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

Historical Notes

One night on Mt. Wilson about 1908, a short, powerfully built man with a handlebar mustache looked through the largest telescope in the world. What he saw transformed him, and would put Los Angeles at the forefront of a movement to make astronomy the people's science.

We may never know whether Col. Griffith J. Griffith saw the rings of Saturn or another celestial object with the then-new 60-inch reflector telescope, but we can be sure that it inspired his vision of a world-class observatory for the people of Los Angeles, allowing the masses a glimpse of the heaven.*

Historical Notes

3,015 acres of land surrounding the observatory was donated to the City of Los Angeles by Colonel Griffith J. Griffith on December 16, 1896. In his will Griffith donated funds to build an observatory, exhibit hall, and planetarium on the donated land.

Construction began on June 20, 1933, using a design developed by architect John C. Austin based on preliminary sketches by Russell W. Porter. *

Historical Notes

Griffith Observatory was shaped not only by the minds of scientists but also by the times in which it was built. A major earthquake in Long Beach in March 1933 -- just as construction plans were being finalized -- led the architects to abandon the planned terra cotta exterior in favor of strengthening and thickening the building's concrete walls. Lower-than-usual prices caused by the Great Depression enabled the selection of the finest materials of the day for the interior walls, floors, and finishes, making the building both beautiful and durable.^

Historical Notes

The architects added a number of touches of Greek revival to the contemporary Art Deco style, such as fluting from the Greek classical orders. It also neatly pairs up with the Greek Theatre which was built nearby in 1929 as an open-air auditorium with a capacity of almost 6,000 seats.^

Historical Notes

Griffith Observatory's unique architecture and setting, compelling programmatic offerings, and cinematic exposure have made it one of the most famous and visited landmarks in Southern California.^

Historical Notes

Caltech and Mount Wilson engineers drew up plans for the Observatory's fundamental exhibits: a Foucault Pendulum, a 38-foot-diameter model of a section of the Moon sculpted by artist Roger Hayward, and a "three-in-one" coelostat (three tracking mirrors on one mount to feed three separate solar telescopes) so that the public could study the Sun in the Hall of Science. The Trust judged the 12-inch Zeiss refracting telescope as the best commercially available instrument of its kind and selected it to be used as the public telescope. A 75-foot-wide theater --one of the largest in the world -- was designed to hold a Zeiss planetarium projector.

The planetarium had been invented in 1923, four years after Griffith's death, and his family agreed with the Trustees that it more fully honored his intent than the originally planned cinematic theater. The Observatory's planetarium was the third to be completed in the United States.^

Historical Notes

The observatory and accompanying exhibits would be opened to the public on May 14, 1935. On that day, the Griffith Trust transferred ownership of the building to the City of Los Angeles; the City's Department of Recreation and Parks (called the Department of Parks at the time of the transfer) has operated the facility ever since.^

Historical Notes

The Astronomers Monument on the front lawn of Griffith Observatory pays homage to six of the greatest astronomers: Hipparchus, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and Herschel. Artist Archibald Garner designed the sculpture commissioned by the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP). Garner worked with five other artists (each responsible for sculpting one astronomer) including George Stanley responsible for the "Oscar" statuette. The monument was dedicated November 25, 1934, six months before the Observatory opened.*

Historical Notes

The six astronomers featured on the monument are among the most influential and important in history. Albert Einstein was considered for inclusion, but planers ultimately decided it would be inappropriate to feature someone still alive (The monument was completed in 1934; Einstein died in 1955).*

Historical Notes

The first exhibit visitors encountered was the Foucault pendulum, which was designed to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth.

Historical Notes

The genesis of Griffith Observatory's public telescope occurred when Griffith J. Griffith was invited to visit to Mount Wilson Observatory, then home to the world's largest operating telescope, the 60-inch reflector. While there, he was given the opportunity to view a celestial wonder through the telescope. Profoundly moved by the experience, Griffith seized on the idea of constructing a public observatory with a telescope that could be used by all residents of Los Angeles. He specified in his will that the telescope was to be "at least 12-inches in diameter" and "complete in all its details" and was to be located "high and above the Hall of Science." In 1931, the Griffith Trust ordered the telescope from the Carl Zeiss Company of Jena, Germany; the $14,900 spent on the instrument was the first purchase of material for Griffith Observatory.^

Historical Notes

Since opening in 1935, more than seven million people have put an eye to Griffith Observatory's original 12-inch Zeiss refracting telescope. More people have looked though it than any other telescope in the world.^

Historical Notes

Since the observatory opened in 1935, admission has been free, in accordance with Griffith's will.*^

Historical Notes

In 1976, the Griffith Observatory was designated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 168 (Click HERE for complete listing).

Historical Notes

In 2002, the observatory closed for renovation and a major expansion of exhibit space. It reopened to the public on November 3, 2006, retaining its art deco exterior. The $93 million renovation, paid largely by a public bond issue, restored the building, as well as replaced the aging planetarium dome.*^

Historical Notes

For over 70 years, the planetarium has been used to present astronomical programs overseen by a lecturer. The view reveals a variety of buildings, homes and the numerous skyscrapers located in Downtown L.A. in the background. This photograph was taken not long after the observatory reopened on November 3, 2006, after having been closed since 2002 for an extensive renovation. John C. Austin and Frederick M. Ashley were the original architects of the Art Deco structure.*

Historical Notes

After low level flyovers above NASA and civic landmarks across the country and in California, Endeavor was delivered to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on September 21, 2012. The orbiter was slowly and carefully transported through the streets of Los Angeles and Inglewood three weeks later, from October 11–14 along La Tijera, Manchester, Crenshaw, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevards to its final destination at the California Science Center in Exposition Park.

Historical Notes

Built in 1932 as the Valley Municipal Building and designed as a miniature of Los Angeles City Hall by architect Peter K. Schaborum, Van Nuys City Hall gained recognition as a Historic-Cultural Monument in 1978.*#*

Historical Notes

Originally, the Valley Municipal Bulding housed a Hospital in one wing of the base and the Police Department and Municipal Court, complete with jail, in the other. With the population growth in the fifties and sixties, the hospital and police station were eventually relocated to roomier sites, and the building was remodeled to house other City offices.*#*

Historical Notes

On October 18, 1978, the Valley Municipal Building (Van Nuys City Hall) was declared Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 202 (Click HERE to see complete listing).

Historical Notes

The Lane-Wells Company Building was designed by William E. Myer and built in 1939. In addition to the horizontal banding typical of streamline style, the building has vertical bands which cascade over the top like a fountain.

Historical Notes

In December 1932, Walter T. Wells and Wilfred G. Lane convinced the Union Oil Company to let them test their “gun perforator” on a dry well in Montebello, California. The gun was a device, lowered into the well, that fired .45 calibre bullets laterally into the well housing.

It was dangerous work and carried the possibility of damaging the well. But it worked. The next day, the “dry” well was pumping 32 barrels.

Rejuvenating wells was good business. By 1947, the two-man startup had nearly 100 gun perforating trucks and had completed 92,000 perforating jobs. There were offices in Houston and Oklahoma City plus 40 field branches, but none could compare with company headquarters in Los Angeles.*

The buildings were arranged in a park-like setting so that when one enters the plant nothing reminds him of manufacturing, for beautiful flowers and shrubs, well-kept grounds and distinctive buildings have removed the stigma of the old-fashioned factory.^

Historical Notes

Lane-Wells left the building years ago, ultimately becoming a part of oil giant Baker-Hughes. The L.A. headquarters buildings have had a succession of tenants.

The administration building was later known as the Winnie & Sutch Building. The building now houses The Escarpment, photography and filming studios.

Historical Notes

Built in 1926 by Edward B. Rust and Luther Mayo in a Mission Revival style, it was originally developed as a "co-op", but went bankrupt during the Great Depression. It is rumored that William Randolph Hearst once kept his mistress, actress Marion Davies, in the penthouse apartment. Other Hollywood stars also rumored to have stayed at the famed hotel include Bette Davis, Mae West, Judy Garland and Loretta Young, among others.*

Historical Notes

When Los Altos Apartments opened in 1926, the Los Angeles Times hailed it as a new standard of beauty and dignity in Los Angeles apartment-house construction.^

Historical Notes

The five-story building exudes the Spanish Revival style with Italian influences and, with its neon rooftop sign, has long been one of the most instantly recognizable buildings on Wilshire Boulevard.

Historical Notes

In 1986, the Los Altos Apartments was designated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 311 (Click HERE to see complete listing).

After community activists fought to save the landmark from demolition in the 1990s, the building was beautifully restored as a combination of affordable and market-rate housing.

In 1999, Los Altos received a design award from the California Preservation Foundation, it was also added to the National Register of Historical Places in 1999 - Building #99000765.*

Historical Notes

Nestled between Farmers Market and CBS Studios, shielded from public view by a fortress of foliage, the Gilmore Adobe dates back to 1852. Originally called the Rancho La Brea Adobe, it eventually became the home of rancher-turned-oilman Arthur F. Gilmore, whose son Earl turned the Gilmore Oil Company into a legendary part of America's burgeoning car culture.^^

Historical Notes

Earl Bell Gilmore (1887-1964), whose family had owned the land surrounding the corner of Third and Fairfax in Los Angeles since 1880, was a legendary entrepreneur who with his father (Arthur F. Gilmore) built Gilmore Oil Company, the largest distributor of petroleum products in the Western U.S.

Gilmore is noted with having invented the self-serve gas station, the "gas-a-teria", where customers saved .05 cents per gallon by filling their own tanks. He also built Gilmore Field, and Gilmore Stadium, as well as turning the family dairy farm into one of the world's most beloved destinations, the original Farmers Market. In 1944, Gilmore's 1,200 filling stations became Mobil stations.*

Historical Notes

Designed by noted theatre architect S. Charles Lee, the Vogue Theatre opened on July 16th, 1935 with a seating capacity of 897, all on one floor. The Vogue Theatre was run by Fox West Coast Theatres for many years until Mann Theatres took over in the early-1990’s.

One of the better mid-sized theatres on Hollywood Boulevard, the theatre is located on Hollywood Boulevard & North Las Palmas Avenue, across the next block from the Egyptian Theatre.^^#

Historical Notes

Legend has it this theatre is haunted by a former projectionist, named Fritz, who once worked at the theatre.
The Vogue Theatre closed in around 1995 and for a short time was used as a theatre for psychic performances. It then had occasional use as a film location space. In December 2001, the theatre fittings were stripped out and sold off.^^#

Historical Notes

In 2009, the building was fitted out as live performance space named the Supper Club, which caters for an adult audience.^^#

Historical Notes

The 1933-built Owl Drug Company Building (aka Julian Medical Building), was designed by the firm of Morgan, Walls and Clements.  It  is a masterpiece of Streamline Moderne architecture. The graceful curved corner and tower face the intersection of Hollywood Blvd. and Cahuenga Blvd. Originally, the ground floor was a drug store.

Historical Notes

The southeast corner of Hollywood and Cahuenga boulevards was where the original old Hollywood Civic Center was located.  The old city hall was known as Wilcox Hall.  In 1933, the site was redeveloped with the entire block demolished and replaced with a streamline modern-style structure named the Julian Medical Building.  The Beveridge family (Daeida Wilcox Beveridge), who built Wilcox Hall, financed the development.^

Historical Notes

When it opened the ground flower was occupied by Owl Drug and the second story housed medical offices. Today it’s home to a Popeye’s.

