until the task was taken over by the State of California in the mid-1950s.^

The Automobile Club Building was designated LA Historic-Cultural Monument No. 72 (Click HERE to see complete listing).

Historical Notes

Los Angeles experimented by placing signals in the middle of a few of its busiest intersections. Nicknamed the “American Bobby” since it stood in the same place as a London traffic control officer, the new signal stood high atop a tall stanchion. Its location in the center of the intersection may have presented a traffic hazard, but the red and green lights, which replaced the unreliable semaphore arms, were easily visible to motorists in all four directions. In May 1924, the Automobile Club of Southern California installed one of the first American Bobby signals—pictured above in a photo from the Auto Club Archives—outside the club headquarters at Adams and Figueroa.*+*

Historical Notes

The semaphore traffic signal was invented in 1917 by Frank J. Husbands. In 1920, the first installation in Los Angeles of this type traffic regulator was made at five intersections along Broadway between Third and Seventh Streets. The new signals were a success. Over 800 intersections throughout the city were equipped with the new devices first being Acme Type Four and later Type Five. In 1931 tricolor lights were first installed along Wilshire Boulevard. After that year, no more semaphore signals were installed. They were slowly phased out with the last Acme removed in December of 1956.

Historical Notes

These early signals, manufactured by the Acme Traffic Signal Co., paired "Stop" and "Go" semaphore arms with small red and green lights. Bells played the role of today's amber or yellow lights, ringing when the flags changed—a process that took five seconds.

Historical Notes

Note the advertisement in front of the semaphore traffic signal: "Should Wives Hold Jobs"...a sign that things were changing.

Historical Notes

Note the beautiful streetlight standing between the rail crossing and the semaphore traffic signal. This type of streetlight was called a "Western" Dual-Lamp Llewellyn Electrolier.

Historical Notes

The portion of Sunset Boulevard east of Figueroa Street was renamed Cesar Chavez Avenue in 1994 along with Macy Street and Brooklyn Avenue in honor of the late Mexican-American union leader and civil rights activist.*^

Historical Notes

The four prominent buildings seen above at the intersection of 4th and Main are the:  Van Nuys Hotel (N/W), Westminster Hotel (N/E), Farmers and Merchants Bank Building (S/W), and San Fernando Building (S/E). The bank building features Greek-like architecture while the other buildings along the street are more contemporary.

Historical Notes

The Mad-House Lunch room (ground floor of the Bixby Building) on the extreme right next door (going north or to the left) to the Seaboard National Bank Building with the lovely arched portico, the Western Union Office and the Grosse Building on the corner. Across the street we've got the very dark (appearing) Hotel Hayward on the SW corner of Spring and 4th Streets and across 4th Street the bright, white collumned Trust &Savings Building with the short, formal Desmond's Building next door and up the block, in the shadows, the Arcade Building at 541 S. Spring Street.#^

Historical Notes

Legible signs include: "W.A. Douglass, merchant tailor", "auto park", "Chas H. Clark Co., Jewelers", on a railway car "Moneta Ave. via [...] to 116th St.", "I.N. Van Nuys building", "United Cigar Stores", "State Mutual Building and Loan Association", "Republic Life", and "Blue Prints".^^

Historical Notes

The Orpheum (at 630 S. Broadway) became the Palace when the Orpheum circuit moved into their extravagant new home at 842 S. Broadway in 1926.^#*^

Note the ornate 2-lamp streetlights running up and down Broadway.  Click HERE to see more in Early Los Angeles Streetlights.

Historical Notes

The sole occupant of the entire city block bounded by Los Angeles, Marchessault, and Alameda streets (upper left corner of the photo) was a sturdy, square, two-story brick structure. Built originally for a furniture factory, it was later remodeled to serve as a headquarters of  the Los Angeles Water Department’s predecessor, the Los Angeles City Water Company.

Click HERE to see more in Water Department's Original Office Building.

Historical Notes

Westlake was one of the first areas of Los Angeles west of Figueroa Street to see residential development. By the 1920s Westlake resembled the Upper East Side of Manhattan (complete with a large Jewish population). Wealthy businessmen commuted to downtown, Wilshire Center (now Koreatown), Hollywood, and the Miracle Mile from the district's Spanish Revival and Art Deco mansions. The district's less affluent northeastern blocks also became the home of Los Angeles' Filipino population, much of which remains in Westlake and nearby neighborhoods to this day.**

Westlake Park was renamed MacArthur Park on May 7, 1942.*^

Historical Notes

Some have called Wilshire Boulevard “The backbone of Los Angeles.” The city used to pretty much end at MacArthur Park, which at the time was called Westlake Park. Then they built a causeway over the lake and extended Wilshire to meet the former Orange Street, which was re-named, and now reaches the ocean. It’s probably the busiest street in Los Angeles.*^

Historical Notes

The Elks Club Building was originally designed for the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (B.P.O.E). by renowned Art Deco architect Claud Beelman, during the time he was a Senior Partner at the prestigious firm he co-owned in the 1920s, Curlett and Beelman.*^

Historical Notes

Wilshire Boulevard formerly ended at the lake on its west side, but in the early 1930s a berm was proposed to be built to cross and link up with the existing Orange Street (which ran from Alvarado to Figueroa) into downtown Los Angeles. Orange Street was later renamed Wilshire and extended east of Figueroa to Grand Ave. This divided the lake into two halves; the northern one was subsequently drained.*^

Historical Notes

Photo Caption reads, "This plan for a bridge to carry Wilshire Boulevard across Westlake Park was under consideration by the city park board today. The drawing shows how the structure, with a 70-foot boulevard-width roadway and 6-foot sidewalks, would curve across the park and an arm of the lake. The plan, developed by Lincoln Rogers, former New York park board architect, and submitted by the Wilshire Boulevard Association, would cost approximately $250,000. Its advocates say that the cost would be less than a suspension bridge, straightaway bridge or tunnel". ^

The plan: widen and rename Orange Street, bridge the lake to link the two sections of Wilshire, and then extend the boulevard through several dense city blocks into the heart of downtown.

Local residents protested, and the dispute made its way to the state supreme court, which eventually allowed the construction to proceed.**#

Click HERE to see more on the Widening of Wilshire Boulevard (Orange Street) from Figueroa to Westlake.

Historical Notes

On December 7, 1934, city officials celebrated the opening of the Wilshire causeway through Westlake Park. Millions of dollars had been expended, residents and businesses had been displaced, and one of the city's preeminent public spaces had been sacrificed, but Wilshire Boulevard finally linked downtown to the sea.**#

Historical Notes

On May 7, 1942, the Los Angeles Park Commission renamed Westlake Park in honor of Gen. Douglas MacArthur. The decision to rename the park, which had been known as Westlake Park for more than 50 years, was made in preparation for an observance of MacArthur Day on June 13th.*^

Historical Notes

MacArthur Park was designated city of Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument #100. Click HERE to see the LA Historic-Cultural Monuments List.

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