Historical Notes

Crossroads of the World has been called America's first outdoor shopping mall. Located on Sunset Boulevard and Las Palmas in Los Angeles, the mall features a central building designed to resemble an ocean liner surrounded by a small village of cottage-style bungalows. It was designed by Robert V. Derrah and built in 1936.*^

Historical Notes

Once a busy shopping center, the Crossroads now hosts private offices, primarily for the entertainment industry. It has been used for location shooting in many films, including L.A. Confidential and The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, in TV shows including Dragnet and Remington Steele, and in commercials by McDonald's, Ford and Mattel. A reproduction of Crossroads' iconic tower and spinning globe can be seen just inside the entrance to Disney's Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World in Florida.*^

Historical Notes

The Crossroads can be seen in the 2012 movie Argo when Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) and Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin) go to an office there to buy the script for the movie Argo.*^

In 1974, Crossroads of the World was dedicated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 134 (Click HERE to see complete listing).

Historical Notes

Today, the real Crossroads is the creative home of a variety of music publishers and producers, television and film script writers, film and recording companies, novelists, costume designers, publicists and casting agencies.

Historical Notes

In August 1929, the Barco Investment Company announced in the Los Angeles Times that construction of a 12-story, Class A apartment house had begun at the southeast corner of Rossmore and Rosewood Avenues. The company hired William Douglas Lee, the iconic architect of the Chateau Marmont and many other LA buildings, including what is now the Downtown Women’s Center (one of the many structures designed during a long partnership with developer Florence Casler).

When the white concrete building opened in 1929, it boasted the fanciful Spanish/French Rococo/Renaissance architecture evident in many of Douglas's buildings and, perhaps acquiescing to gaudier California impulses, had acquired a pretentious name—The El Royale—displayed in a pistachio green neon sign on the rooftop. The building, with its parquet and marble floors, cornice moldings and heavy chandeliers, was described as “a decorous setting of inimitable beauty.”**

Historical Notes

Situated in prestigious Hancock Park immediately opposite the exclusive Wilshire Country Club, the El Royale’s enviable address has long been heralded as an enclave for a fortunate few.

Historical Notes

The El Royale became the go-to home-away-from-home for blue blood East Coasters “wintering” in California. Actors including Clark Gable, Loretta Young (with whom Gable had a secret child), Harry Langdon, and Helen Morgan, and writer William Faulkner all called the El Royale home.

One of the most popular tenants during the 1930s was the notorious actor and Mob associate George Raft, who lived in one of the penthouses and even threw a birthday party for a friend’s child in the reception room.**

Historical Notes

In the 1950s, the building was bought by the Scott family. It would stay in their hands for more than 50 years, bringing a much needed stability and warmth. Matriarch Martha Scott ran the El Royale as if its tenants were extended family, fostering a tight-knit community within the ornate halls. During the ’60s and ’70s, many wealthy elderly people moved into the El Royale, downsizing from nearby mansions.**

Historical Notes

Stars like Cameron Diaz, Ben Stiller, Judd Apatow, Uma Thurman, Jack Black, Ellen Page, and Josh Brolin have lived at the El Royale. It was said that Katie Holmes, during her courtship with Tom Cruise, would give Scientology tracts to the doorman to hand out to other tenants. Recently, it was reported that Melanie Griffith was touring the building for her daughter, Fifty Shades of Grey star Dakota Johnson.

Local legend Huell Howser lived at the El Royale from the 1980s until his death. He loved the building, especially in winter, when the sky was clear and the ocean could be spotted from the upper floors, and the whole city took on a “medieval apricot glow.”

Martha Scott died in 2009. In 2012, her children sold the building to Kamran Hakim and Farhad Eshaghpour for $29.5 million dollars. Fittingly, Hakim is one of the biggest landlords in New York City, the city whose glamour and style the El Royale aspired to from its inception. **

Historical Notes

The apartment building is known as a home for celebrities, and for its iconic green neon rooftop sign, which had been unlit for 50 years. The rococo details used by William Douglas Lee throughout the exterior and interior of the building are what visitors initially find most striking when they first lay eyes upon the majestic El Royale.

The El Royale Apartment Building was declared LA Historic-Cultural Landmark No. 309 in 1998.

Historical Notes

The Ravenswood is a historic apartment building in Art Deco style at 570 North Rossmore Avenue in the Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. It was designed by Max Maltzman, and built by Paramount Pictures in 1930 just five blocks from the corner of Paramount's studios on Melrose Avenue.

Throughout the years, the Ravenswood Apartments housed several movie stars, including Mae West, Ava Gardner and Clark Gable.

Historical Notes

Mae West moved into Apartment #611, a 2 bedroom, 2 bath unit, shortly after her arrival in Hollywood in 1932. The apartment had been reserved for her by Paramount and she liked it so much she never left. Offered a lifetime lease, she eventually had a share in the building when she lent the owners some money and they used the building as collateral. West lived there until her death in 1980.*^

Historical Notes

Opened in 1930 at 570 N. Rossmore Avenue, the seven-story art deco Ravenswood apartment building was a popular address for celebrities during the golden age of Hollywood and is a Los Angeles Historical-Cultural Monument.

Located at 450 North Rossmore and built in 1929 by William Douglas Lee in a French and Spanish colonial revival style, El Royale has nine stories, a penthouse and is a Los Angeles Historical-Cultural Monument.

Historical Notes

The Ravenswood is a historic apartment building at 570 North Rossmore Avenue in Hollywood. Designed by architect Max Maltzman and built by Paramount Pictures in 1930, it is considered a landmark Art Deco masterpiece.

The Ravenswood Apartment Building was declared a Historic-Cultural Monument No. 768 by the City of Los Angeles in 2006.

Historical Notes

The Art-Deco building was designed by architect Frank Green, and was finished in 1935. At the time there were 68-single and 22-double apartments, and a 3-bedroom penthouse.

Historical Notes

Built in 1927 at a cost of $5 million, the Lincoln Heights Jail officially opened in 1931.

The five-story, Art Deco-style jail was designed to accommodate 625 prisoners at full capacity. By the early 1950s, the jail was known to hold up to 2,800 prisoners. As a result of overcrowding, the City of Los Angeles approved an expansion in 1951.

Some of the notable individuals held at the Lincoln Heights Jail included Al Capone and people arrested during the Zoot Suit Riots and Watts Riots. ^#^

Historical Notes

The prison was also known for the high volume of inmates who had been arrested over suspicions regarding their sexual orientation, leading to the creation of a separate wing for gay prisoners.

The jail was decommissioned in 1965, when the Los Angeles City Council and the County Board of Supervisors determined that it would be more cost effective to close the prison and place inmates in the nearby county jail. ^

Click HERE to see contemporary view.

Historical Notes

Since the jail's closing, many new uses have been proposed for the building, including a state prison, trade technical high school, mixed-use space, and a 24,000-square-foot urban rooftop garden.

From 1979 to 2014, the building housed the Bilingual Foundation for the Arts. It has also been used as a filming location and for sports tournaments. ^

Click HERE to see contemporary aerial view.

Historical Notes

The Los Angeles Times Building is an art moderne building located at 1st and Spring Streets.  It was designed by Gordon B. Kaufmann and is the current headquarter of the Los Angeles Times. It was built to replace the old Times Building located at 1st and Broadway.*^

(1937)^^* - The current Times Building rises behind a worker demolishing the paper's previous home located on the northeast corner of 1st and Broadway.

Historical Notes

In 1935, when the first part of the building was opened, Harry Chandler, then the president and general manager of Times-Mirror Co., declared the building a "monument to the progress of our city and Southern California".

The building, despite its historic and architecturally significant appearance, appears not to be listed as a historic landmark. It does not appear in listings of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments, California Historical Landmarks, or U.S. Registered Historic Landmarks in Los Angeles.*^

Historical Notes

The building architect, Gordon B. Kaufmann, also designed the giant, revolving globe that was mounted on a pedestal in the building's lobby. The 5 1/2 feet diameter globe, topped by the Roman messenger god, Mercury, once welcomed most people to The Times. Eventually, it was replaced as the de facto main entrance.^

Historical Notes

The Times Building was originally completed in 1935. In 1948, a 10 story addition at the northwest corner of South Spring Street and West 2nd Street was added (Mirror Building). To the west of the older building, a six story addition was added from 1970-1973 that consisted of two horizontal boxes hovering over various vertical boxes below.

Historical Notes

This is the Los Angeles Times's fourth building since it started publishing in 1881. Click HERE to see views of the earlier LA Times buildings.

Historical Notes

In 2018, the LA Times is planning to move into its 5th building at 2300 Imperial Highway in El Segundo. The future of the iconic downtown Art-Deco building is still undetermined. 

However, there is a proposed project (Times Mirror Square Porject) to construct a new mixed‐use development and to rehabilitate the Times, Plant, and Mirror Buildings on the approximately 3.6‐acre city block bounded by W. 1st Street, S. Spring Street, W. 2nd Street, and S. Broadway Street.*

Historical Notes

The 10-story Mirror Building was designed in the late moderne architectural style by Los Angeles architect Rowland H. Crawford in 1946.

Historical Notes

The primary, east-facing elevation of the Mirror Building has three sections; the center section has seven recessed bays that consist of metal windows separated by sculpted bronze spandrels. The entrance to the building is centered on the elevation and is surrounded by granite; the entry doors are recessed in an entrance vestibule that features bronze doors flaked and topped with decorative cast bronze panels. ^

Historical Notes

The Mirror Building is part of the Times Mirror Square complex consisting of five interconnected buildings, constructed in three phases between 1935 and 1973.  Its most prominent features are the Gordon Kaufmann-designed Los Angeles Times Building and the Rowland Crawford-designed Mirror Building, both of which are located on the Spring Street side of the property.  The property as it exists today was completed with the addition of the William Pereira-designed Times-Mirror Headquarters building in 1973, which was also joined by a six-story parking garage along the Broadway side of the block.^

Historical Notes

As of 2018, there is a proposed project (Times Mirror Square Porject) to construct a new mixed‐use development and to rehabilitate the Times, Plant, and Mirror Buildings on the approximately 3.6‐acre city block bounded by W. 1st Street, S. Spring Street, W. 2nd Street, and S. Broadway Street.*

Historical Notes

Built in 1929, Wilshire Tower was the first store and office building erected in the area. Developer A. W. Ross wanted to create the Miracle Mile out of a section of Wilshire used as a service road for nearby oil fields. He persuaded Desmond's, the largest men's clothing store downtown at the time, to open a branch on the tower's ground floor, and other fashionable stores soon followed (Silverwood’s, W. Jay Saylor and Phelps Terkel).*^

Historical Notes

Desmond’s was the first major clothing retailer on the Miracle Mile when it opened in 1929. Its main entrance opened onto the sidewalk, but many shoppers entered through the rear; in a nod to the automobile's ascendency, the store's owners built a large parking lot behind the store and reserved additional space for future parking needs.

The first Desmond's Department Store was opened on Olvera Street in 1862. In 1921, Ralph R. Huesman purchased the store from the Desmond family and led the expansion of the retailer to several locations throughout the Southern California market.*

Historical Notes

The historic Art Deco Wilshire Tower was designed by architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood and built in 1928-1929.  It is a Zig-Zag Moderne two-story building with an eight-story office tower.*

Historical Notes

Silverwood's was founded in 1894 by Francis Bernard ("Daddy") Silverwood, Los Angeles clothier, merchant, and businessman, originally from Canada, near Lindsay, Ontario. The first store was located at 124 South Spring St. in Los Angeles, and soon moved to larger quarters at 221 South Spring St. The flagship store was established in 1904 at Sixth & Broadway in downtown Los Angeles.*^##

Historical Notes

The Wishire Tower Building was declared Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument No. 332  in 1987 (Click HERE to see complete listing).

Historical Notes

Located at 5505 Wilshire Boulevard, this structure was originally constructed in 1930 as a branch office of the Seaboard National bank. It was designed by Frank Rasche. It later served as a branch office of the Bank of America and now serves as the Korean Cultural Center.^

Historical Notes

The temple-like façade of this building, blending Egyptian revival with monumental Moderne styles, befits the era of its construction on the cusp of the Great Depression. 

Eschewing luxury in favor of concrete and masonry, the rectilinear structure is adorned with fluted columns topped by flower capitals, matching pilasters at both ends, and a horizontal frieze of flowers and eagles.

Over the years, the interior of the building was modified as its functions changed. The building has served as a carpet store, Armenian restaurant, and bank, among other uses.*

Historical Notes

Operated as a Korean cultural center for over thirty years, the building currently houses a museum, galleries for changing exhibitions, a library, an auditorium, and offices. The main entrance, now from the parking lot on the north side of the building, includes a small garden and pond.*

Historical Notes

Hartmarx, one of the nation's largest clothing manufacturers and retailers, bought the chain in 1941 and kept the name. The Silverwood's chain of clothing stores folded in the 1990s.*

Historical Notes

In 1894 the oyster cocktail was dreamed up by waiter Al Levy, who later became L.A.'s preeminent restaurateur.

In 1916 Levy built a luxury restaurant in what was then the tiny farm town of Watts, so motorists could stop off to dine in grand style on their way to Long Beach. It evidently flopped. When Prohibition arrived in 1919, the country's dining habits changed, dealing a blow to old-fashioned dining establishments such as Levy's with their elaborate multicourse meals.

In 1922 he started two restaurants side by side on Hollywood Boulevard, made a success of them and then sold them off in 1924. He took the money and immediately started a new downtown restaurant, Al Levy's Grill, on Spring Street (seen above).

Five years later, with his downtown chophouse well established, he was back in Hollywood with Al Levy's Tavern, which a contemporary described as "a Hollywood version of an English inn." It also featured a separate kitchen for kosher food. It was one of the three leading celebrity hangouts around the fabled corner of Vine Street and Hollywood Boulevard, along with Sardi's and the Brown Derby. ^

Historical Notes

The Fokker F-32 aircraft proved to be underpowered and costly to operate. Western Air Service retired them within just a couple of years of putting them into service.^^*

Historical Notes

Bob’s Air Mail Service utilized a real twin-prop airplane to top its station, with the wings serving as canopies to shade its General Petroleum pumps. The plane was one of two Fokker F-32 aircraft operated by Western Air Express, circa 1930-31. The four engine F-32 was a design failure due to overheating of the two pusher engines and was only briefly in commercial service.

Historical Notes

In the 1920s and 30s, as the automobile was becoming the default way to get around the Southland, buildings and structures in the area became more unique, often resembling the merchandise or services they hawked.  These “hey-you-can’t miss-me!” buildings (referred to as Novelty or Programmatic Architecture) were made to pull automobile drivers right off the road.

Historical Notes

Art Whizin established the Chili Bowl restaurant chain in Los Angeles in 1931, known for its distinctive shape in the form of a chili bowl. Whizin was a 25-year-old former amateur boxer when he established the business on Crenshaw Boulevard near Jefferson Boulevard with funding raised by selling "his wife's wedding ring and his roadster." Other businesses at the time were also modeled with architecture featuring eye-catching architectural depictions of the goods sold including ice a cream cones and coffee kettles.*^

Historical Notes

Chili Bowl restaurants were arranged with 26 stools around a circular counter (no tables) and employed college "kids" as burger flippers. The specialty dish was an open-faced burger smothered in chili and there were 22 restaurants within a decade of the eatery's opening.  After WWII many of the stores were converted into Punch & Judy Ice Cream Parlors that were later closed, and Whizin also built a mall in Agoura Hills that still bears his name.*^

Historical Notes

Four Chili Bowl structures survive, one in Huntington Park, Long Beach that is now the Guadalajara Nightclub, another became Kim Chuy Chinese restaurant on Valley Boulevard in Alhambra, the one on Pico Boulevard (that remained open 24 hours during the war effort for nearby workers), is now Mr. Cecil's California Ribs, and the one on San Fernando Road in Glendale is a used-car dealership.*^

Historical Notes

Originally named Agricultural Park in 1876, the 160-acre site was developed and served as an agricultural and horticultural fairground until approximately 1910, at which point it was re-named Exposition Park. On November 6, 1913, Exposition Park was formally dedicated, and became the home to a state Exposition Building and the county Museum of History, Science and Art, and was slated to gain a National Guard Armory.*

Historical Notes

The seven and a half acre Rose Garden, also called Sunken Garden, evolved from the redevelopment of Agricultural Park, and was completed in 1928; 15,793 rose bushes were in full bloom for the opening ceremonies. In August 1987, the Exposition Park Rose Garden was designated a Los Angeles County Point of Historical Interest. Through the years, the Exposition Building and the armory have given way to the California Science Center.*

On November 6, 1913, a celebration was held as a joint dedication of both the opening of Exposition Park and the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Click HERE to see more in the Opening of the LA Aqueduct.

Historical Notes

On November 6, 1913 the Museum of History, Science, and Art opened in Exposition Park. In 1961, it was "divided" into the Los Angeles County Museum of History and Science, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (known as LACMA, and since moved to new quarters on Wilshire Blvd). Years later, the museum was again renamed, becoming the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. The Beaux Arts/Romanesque style building, located at 900 Exposition Boulevard between Vermont and Figueroa, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. Above the stone arches the words "Los Angeles County Historical and Art Museum" are etched into the facade.*

On the day before the museum’s opening, November 5, 1913, the Los Angeles Aqueduct was opened providing a new source of water for the City of Los Angeles.  This was one of the most significant events in the history of Los Angeles.

A dedication of the opening of both the Los Angeles Aqueduct and Exposition Park was held on November 6, 1913.

Historical Notes

The Pan-Pacific Auditorium opened on May 18, 1935. Its green and white western-facing 228 foot long facade featured four stylized towers and flagpoles meant to represent upswept aircraft fins above the entrance.*

Historical Notes

With all the many Streamline Moderne houses and structures popping up in the 30s, many say the Pan Pacific Auditorium really was the single most famous Streamline Moderne building in Los Angeles.^*^*

Historical Notes

The first event held at the Pan-Pacific Auditorium was the 1935 Home Show. The show was aimed at hyping then-President Roosevelt's signing of the Title I legislative act "which authorized government loans" to aid homeowners with repairs and renovations.^*^*

Historical Notes

For 35 years, the Pan-Pacific Auditorium was home to a multitude of events, ranging from auto, boat and home shows to sporting events like hockey games, basketball (Harlem Globetrotters included), concerts, and political events like a dinner for Eisenhower and Nixon, and many more.^*^*

Historical Notes

The Pan-Pacific Auditorium was constructed by brothers Clifford and Philip Henderson who were convinced that Los Angeles needed a convention or public facility to accommodate the annual automobile show and a wide variety of cultural, recreational and sports events. In 1937, Errett Lobban Cord purchased the Pan-Pacific. He was
known for his prominence in the automotive industry who moved to Los Angeles to retire, halting production of his vehicles and shifting his focus to the Pan-Pacific Auditorium and other entertainment and electronics industry endeavors.^*^*

Historical Notes

From the October 15, 1939 edition of the Los Angeles Times:

“Under the dome of the Pan-Pacific Auditorium, 20,000 Southern Californians jammed the opening of the 1940 Automobile Show yesterday.

Along the lines of sleek models, with color tones running from silver, old rose, deep wine, to cream and pale green, 150 new cars were on display.

Among the exhibits were the new creations of 20 American companies and one foreign concern represented.

Visitors learned that the 1940 cars show a trend toward greater individuality with a tendency among many models to eliminate running boards, the introduction of several tow-toned color combinations, and wider and higher windshields.

They also found the 1940 car longer, the grouping of dashboard instrument dials directly in front of the driver and the use of fewer spokes in the steering wheels to insure the driver a more unimpeded view of instruments.

The car of 1940 gives luxury without increase in cost, visitors discovered…

One of the most interesting exhibits is the display of motorized units presented by the United States Army under the command of Maj. Gen. Walter P. Story.

The exhibit also includes anti-aircraft batteries, artillery units and sound equipment for detecting bombing planes…”

Historical Notes

The Pan-Pacific would host the Ice Capades and the Harlem Globetrotters, serve as home to the Los Angeles Monarchs of the Pacific Coast Hockey League along with UCLA ice hockey, UCLA men's basketball, USC men's basketball, professional tennis, car shows, political rallies and circuses. During the 1940s it was used for audience-attended national radio broadcasts and in the 1950s for televised professional wrestling shows.*^

Historical Notes

The widely known and much photographed facade belied a modest rectilinear wooden structure resembling an overgrown gymnasium inside and out. The auditorium sprawled across 100,000 square feet and had seating for up to 6,000. *^

Historical Notes

At its height, most major indoor events in Los Angeles were held at the Pan-Pacific. Leopold Stokowski conducted there in 1936, 1950s actress Jeanne Crain was crowned "Miss Pan-Pacific" there in the early 1940s, General Dwight D. Eisenhower spoke to a beyond-capacity crowd of 10,000 in 1952 a month before being elected President of the United States, Elvis Presley performed there in 1957 shortly before he was drafted into the Army and Vice President Richard Nixon addressed a national audience from the Pan-Pacific in November 1960.*^

Historical Notes

The exterior of the Pan-Pacific Auditorium was a masterpiece in Streamline Moderne design with its four towers reaching skyward that resembled aircraft fins. Behind the glorious facade, however, was a more modest wooden structure that was more of a sprawling gymnasium; there was little remarkable about the design of the interior that was 100,000 square feet and could seat up to 6,000 patrons. The fact that it was wooden (highly flammable) is what eventually made its fiery demise possible.^*^*

Historical Notes

In 1971, the Los Angeles Convention Center opened and essentially rendered the Pan-Pacific Auditorium utterly useless. By 1972, the Pan-Pacific Auditorium dwindled in use, and, after some small expos in the spring, finally shut its doors for good.

The auditorium continued to deteriorate throughout the 1980s, mostly owing to neglect. A large loading door on the southeast corner was often forced open, allowing free access to anyone. A fire in May 1983 damaged the northern end. On the evening of May 24, 1989 (six days after the 54th anniversary of its opening), the Pan-Pacific Auditorium was destroyed by a fire, the smoke from which was visible throughout the Los Angeles basin.*^

Historical Notes

The site is now Pan-Pacific Park and has a recreation center, with a scaled-down replica of one of the famous towers, which opened in 2002.

You can also see a re-creation of the Pan-Pacific as the ticket office at Disney's California Adventures.

Historical Notes

The theatre building complext that fronted on Beverly Blvd. also housed a cafe, ice rink and bowling alley. It was a structure separate from the Pan-Pacific Auditorium, which was behind the theatre building.

Historical Notes

The Pan Pacific Village Complex was closed in 1984 and soon thereafter demolished.

Click HERE to see contemporary view of the old Pan Pacific Village Complex site.

Historical Notes

The opening year for the Pan-Pacific Theatre was probably either 1936 or 1937, as the entry for architect Welton Beckett (William Pereira’s partner) in the AIA’s 1956 American Architects Directory lists the design as a 1936 project.^^#

Historical Notes

The Pan-Pacific Theatre was closed in 1984 and soon thereafter demolished.

Click HERE to see contemporary view of the old Pan-Pacific Theatre site.

Historical Notes

Slapsy Maxie’s nightclub opened on November 7, 1937 and became a celebrity hotspot. But in 1943, performance permits were denied by the police commission. Officers testiified that “show skits went beyond the limits of decency.” So on November 3, 1943, Slapsy Maxie’s opened at their new location, the former Wilshire Bowl nightclub at 5665 Wilshire Blvd. It is at this larger location that Jackie Gleason and Spike Jones performed, and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis made their L.A. debut. +*+

Historical Notes

Since it opened in 1929, the simple Spanish-style building at 7165 Beverly Boulevard has been home to dozens of venues including: a candy manufacturer, nightclubs, restaurants, theaters, a center of Yiddish drama, cinemas, and culminating with its reopening as the New Beverly Cinema Theatre in 2014 by Quentin Tarantino.

Historical Notes

This site originally housed the petite Art Deco tower of the Wilshire Bowl, a nightclub that offered dinner and dancing to the big-band sounds of Phil Harris' orchestra for the flat rate of $1.50 ($2 on Saturdays).

The building later changed owners and became Slapsy Maxie's, then the Mardi Gras, both nightclubs. ^#^

Historical Notes

The Wilshire Bowl was a nightclub (and not a bowling alley). It opened in 1933, by 1941 it was the Louisiana Restaurant. Slapsy Maxie’s took over around 1943. **#*

Historical Notes

In the 1940s, with a host of cops and judges on his payroll, gangster Mickey Cohen was so much of an LA kingpin that he was making $160,000 a month from his bookmaking operations alone. Some of his loot went into Slapsy Maxie’s, a club named after a prominent prizefighter (Maxie Rosenbloom) that was a popular pit stop for both Hollywood celebs and local hoods. ^^*

Historical Notes

The building was eventually demolished to make way for the sleek lines of the modern Van de Kamp's coffee shop designed by Welton Becket and Associates, whose offices were next door at 5657 Wilshire.

The large coffee shop was designed to serve 13,000 individuals a day and beckoned to Wilshire motorists with a bright canopy, glass walls, and pair of huge Van de Kamp's windmills attached to an integrated sign pylon. ^#^

The structure was eventually demolished, and an office supply store now occupies the site.

Click HERE to see a contemporary view.

Historical Notes

The above Streamline Moderne building was located adjacent to the NW corner lot of Wilshire and Fairfax where Simon's Drive-in once stood.

Historical Notes

The Coca Cola Building is a Coca-Cola bottling plant modeled as a Streamline Moderne building designed by architect Robert V. Derrah with the appearance of a ship with portholes, catwalk and a bridge from five existing industrial buildings in 1939.*^

Historical Notes

The Coca-Cola Building was designated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 138 in 1975 (Click HERE to see complete listing).

Historical Notes

Robert V. Derrah’s Coca-Cola Company Bottling Headquarters is a stunning expression of Streamline Modern style, a later branch of the Art Deco movement, featuring curving forms, long horizontal lines, and nautical influence.

Historical Notes

Designed by Architects Albert R. Walker and Percy A. Eisen , the Sunkist Building was built in 1935 across from the LA Central Library. It was the first earthquake reinforced building in Los Angeles.

In the late 1880s, California citrus growers began organizing themselves into cooperatives, with the goal of increasing profits by pooling their risk and increasing their collective bargaining power with jobbers and packers.

In 1893, P.J. Dreher and his son, the "father of the California citrus industry" Edward L. Dreher (1877-1964), formed the Southern California Fruit Exchange.  By 1905, the group represented 5,000 members, 45% of the California citrus industry, and renamed itself the California Fruit Growers Exchange. In 1908, it changed its name to Sunkist Growers, Inc. *^

Historical Notes

In 1970, Sunkist traded its downtown land and building for a larger property in Sherman Oaks in a deal valued at about $1.6 million. Before the Sunkist building was demolished in 1972, it sat empty for two years on the approaches to Bunker Hill. In 1981, Wells Fargo Bank was built on the empty land. Five years later, Wells Fargo bought Crocker Bank and moved to South Grand Avenue. Today, the old Wells Fargo Building has become the 48-story Four Forty-Four Plaza, housing about 80 firms.^^*

Click HERE to see the new Sunkist Headquarters located in Sherman Oaks (1970 - 2014).

Historical Notes

Designed in 1903 by architect A.L. Haley, who was also responsible for the Higgins Building on Main Street, the Touraine's columned facade stood three stories high, while the rear of the structure was eight stories, sloping with the natural terrain of Bunker Hill. Aimed at attracting wealthy renters, the Touraine's elegant grand staircase lead up to a large rooftop garden and sun room. Unlike other boarding houses and mansions on the Hill which contained spacious muti-roomed residences, the Touraine's apartments claimed to have all the functions of seven rooms squeezed into two, plus a kitchen.

The beds actually folded into the wall. One could be disguised as a mantle during the day, the other as a large plate glass mirror. A writing desk and bookcase were built into a door that concealed a large closet and the dining room table could be folded and hung up. The kitchen contained swinging doors with the stove attached, so that once the cooking was done, the door could be swung out into the living room and the stove used as a heater.

The building, which would have traditionally housed six or seven units contained twenty eight. The inventors of the floor plan were so impressed with their design that they patented the plan, as well as the built-in appliances. The gimmick of having the comforts of seven rooms in two was successful, and the Touraine Apartments became a fashionable residence for many wealthy patrons. #**#

The Neoclassical Touraine Building was demolished in the mid 1960's as part of the area's redevelopment.*

Historical Notes

Phineas Banning (1830 – 1885) was an American businessman, financier, and entrepreneur.  Known as "The Father of the Port of Los Angeles," he was one of the founders of the town of Wilmington, which was named for his birthplace. His drive and ambition laid the foundations for what would become one of the busiest ports in the world.

Besides operating a freighting business, Banning operated a stage coach line between San Pedro and Wilmington, and later between Banning, California, which was named in his honor, and Yuma, Arizona.

During the Civil War, he ceded land to the Union Army to build a fort at Wilmington, the Drum Barracks. He was appointed a Brigadier General of the First Brigade of the militia, and used the title of general for the rest of his life.

Banning's chief residence, constructed in Wilmington in 1864, is open to the public as a museum devoted to the Victorian era in California.*^

Historical Notes

The historic Greek Revival-Victorian Banning House was built in 1863 by Phineas Banning near the original San Pedro Bay. It remained in the Banning family until 1925 and has been owned by the City of Los Angeles since 1927. The home, barn and gardens are now operated as a museum.*^

Historical Notes

In 1963, the Banning House property, also known as Banning Park, was designated as Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 25 (Click HERE to see complete listing).  It is also California Historical Landmark No. 147 (Click HERE to see more in California Historical Landmarks in LA) as well as being federally listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Historical Notes

The Plaza Methodist Church was located to its present site, in the Los Angeles Plaza Historic District, in 1916.  The Church was re-located from Bloom Street when it bought the adobe once owned by Agustí­n Olvera (the man for whom Olvera Street is named).  Built on the Olvera Adobe site, The Plaza Community Center included the chapel and various social service offices including the first Goodwill Industries in Los Angeles.

The Church provided spiritual, economic, and medical services to Mexican, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese and Chinese immigrants in the poor urban neighborhoods.  In order to expand its facilities in 1925 the Plaza Community Center was razed and the Spanish Colonial Revival church, that is seen today, was completed in 1926.  The Plaza Community Center’s dental, medical clinic, social services and Methodist Headquarters is housed in the building next door, the Biscailuz Building. #+++

(1892)** - View showing the LA Plaza with the Olvera Adobe at left background and Olvera Street adjacent to it.

(1936)**^ - View of the LA Plaza showing the Plaza Methodist Church at upper-left where the Olvera Adobe once stood.

Historical Notes

The Olvera adobe was torn down in 1917 and, nine years later, architects Train and Williams completed the Churrigeresque-style Methodist Church. +^#^

Agustin Olvera (1818-1876) served as captain in Flores' campaign against Frémont and was one of the commission of three that negotiated peace with the American forces at Cahuenga. As a commissioner Olvera signed the Treaty of Cahuenga in 1847 ending the war in California. In 1850 he was elected the first county judge of the newly formed County of Los Angeles and held the first LA County Court trials in his home. Along with his legal duties, Olvera was responsible, with his two associate justices, for administering county business until the establishment of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in 1852. After retiring from the Bench Olvera was an LA County Supervisor in 1855-57. In 1877 the Los Angeles Common Council changed the name of Wine Street to Olvera Street in his honor.*^

Historical Notes

The State of California purchased the Church, Community Center and Headquarters in 1956 under the threat of eminent domain to create the Los Angeles Plaza Historic District.  The Church signed a 50-year lease to continue operations that was successfully renegotiated in 2011 with the City of Los Angeles.  Located next to the church in the Biscailuz Building is the Mexican Cultural Institute of Los Angeles, which is the premier venue for the expression of traditional and contemporary art and culture from the Mexican, Mexican American and Chicano perspective. #+++

Historical Notes

The building to the right of the Plaza Methodist Church is the Biscaliuz Building. Located on the site of the Juan Sepulveda adobe, it was designed as the Untied Methodist Church Conference Headquarters and the Plaza Community Center.  In 1968, the building was re-named after Eugene Biscailuz, a former Los Angeles County Sheriff, who had helped Christine Sterling in her struggle to save this historic section of Los Angeles.  In 1979, Leo Politi painted a mural on the south and east facades that depicts the Blessing of the Animals, a traditional event held in the Park every year on Easter Sunday.**#^

Juan Sepulveda (1814-1898) served on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in 1854.*^

The Medthodists bought and destroyed the Augustin Olvera adobe in 1916, first putting up some temporary buildings and then erecting a church (1925) and regional conference center (the Biscailuz Building, 1926) in its place (space was let in the conference center to the Mexican consulate for 30 years).

The Biscailuz Building, originally much more utilitarian looking, was given a "Spanish-themed" makeover after Olvera Street opened as a tourist destination.

Historical Notes

Mission Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles (Church of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels), was founded on September 4, 1781 by a group of Spanish settlers. The church was considered an asistencia ("sub-mission") of Mission San Gabriel Arcángel. Priests from Mission San Gabriel divided their time between the mission and the Asistencia site, but ultimately the installation was never granted mission status and the missionaries eventually abandoned the site.

The surrounding area was named El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río de Porciúncula ("The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels on the River Porciúncula", which is the present-day City of Los Angeles). A chapel, La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles, was later erected and dedicated on December 8, 1822, and for years served as the sole Roman Catholic church in the Pueblo. It is the oldest church in the city of Los Angeles.*^

Historical Notes

The Church of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels (also known as The Plaza Church), was founded in 1814, though the structure was not completed and dedicated until 1822. The structure incorporated a three-bell campanario, or "bell wall" which was removed and replaced by a gazebo-like structure in 1861 and then re-installed again in the early 1900s.*^

Historical Notes

The Plaza Church was one of the first three sites designated as Historic Cultural Monuments by the City of Los Angeles, and has been designated as a California Historical Landmark No. 144 (Click HERE to see complete listing).

Historical Notes

The part of the city called "Sonora Town" was an old adobe village north of the Plaza and Church of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels. It was Los Angeles' first Mexican quarters, or barrio. The area was named for the numerous miners and families who came from Sonora, Mexico, and may have still been around in the 1930s. Now it is Los Angeles' Chinatown District.*

Historical Notes

The expansion of the grocery business into the restaurant business was necessitated in the early 1930s by an increasing number of construction workers frequenting the grocery store for meals and driving away other customers from the grocery business. By expanding to the cafe next door, John and Joe were able to keep their grocery customers and accommodate an increasing number of restaurant/meal customers. The Italian American Grocery Co. bought its first stove in 1933. The grocery business site remained an active grocery store at the corner of the building shown in photo until 1984. Note the red car tracks and paved street surface.*

Little Joe's began in 1897 as the Italiano-Americano Grocery company by Italian-born Charles Viottou at the corner of 5th and Hewitt streets. When Italia sided badly in the war, many Italianos businesses changed their names; one famous example was the change in name from Bank of Italia to Bank of America. Subsequently, the Italiano-Americano Grocery Company became Little Joe's after maitre d' and then co-owner Joe Vivalda. Little Joe's is not affiliated to any other restaurant that took the same name.*^

Historical Notes

Little Joe's roots go back to the turn of the century. It was started by Italian-born Charley Viotto at the corner of 5th and Hewitt streets in 1897 as the Italian-American Grocery Co.

When the city's Italian immigrant community relocated to the North Broadway area after the turn of the century, the grocery store followed--moving to the ground level of a three-story hotel at the corner of Broadway and College Street in 1927.

Historical Notes

Bob Nuccio is the great-grandson of the restaurant's founder. That makes Little Joe's one of Los Angeles' oldest family owned and operated businesses (founded 1897).^^*

Historical Notes

Bob Nuccio, his brother Steve and their mother, Marion, decided to close because the restaurant needed to be remodeled and updated. But to do that, they would be required to retrofit the over 100-year-old building (constructed in 1886) to make it earthquake-resistant and make it comply with the federal Americans With Disabilities Act. That would cost $800,000, more than they can afford.^^*

Little Joe's closed for business in December of 1998. The building would remain vacant until it was demolished December 2013 to make room for a mixed-use housing project.^^*

Historical Notes

In December of 2013, developer Forest City Enterprises started demolishing Little Joe's to make way for a five-story project (Blossom Plaza) that will link Broadway with the elevated Chinatown Metro Rail station above North Spring Street to the east. Blossom Plaza will have 237 residential units, including 53 apartments where rents will be reduced for low-income tenants. It will also house 175 parking spaces open to the public and a landscaped courtyard next to the Metro Rail stop.^^*

Historical Notes

The U.S. Hotel was built around 1863 at 170 North Main by Louis Mesmer, then remodeled and expanded in 1886. The hotel attracted a swanky crowd and served the “best two-bit meal in Southern California” in its dining room, according to advertisements and articles published in the Los Angeles Times. By the early 1930s, it was still owned by the Mesmer family and lodged only men, many on public assistance. #^

Historical Notes

A gaunt ghost of bygone gaiety of the early days of Los Angeles, the old United States Hotel is shown as it is being torn down to make room for a more modern building. New sadness accompanied its demolishment when Mrs. Matilda M. Mesmer, widow of its manager for many years, Louis A. "Tony" Mesmer, died. She was the sister-in-law of Joseph Mesmer, prominent pioneer, who was the owner of the historic landmark. Photo dated: March 25, 1939.*

Historical Notes

Built in 1887 by Domingo Amestoy, the structure was Los Angeles' first brick office building and the first to have an elevator.^#*^

Note: The Nadeau Hotel also claims to have had the first elevator (built in 1882).

Historical Notes

On May 28, 1958, Times columnist Jack Smith wrote a column on the Amestoy Building:

“It was built by Domingo Amestoy in 1887 and it still stands at the northeast corner of Main and Market, across from City Hall.

It is alone now among the white concrete monoliths that have shouldered up around it, making it seem to grow smaller, like a very old man.

It has been condemned.  It will give way to the magnificent civic master plan.  Its doors are padlocked now and its bay windows have that blind look of windows in abandoned buildings.

It stands three stories high, not counting the cupola.  It is built of dark-red brick ornamented by elegant cornices and stone scrolls.

Its plump bay windows, like bustles, look obsolete and unnecessary, but beguiling.
It is a splendid example of the vogue of 1887, and once it has gone, its like may not be seen on earth again.

Historical Notes

Sam Seelig Company was founded in April 1912 by Sam Seelig, who had come to California from Arizona in 1911. Seelig opened a single grocery store in Los Angeles at the corner of Pico and Figueroa streets. The chain had grown to 71 stores by 1922. After World War I, the firm became deeply indebted to its main grocery wholesaler, a firm owned by W.R.H. Weldon. In a swap of stock for debt, Weldon assumed control of the chain, leaving Seelig in charge of retail operations. Seelig then left the company in 1924 to enter the real estate business, forming Sam Seelig Realty.

As a result of Seelig's departure, the company held a contest in 1925 to develop a new name, the result of which was Safeway. The original slogan was "an admonition and an invitation" to "Drive the Safeway; Buy the Safeway.” The point of the name was that the grocery operated on a cash-and-carry basis; it did not offer credit, as had been traditional for grocers. It was the "safe way" to buy because a family could not get into debt via its grocery bill (as many families did, especially during the Great Depression). By 1926, Safeway Stores had 322 stores centered in Southern California.*^

Historical Notes

In February 1932, the cornerstone for City Hall was laid. The local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution planted the new facility's first tree. In April 1932, The Citizen commemorated a City Proclamation that read:

On this day, April 28, 1932, this souvenir issue of The Beverly Hills Citizen is dedicated to the first completed unit of the magnificent civic center project. ...Such an edifice, heart of America's most perfect residential city is pride-inspiring. ...Crowned with the approbation of those it serves, the new civic building will stand through the years, a monument to the sterling foresight, solid principles and pride of its citizens.*^*^

Historical Notes

Beverly Hills City Hall is a fanciful Spanish Renaissance building known for its pale blue exterior paint accents, its blue, green and gold tile dome, gilded cupola and architectural elements representing government and commerce.*^*^

Historical Notes

Built in 1932 and renovated in 1982, Beverly Hills City Hall features a low base with an eight-story tower with marble walls, terrazzo floors and intricate ceilings.*^*^

The building appears in the movie In a Lonely Place (dir. Nicholas Ray, 1950).  It is also used as the police department building in Beverly Hills Cop (dir. Martin Brest, 1984).^

Historical Notes

Beverly Hills City Hall – built in 1932; renovated in 1982 & 2008; Architects: William J. Gage, Harry G. Koerner.^

Historical Notes

The City Hall building houses the city administration, including the office of the Mayor of Beverly Hills and board meetings of the Beverly Hills City Council.  Additionally, it houses the Municipal Gallery, an evolving art space designed by interior designer Gere Kavanaugh. Inside the building, a sculpture by Auguste Rodin called Torso of a Walking Man can be seen. 

In May 2013, the Beverly Hills City Council voted to add the building to its list of historical preservations.^

Historical Notes

Beverly Hills City Hall has long been a beloved civic landmark, its 1932 Spanish Renaissance tower denoting the political heart of an iconic city.

Historical Notes

In 1922 Lawrence L. "Lawry" Frank and Walter Van de Kamp founded the Lawry's company and created the Tam O'Shanter Inn restaurant in the Los Feliz district of Los Angeles, which claims to be the oldest restaurant in Los Angeles still operated by the same family in the same location. Frank created a special seasoned salt for use at Tam O'Shanter, which was available only to customers.

In 1938 the two opened Lawry's The Prime Rib on La Cienega Boulevard in Beverly Hills. The same year, Lawry's began marketing its signature seasoned salt in retail stores. This was the beginning of a food products empire under the Lawry's name that today sells a wide range of seasonings and flavorings. The line was sold to Lipton/Unilever in 1979, which in turn sold it to McCormick & Company in 2008.*^

Historical Notes

In 1947 Lawry's restaurant moved from its original location on La Cienega across the street and a few blocks further south to a larger, mostly windowless, strikingly modernistic building designed by Wayne McAllister.

In 1956, just prior to the 1957 Rose Bowl Game between the Oregon State Beavers and the Iowa Hawkeyes, Lawry's entertained the two competing teams. The Beavers were fed a prime rib dinner at the Beverly Hills restaurant and the Hawkeyes the same on the Pasadena City College football field following their practice. This started an annual tradition of hosting both Rose Bowl-bound teams, although following the inaugural event with Iowa the Big Ten teams were served outside Rose Bowl Stadium from 1957-1962. By 1963, when Illinois and Washington both dined at the restaurant on separate nights prior to the 1964 Rose Bowl Game, the two team events had become known as "Lawry's Beef Bowl." The Beef Bowl has expanded to the Dallas, Texas, location for the two Cotton Bowl participants.*^

Historical Notes

In 1993 Lawry’s moved again to a new building located on the original site. McAllister's building is now occupied by The Stinking Rose, a well-known garlic-themed Italian restaurant.

In 1974, Lawry's opened a satellite in Chicago's River North district, followed by restaurants in Dallas in 1983 and Las Vegas in 1997. Internationally, Lawry's opened in Jakarta in 1996, Singapore 1999, Tokyo 2001, Taipei 2002, Hong Kong 2006, Shanghai & Osaka in 2008, and Seoul in 2013.*^

Historical Notes

In 1902, Los Angeles formed its first municipal water utility and named it the Water Department. Nine years later the Bureau of Power and Light came along. A total of six different names have been used to refer to the two separate water and power organizations since that time. Not until 1937 did both organizations merge and become the Department of Water and Power. Click HERE to see more in DWP - Name Change Chronology.

Historical Notes

For decades DWP was in direct competition with the Souhern California Gas Co. They promoted the use of electricity by putting on display electric ranges, electric refrigerators and smaller electric appliances in most of their commercial branch offices.

Historical Notes

In December of 1936 Los Angeles city voters approved a charter amendment authorizing the Bureau of Power and Light to issue revenue bonds in the amount of $46 million and purchase the electric system of Los Angeles Gas and Electric Corporation, the last remaining privately-owned system in LA.

On January 29th, 1937 the Bureau of Power and Light completed the purchase of Los Angeles Gas and Electric Corporation. Click HERE to see more in First Electricity in Los Angeles.

Historical Notes

In 1988, the Los Angeles City Council declared the 2417 Daly Street Building LA Historic-Cultural Monument No. 384 (Click HERE to see complete listing).

Historical Notes

Some writers have claimed that this is the first car wash ever built, but not sure if this is correct.  The El Patio, owned by B.K. Gillespie, may have been the most influential of the early car washes, and Gillespie is credited with coming up with the super service station concept.

By 1928, Gillespie and other investors began opening a chain of super centers under the Gillespie Automobile Laundry System name which included a gas station. One of these early backers was Will Hays, a cleaner of motion picture content.^*^#

Click HERE to see more Early Views of LA Gas Stations.

Historical Notes

Originally named the El Patio Ballroom and located on the east side of Vermont Avenue between 2nd and 3rd Street, it boasted being “the largest and most famous dance hall on the West Coast."

The dance hall was renamed Rainbow Gardens by real estate developer Raymond Lewis, who purchased the property, added an indoor miniature golf course and changed the name to the Palomar Ballroom. It soon became a prime venue for the well-known bands that were rapidly gaining popularity. On August 21, 1935, Benny Goodman began his first Palomar engagement that marked the start of the swing era.*^

Historical Notes

Architect Samuel B. Bird designed the 1925 Spanish Colonial Revival style El Patio Ballroom, which could house up to 10,000 patrons. The amusement center, located at 245 South Vermont Avenue was later known as the Rainbow Gardens and finally the Palomar.*

Historical Notes

The dance floor could accommodate four thousand couples. Admission was 40 cents for gentlemen and 25 cents for ladies. Opening night was attended by 20,000, including many of Hollywood’s silent screen stars.*^

Historical Notes

The ballroom hosted popular bands including those led by Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Glen Gray, Jimmy Dorsey and Kay Kyser, among others. Nightly radio broadcasts on local station KFLJ attracted large crowds to the “Dining, Dancing and Entertainment Center of the West.”

The famed structure was the backdrop for several major Hollywood films that included The Big Broadcast of 1937, made during Benny Goodman’s return engagement, and Dancing Coed, which starred Lana Turner and Artie Shaw’s band.*^

Historical Notes

The Palomar burned to the ground on October 2, 1939. A Ralphs Market now stands where the ballroom once stood.*^

Historical Notes

The massive 500-room Ambassador Hotel, designed by renowned architect Myron Hunt, opened for business in 1921 on the site of a former dairy farm. It occupied 23.7 acres at 3400 Wilshire Boulevard, bordered by 8th Street, Catalina Street, and nearly to Mariposa Avenue. The hotel served as the stomping grounds for a staggering list of Hollywood legends, heads of state, and an endless list of famous personalities from the 20th Century. It is said that as many as seven U.S. Presidents stayed at the Ambassador, from Hoover to Nixon, along with heads of state from around the world.*

Historical Notes

For decades, the the Ambassador Hotel's famed Cocoanut Grove nightclub hosted well-known entertainers, such as Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Liza Minnelli, Martin and Lewis, The Supremes, Merv Griffin, Dorothy Dandridge, Vikki Carr, Evelyn Knight, Vivian Vance, Dick Haymes, Sergio Franchi, Perry Como, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Sammy Davis Jr., Little Richard, Liberace, Natalie Cole, and Richard Pryor.

Historical Notes

From 1930 to 1943, six Academy Awards ceremonies were performed at the hotel.

Historical Notes

Freddy Martin, led a big band for more than 50 years and helped establish the ''sweet'' jazz sound.  Martin’s career skyrocketed in 1941 when his band recorded ''Tonight We Love,'' which he had adapted from the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto in B flat.

Among the members of Martin's band who went on to success were Russ Morgan, a trombonist who formed a big band of his own, and Merv Griffin, who sang and played piano for the band in the 1940's and 50's, and went on to become a television talk-show host. ##^^

Historical Notes

A pivotal moment in world history happened in 1968, when Robert F. Kennedy was shot in a pantry off of the Embassy Room (and died 25 hours later), following his California Primary victory speech. The death of RFK coincided with the beginning of the hotel's demise.*

Historical Notes

The Schine family had owned the Ambassador for about 50 years, until its doors were closed on January 3, 1989 after 68 years of service, selling for $64 million. The landmark hotel was eventually demolished between late 2005 and early 2006.

The Central Los Angeles New Learning Center #1 K-3, and Central Los Angeles New Learning Center #1 4–8/HS, along with the Robert F. Kennedy Inspiration Park, were built on the site. The six schools were named as the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools.*

Historical Notes

Modeled after French Gothic cathedrals, the Immanuel Presbyterian Church was designed by architect Chauncey Skilling and built in 1928.  The building's stone-clad corner tower soars 205 feet above Wilshire, supported by a steel frame that allows for a strikingly spacious interior. The richly textured main sanctuary features intricately carved woodwork and stenciled vaulted ceilings. ^#^

This was Immanuel Presbyterian's second major church location. The first one was located on the SE corner of Figueroa and Olympic. Click HERE to see more.

Historical Notes

The vast array of traditional stained-glass windows were created by the Dixon Art Glass Company of Los Angeles. They are in marked contrast to the modern faceted glass windows in the Westminster Chapel by Judson Studios of Highland Park. ^#^

Historical Notes

The church has two addresses: 663 S. Berendo for the Westminister Chapel, one of the smaller sanctuaries, and 3300 Wilshire Boulevard for the main sanctuary.*

Historical Notes

The church houses a congregation that dates to 1888 and today serves nearby Latino, Filipino, Korean, and Ethiopian communities.

Historical Notes

On February 4, 2003, Immanuel Presbyterian Church was dedicated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 743.

Historical Notes

The Security-First National Bank Building was built in 1929.  It was designed by Morgan, Walls, and Clements, one of the oldest continuously operating architectural firms on the West Coast. The building is notable as one of the city's last remaining black-and-gold Art Deco structures, a diminutive version of the firm's downtown Richfield Building (built in 1928; demolished in 1968).^#^

Historical Notes

In 2005, the Security-First National Bank Building, 5207-5209 Wilshire Boulevard, was declared Historic-Cultural Monument No. 813 (Click HERE to see complete listing).

Historical Notes

It was originally built as a neighborhood branch bank and served this purpose until 1970. The building was used as a restaurant/nightclub and later a Christian center.^#^

Historical Notes

Mickey’s of Hollywood at Walt Disney World Resort, with its black-and-gold façade and zig zag ornamentation, was inspired by the Morgan, Walls and Clements design of the Security-First National Bank Building on Wilshire Boulevard.^

Historical Notes

Though only two stories high and dwarfed by its neighbors, this dazzling black-and-gold terra cotta building with zigzag moderne ornamentation makes its presence known.^#^

++Over the years several corporate names adorned The Wilson Building including (in chronological order): General Insurance, Mutual of Omaha (until 1990), Asashi, and Samsung.

Historical Notes

The French Chateau Apartments was designed by architect Arlos Sedgley in 1937 and converted to condos in 2007. In 2005, the building was designated LA Historic-Cultural Monument No. 815 (Click HERE to see complete listing).

Historical Notes

In 1923 E. M. Frasier built this 11-story hotel in Spanish Colonial style, which catered to Hollywood's film industry and was home to many stars throughout the years. This historic building began life as a luxury apartment building that was at the heart of Hollywood back in the 1920s, before becoming a hotel later in its history; its slogan was "Your home for a year or a day".*

Historical Notes

During the 1930s, the hotel was bustling with activity straight out of a screwball comedy. Stars like Maureen O'Sullivan lived in long term apartments at the hotel. On any given day, there might be an interview taking place in one of the rooms with Mrs. Elinor Mordaunt, a British authoress pleasantly surprised by the charm of Hollywood, while members of the Vine Street Development Association, including Louis B. Mayer and Howard Hughes, were toasting their success in the banquet room. Scotch Balladeers, Russian dancers, and string quartets performed in the Lido Room and on the large patio. There were wedding breakfasts for minor film stars, and evening banquets for the Athletic Conference of American College Women. Betty Grable hosted a "high jinx" filled costume party to celebrate child star Jackie Coogan's 21st birthday, which included Lucille Ball dressed as one of the Dionne quintuplets and Johnny Mercer providing impromptu entertainment on the piano.^

Historical Notes

The building has been linked with tragic deaths and because of this, it is considered haunted by some. Some unfortunate occurrences: D.W. Griffith died of a stroke on July 21, 1948 under the crystal chandelier of the lobby; a costume designer named Irene Gibbons jumped to her death from a hotel window; William Frawley, who lived at the hotel for decades, died of a heart attack on the sidewalk in front of the Knickerbocker. Other stars that frequented the hotel with better luck were: Rudolph Valentino, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio, Frank Sinatra, Lana Turner, Mae West, and Cecil B. DeMille among many, many others.*

(1956)**^ - An Elvis sighting at the Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel.

Historical Notes

Before it became the allegedly haunted apartment complex it is today, this Hollywood hotel was a revolving door of A-list movie stars. Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio used to rendezvous at the hotel bar, and Elvis shacked up here while shooting his first film, “Love me Tender.”

Historical Notes

In 1970 a renovation project converted the hotel into housing for senior citizens.

Historical Notes

In 1998, after being dark for decades, the neon Knickerbocker Hotel sign was illuminated once again as part of the city’s effort to spruce up the streets and restore some of its old brilliance and verve to Hollywood.

Historical Notes

Earl Carroll Theatre was the name of two important theaters owned by Broadway impresario and showman Earl Carroll. One was located on Broadway in New York City and the other on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood.

Earl Carroll built his second famous theatre at 6230 Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood that opened on December 26, 1938. As he had done at the New York theatre, over the doors of the entrance Carroll had emblazoned the words "Through these portals pass the most beautiful girls in the world." *^

Historical Notes

An "entertainment palace," the glamorous supper club-theatre offered shows on a massive stage with a 60-foot wide double revolving turntable and staircase plus swings that could be lowered from the ceiling.*^

Historical Notes

The Earl Carroll Theatre's facade was adorned by what at the time was one of Hollywood's most famous landmarks: a 20-foot high neon head portrait of entertainer Beryl Wallace, one of Earl Carroll's "most beautiful girls in the world," who became his devoted companion. The sign had long since vanished by the 1960s, but a re-creation made from photos is today on display at Universal City Walk, at Universal City, as part of the collection of historic neon signs from the Museum of Neon Art.

Another major feature at the theatre was its "Wall of Fame" where many of Hollywood's most glamorous stars had inscribed personal messages on individual concrete blocks, which were mounted on an outside wall of the building.*^

Historical Notes

The Earl Carroll Theatre  was sold following the 1948 deaths of Earl Carroll and Beryl Wallace in a plane crash. After a few changes in ownership over the decades, the building has housed the West Coast production of live-action original series produced for the Nickelodeon cable channel since 1997.*

Historical Notes

Designed by architect Percy Parke Lewis the Fox opened on August 14, 1931 part of a widespread cinema construction program undertaken by Fox West Coast Theatres. The Fox Theater quickly became the most recognizable symbol of the new Westwood Village, a Mediterranean-style village development adjoining the University of California Los Angeles planned by Harold and Edwin Janss of the Janss Investment Company.*^

Historical Notes

The Pico Drive-In Theatre was the first theatre of its kind built in the Western United States.  It was constructed in 1934 just one year after the first drive-in was opened in Camden, New Jersey (Hollingshead Drive-In).

In 1934, when it first opened, the name was simply Drive-In Theatre. The name was changed to Pacific and later Pico Drive-In Theatre since more drive-ins were sprouting up.

Historical Notes

Early drive-in theaters had to deal with noise pollution issues. The original Hollingshead drive-in (Camden, New Jersey) had speakers installed on the tower itself which caused a sound delay affecting patrons at the rear of the drive-in's field. In 1935, the Pico Drive-in Theater attempted to solve this problem by having a row of speakers in front of the cars. In 1941, RCA introduced in-car speakers with individual volume controls which solved the noise pollution issue and provided satisfactory sound to drive-in patrons.*^

Historical Notes

Later known as the Pacific Drive-In, as it was operated by Pacific Theatres. By 1943, it was known as the Pico Drive-in, and was closed and demolished in 1947. The Picwood Theatre was built on part of the site.^^*

Historical Notes

Movies have always held a place at this intersection of West Los Angeles—from the 1948 built Picwood Theatre (which was demolished in 1990) to the 4-screen Landmark Theatre inside the Westside Pavilion, which opened in the 1980’s.^^*

(n.d.)***# - Window-mounted drive-in speakers...one for your car...one for the car on the other side of you. Later systems would transmit the signal through your AM radio.

Historical Notes

The outdoor theaters reached the zenith of their popularity during the 1950s.  Piling the kids in the car made for a cheap family night out, and drive-ins were a favorite hangout for teens who'd recently gotten driver's licenses.

The activities of the teenagers prompted another nickname for drive-in theaters — "passion pits". **^^

Historical Notes

Architect Carleton Monroe Wilson, Sr. designed the 1925 Chapman Park Hotel, located at 3401 Wilshire Boulevard, owned by Samuel James Chapman. In 1936 Wilson designed bungalows and a chapel called the Pueblo extending the grounds to encompass a full city block. The hotel and pueblo were demolished and replaced by the 1969 Equitable Plaza Office Building.*

Historical Notes

Architect A. C. Martin designed the1931 Cord Building located at 3443 Wilshire Boulevard, which featured a sandstone and marble exterior and a 30 foot tower. E.L. Cord, owner of a Fuller Motors dealership and producer of Auburn and Cord automobiles, chose his business initials KFAC for a new radio station, and in 1932 the Federal Radio Commission approved a new location for the station and towers in the penthouse of the dealership. In 1945 Packard-Bell moved in and the building was renamed. The building underwent a major remodel in 1949.*

Historical Notes

In 1926, a measure was placed on the ballot giving Los Angeles voters the choice between the construction of a vast network of elevated railways or the construction of a much smaller Union Station to consolidate different railroad terminals. The election would take on racial connotations and become a defining moment in the development of Los Angeles. The proposed Union Station was located in the heart of what was Los Angeles' original Chinatown. Reflecting the prejudice of the era, the conservative Los Angeles Times, a lead opponent of elevated railways, argued in editorials that Union Station would not be built in the “midst of Chinatown” but rather would “forever do away with Chinatown and its environs.” ^

Historical Notes

Voters approved demolishing much of Chinatown to build Union Station by a narrow 51 to 48 percent.^

Historical Notes

When Union Station was opened in May 1939, it consolidated remaining service from its predecessors La Grande Station and Central Station. It was built on a grand scale and became known as "Last of the Great Railway Stations" built in the United States.^

Historical Notes

Examiner clipping attached to verso, dated May 4, 1939: "Stirring awake memories that had slumbered for more than a century, railroad officials yesterday staged a colorful pageant of transportation that thrilled thousands of Angelenos for two hours. Gayly costumed ladies of the Gay Nineties -- and the years before -- rode stage coaches and horse cars and stuttering, slow-moving trains of another era. Derby-hatted, mustachioed gentlemen in tight coats pumped high-wheeled bicycles -- 'bone-crushers' they were known as in those days -- all to celebrate formal opening of the new Union Station, pictured in background as oldest Union Pacific train approaches the city's newest in beautiful architecture." ^^

Historical Notes

Union Station was designed by the father and son team of John Parkinson and Donald B. Parkinson, and opened in May 1939. The structure combines Spanish Colonial, Mission Revival, and Streamline Modern style, with Moorish architectural details. It was named the Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal (LAUPT), until it's owner, Catellus Development, officially changed the name to Los Angeles Union Station (LAUS).*

Historical Notes

The ticket concourse has 62-foot high ceilings and a 110-foot counter.

Historical Notes

Attached to the main building to the south is the station restaurant designed by the famed Southwestern architect Mary Colter. It was the last of the "Harvey House" restaurants to be constructed as a part of a passenger terminal. Although today it is padlocked and stripped of many interior furnishings, the topology of its vast rectangular space, rounded central counter, and streamlined booths remains. The spectacular inlaid cement tile floor reproduces the pattern of a Navajo blanket. Colter also designed a sleek, Streamline Moderne cocktail lounge, which is closed now as well. In October 2014, the Harvey House space was leased to leading local restaurateurs for a gastropub.^

Historical Notes

Enclosed garden patios are on either side of the waiting room, and passengers exiting the trains were originally directed through the southern garden. The lower parts of the interior walls are covered in travertine marble; the upper parts have an early form of acoustical tile. The floor in the large rooms is terra cotta with a central strip of inlaid marble (including travertine, somewhat unusual in floors since it is soft). The ceiling in the waiting room has the appearance of wood, but is actually made of steel.^

Historical Notes

The intersection of Aliso and Los Angeles Streets is seen in the foreground. The 101 Freeway would be built along Aliso Street in the early 1950s. Click HERE to see more.

Historical Notes

In the mid-1990s, an intermodal transit center and twenty-eight-story office tower was added on the east side of Union Station.

Union Station was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. It also is listed as Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 101 (Click HERE to see complete listing).

Historical Notes

Without hyperbole, Union Station was described in 1939 as “the epitome of architectural splendor and ultra-modern efficiency…the last word in speed, convenience and comfort.”

Historical Notes

Built in 1939, Los Angeles Union Station is the largest railroad passenger terminal in the Western United States and is widely regarded as “the last of the great train stations.” The station’s signature Mission Moderne style makes it one of L.A.’s architectural gems. The station was commissioned in 1933 as a joint venture between the Southern Pacific, Union Pacific and Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroads and was intended to consolidate the three local railroad terminals.*

Historical Notes

The station's monumental architecture, a unique combination of Spanish Colonial Revival and Art Deco styles, assured that it would be one of the most identifiable landmarks in the city. Completed in 1939 as train travel began to be surpassed by other modes of transportation, Union Station was the last grand railroad station built in America.^

Historical Notes

The vast and extraordinary spaces now serve as station to the city's Metro Rail lines, and once again tens of thousands of people course through the building every day. In the mid-1990s, an intermodal transit center and twenty-eight-story office tower was added on the east side of Union Station. These additions draw on the 1939 station for inspiration, interpreting the vast spaces and southwestern colors in a new way, and incorporating the work of many different artists as part of the public spaces.^

Historical Notes

The Harvey House restaurant at Union Station opened in 1939. It was designed by Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter, an architect who is often credited with helping to build up the reputation of the Southwest as a romantic tourist destination—not only though her designs for other Harvey House outposts but also through her extensive work in national parks.

One of the last restaurants operating in a chain once ubiquitous at railway stations, Union Station’s Harvey House closed in 1967, but continued to host the occasional private event or film shoot, including a music video for Fiona Apple’s 2009 song “Paper Bag.”  *

The Harvey House building next to Union Station reopened to the public in October, 2018 for the first time since 1967, when the Harvey House restaurant chain (that used to be a mainstay of regional rail stations) closed its doors. The space reopened as the home of Imperial Western Beer Company, a restaurant and bar big enough for more than 400 people, with its own brewery attached.  To the right of Imperial is the Streamliner, housed in a small appendage that Fred Harvey created for servicemen who wanted a lengthier stay over a gimlet or martini than they might find next door.^

The three-story-tall ceiling of the Fred Harvey Room is painted with a dazzling geometric design. The floor tiles together create a pattern resembling a Navajo rug.

Historical Notes

Built in 1939, Los Angeles Union Station is the largest railroad passenger terminal in the Western United States and is widely regarded as “the last of the great train stations.” The station’s signature Mission Moderne style makes it one of L.A.’s architectural gems.

Historical Notes

Originally designed by father/son architects John and Donald Parkinson, the station blends influences of Art Deco, Spanish Colonial, and Mission Revival design to emphasize the eclectic nature of L.A.'s cultural heritage.

Click HERE to see more Early Views of Union Station including History

Historical Notes

Light Rail service arrived at Union Station in 2003, when Metro's Gold Line began operating to Pasadena from tracks 1 and 2. The line was expanded south over US 101 in 2009 with the opening of the Gold Line Eastside Extension.

In 2011, the board of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) approved the purchase of Union Station from Prologis and Catellus Development (a descendant of the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific railroads) for $75 million. The deal was closed in 2011. Since taking over ownership of the station, Metro has focused on increasing services for passengers at the station. One of the most noticeable changes is the addition of several retail and dining businesses to the concourse.*

Historical Notes

Built in 1939, Los Angeles Union Station is the largest railroad passenger terminal in the Western United States and is widely regarded as “the last of the great train stations.”

Click HERE to see more of the early history of Union Station.

Historical Notes

The area in the extreme foreground is now Union Station. The street in front is Alameda Street, and those buildings ahead of Alameda were knocked down and are now landscaping and on ramps to the 101 Hollywood/Santa Ana Freeway. Old Chinatown started being demolished around 1933, and Union Station opened in 1939.**^

To the right-center of the photo is the Pico House in front of the LA Plaza which is out of view to the right. The old 1877-built Baker Block can be seen in the center of the photo just below the Federal Courthouse Building. The Baker Block would be demoished in 1942 to make room for the 101 Freeway.

Historical Notes

The ornate three-story Baker Block located on the 300 block of N. Main Strreet was completed around 1877 by Colonel Robert S. Baker. For a number of years, the building housed offices, shops, and apartments. Goodwill Industries of Southern California purchased it in 1919. Despite plans to relocate the structure for another purpose, the city purchased the Baker Block from Goodwill in 1941 and demolished the building a year later. U.S. Route 101 now runs beneath where these buildings once stood.*

Click HERE to see more in Early Views of the Historic 300 Block of N. Main Street.

Historical Notes

In 1939, the first home of the Department of Water and Power was sold to the City to make way for the Civic Center development planned in connection with the new Union Passenger Depot. Located at the corner of Marchessault and Alameda Streets, directly across from the almost completed railroad station, the property was the main office of the municipal water works when the City bought out the private water companies operating here until 1902.^

Historical Notes

Built in 1929, the eleven-story exchange building was designed by Samuel Lunden in the Moderne style. Ground was broken in October 1929, just as the Great Depression hit, and when the Los Angeles Stock Exchange opened its doors there in 1931, the country was deep into the Depression.*^

Historical Notes

As Los Angeles expanded southward in the early twentieth century, the city’s banks and financial institutions began to concentrate along Spring Street.*^

Historical Notes

The street façade is clad entirely in granite, a rarity in Los Angeles, where terra cotta was more economical. It features massive, fluted pilasters that frame three bas reliefs by sculptor Salvatore Cartaino Scarpitta titled Finance, Research and Discovery, and Production. Above the central entrance is an inscription incised into the granite that proclaims the mission and founding date of the Stock Exchange.^#^

Historical Notes

The massive bronze entrance doors, twelve feet high and featuring intricate patterns in low relief, were claimed by the manufacturer to be the largest bronze doors of their type ever fabricated in this part of the country.^#^

Historical Notes

Included in the $1.75 million structure was a fifth floor clearing-house, a statistical department, and a large auditorium in addition to a smaller lecture room with space for fifty. Offices were on the sixth through ninth floors, and a club with a library, card room, billiard room, and reading rooms were planned for the top two floors. A 2,660-square-foot printing room was located in the basement. The building’s highlight was its 90’ x 74’ balconied trading room with a forty-foot ceiling and sixty-four booths.**^^

Historical Notes

Designed in the Classical Moderne style to impart a sense of financial stability, the building’s imposing, fortress-like street facade rises the equivalent of five stories. A slender twelve-story office tower clad in terra cotta is set back at the rear.^#^

Historical Notes

The Stock Exchange became part of the Pacific Stock Exchange in 1956, and it moved out of the building in 1986. In the 1980s, the building was converted into a nightclub called the Stock Exchange. After undergoing an extensive interior renovation, the building reopened in 2010 as Exchange LA, a nightclub and event venue.^#^

On January 3, 1979, the Los Angeles Stock Exchange Building was designated LA Historic-Cultural Monument No. 205 (Click HERE to see complete listing).

Historical Notes

Constructed in 1925, this Beaux Arts facility was built as an imposing structure meant to convey a sense of justice and public importance. The 14 story, 550,000 square-foot high-rise building was the nation’s first consolidated judicial facility. The Hall was designed in the classic Italianate style.*#*^

Historical Notes

The Hall of Justice accommodated a wide range of functions for the County of Los Angeles, including the Sheriff’s Department, Coroner, District Attorney, Public Defender, and Tax Collector. Additionally, the building housed 17 courtrooms and a county jail with over 750 cells.*#*^

Historical Notes

The Hall imprisoned many notorious criminals, such as Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, Charles Manson, and Sirhan Sirhan, and served as the backdrop for many movies and scores of Hollywood shows including Dragnet and Get Smart. Other historical events included the autopsies of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe.*#*^

Historical Notes

The Hall of Justice was closed shortly after the 1994 Northridge earthquake and is currently being restored.  It is scheduled to re-open as the Sheriff's and District Attorney's Headquarters in 2014.*^

Historical Notes

On June 2, 1949, the Broadway Tunnel was demolished for the construction of the 101 Freeway. The route cut through Fort Moore Hill and made it necessary for a Broadway overpass to be built across the freeway and the old tunnel site.*^

Historical Notes

Built between 1937 and 1940, the United States Court House was the third federal building constructed in Los Angeles. The first, constructed between 1889 and 1892, housed the post office, U.S. District Court, and various federal agencies, but it soon proved inadequate. A larger structure was built between 1906 and 1910 at the corner of Main and Temple Streets. The population of Los Angeles grew rapidly in the early part of the twentieth century, and a larger building was needed to serve the courts and federal agencies. The Second Federal Building was razed in 1937 to clear the site for the existing courthouse.*^

Historical Notes

The United States Court House is a Moderne style building that originally served as both a post office and a courthouse. The building was designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood and Louis A. Simon, and construction was completed in 1940.*^

Historical Notes

Stephen M. White was elected Los Angeles County District Attorney in 1882, State Senator in 1886 and United States Senator in 1893. During his term in the United States Senate, Senator White’s most notable accomplishment was his successful leadership of the fight to create the Los Angeles Harbor in San Pedro as opposed to Santa Monica Bay, the site that was being advocated by powerful railroad interests.

In 1989, the statue was moved again to its present location, at the entrance to Cabrillo Beach off Stephen M. White Drive, overlooking the breakwater at the L.A. Harbor.^###

Historical Notes

Gilbert Stanley Underwood designed the Post Office Terminal Annex, built between 1938 and 1940, in the California Mission style; the supervising engineer was Neal A. Melick. The cupolas of the Terminal Annex are replicas of those of the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

Historical Notes

The U.S. Post Office - Los Angeles Terminal Annex was the central mail processing facility located on Alameda Street near Union Station in Los Angeles from 1940 to 1989. The Mission Revival and Spanish Colonial Revival building designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.*

Historical Notes

Employees of the United States Postal Service are divided into three major categories: Letter Carriers (also referred to as mailpersons or mail-carriers); Mail Handlers and Processors; and Clerks. In the olden days there were more mail handlers and processors that often worked in the evening and at night preparing mail and bulk goods for the carriers to deliver.*

Historical Notes

The 400,000 square feet building served as the main mail distribution center for the Metropolitan Los Angeles area from 1940 until 1994. Approximately 1,700 Post Office employees handled over four million pieces of incoming and outgoing mail on a daily basis.*

Historical Notes

The Post Office Terminal Annex, a three-story building with two towers, was designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood and built by Sarver & Zoss between 1939 and 1940. The building was known to open 24 hours a day and responsible for processing 2,000,000 mails per day including all incoming and outgoing mails in Los Angeles. It is located between Alameda Street and Cesar E. Chavez Avenue, across from the Los Angeles Union Station.^

Historical Notes

Only ten years after its opening, the demands of the city's mail had already outgrown the facility. Accordingly, the Post Office announced plans in 1950 for a $12 million expansion, including an adjoining five-story parcel post building and other structures as well.*

Historical Notes

The fresco in the Post Office Terminal Annex lobby consists of eleven semi-circular, tempera on plaster “lunettes” by Boris Deutsch depicting “Cultural Contributions of North, South and Central America.” The murals were funded by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts and completed in 1944.

“The mural series entitled “The Cultural Contributions of North, South and Central America” in the Los Angeles Terminal Annex Post Office was painted in the early 1940s by Boris Deutsch. While the murals depict a number of indigenous North and South Americans, Mr. Deutsch himself was originally from Lithuania…

In 1939, he received a commission from the United States Treasury Department to paint murals in the Los Angeles Terminal Annex Post Office. The space included 11 panels, or “lunettes”, and Mr. Deutsch was required to choose his subject matter and sketch all 11 designs, as well as close-ups. He chose the subject of “Culture of the Americas”, and represented indigenous peoples from South America, Mexico and California, as well as scenes from science and industry. Mr. Deutsch also completed other post office murals through the same program, including the “Indian Bear Dance” mural in the post office in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. Portraits are described as a quintessential subject of Mr. Deutsch’s work. He employed modernist concepts such as loose, expressionist strokes and flattened, almost cubist, qualities…

Despite the continued presence in the Los Angeles area of the Gabrieliño-Tongva people, the mural lunettes may not include them at all. In the lunette depicting Indians in “Alta California”, which is now the state of California, the artist chose to paint Father Junipero Serra, who spent very little time in the Los Angeles area, and was more influential in the San Diego and Monterey Bay areas after arriving from Baja California. San Diego was the home of the Kumeyaay people, and Monterey was the territory of the Rumsen Ohlone.*

Historical Notes

The cupolas of the Terminal Annex are replicas of those of the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

Historical Notes

The Los Angeles Times published the above photograh on October 2, 1947 with the following caption: “NEW MAIL SERVICE — Los Angeles Airways helicopter shown landing on the roof of Terminal Annex Post office yesterday to inaugurate helicopter air-mail service, the first of its kind in the United States. Two flights daily are planned on this run with another to start Oct. 16.”

Los Angeles Airways began regularly scheduled air mail service in Los Angeles, using the Sikorsky S-51 helicopter. Before long, LAA was operating a twice-a-day mail service between the main downtown post office and Los Angeles International Airport along with a small package air express service.

With a fleet of five S-51s, LAA’s first year of operations resulted in 700 tons of mail being carried with approximately 40,000 landings throughout the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The small operation maintained a 95% reliability rate and by the time it began its small package air express service in 1953, it was annually moving nearly 4,000 tons of mail a year.

In July 1951 the CAB awarded LAA’s reliable helicopter operation the rights for passenger services which started in November 1954 with larger Sikorsky S-55 helicopters while the smaller S-51s continued the mail and small package services.*

Historical Notes

By the 1980s, the operations had outgrown even the expanded facilities at the Terminal Annex. The facility's volume had grown by the mid-1980s to 14 million pieces of mail per day, and the annex was plagued by inadequate space, overcrowding and inadequate work areas. Accordingly, the Postal Service Board of Governors in 1984 approved the construction of a new $151 million general post office in South-Central Los Angeles. Almost 50 years after Terminal Annex became the city's main mail-processing facility, the new processing facility in South Central opened in 1989. Despite the move of the processing facility, the customer service windows in the Terminal Annex's ornate lobby remain open.*

Historical Notes

The Terminal Annex building was built for the purpose of processing all incoming and outgoing mail in Los Angeles. Though its purpose was principally utilitarian, Architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood sought to keep the building's design in keeping with the city's Union Station, which opened across the street in May 1939.

Historical Notes

The Post Office Terminal Annex was added to the National Register of Historic Places - Building #85000131, on January 11, 1985.

Historical Notes

The original plan was to locate the mail processing center next door to Union Station, about where the Mozaic apartments are today.  But its size and opulence threatened to out-shine the station’s so its site was re-located across the street.

Historical Notes

Designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood, the Mission Spanish Colonial Revival-style Terminal Annex was built by the Sarver & Zoss contracting firm from 1939 to 1940.

Historical Notes

Built in 1929, the Italian Romanesque Revival style buildng was designed by architect Ralph C. Flewelling.^##^

Historical Notes

Seeley Mudd Memorial Hall of Philosophy is one of the oldest and most beautiful buildings on the USC campus. The Romanesque structure features a cloistered courtyard, a 146-foot campanile, and the double-height library, as well as dramatic spaces filled with elaborate carvings and decorative surfaces.^##^

Historical Notes

The famous clock tower stands 146 feet above the junction of the North and West wings, equipped with chimes manufactured by Deagan. Ornate sculptures, reliefs, and mosaics adorn the building. The Argonaut's Hall, in which many philosophy seminars and lectures take place, is also ornately decorated and depicts Jason's search for the golden fleece.^^^#

Historical Notes

CBS Columbia Square, opened on April 30, 1938, was built for KNX and as the Columbia Broadcasting System's West Coast operations headquarters on the site of the Nestor Film Company, Hollywood's first movie studio. The Christie Film Company eventually took over operation of Nestor Studios and filmed comedies on the site, originally the location of an early Hollywood roadhouse. Prior to moving to Columbia Square, KNX had been situated at several Hollywood locations.*^

Historical Notes

CBS Columbia Square was designed by Swiss-born architect William Lescaze in the style of International Modernism and built over a year at a cost of two million dollars — more money than had ever been spent on a broadcasting facility.*^

Historical Notes

In early 2009, CBS Columbia Square Studios were designated as a historic-cultural monument by Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission.*^

Historical Notes