Former Flagship : B of A Will Close Venerable Branch in Downtown L.A.
In a bygone era, bank lobbies conveyed power and confidence through vaulted ceilings and brass teller cages surrounded by walls and floors of polished marble. Today, customers usually do business in a utilitarian branch or through an automated teller machine.
A chapter from the old days will close next month when the Bank of America moves out of its branch at 7th and Spring streets downtown, leaving the elegant Beaux Arts-style office to movie and television studios and anyone else with a use for old glory.
“It used to be the flagship branch for Southern California, but we’re just not getting enough traffic through there for the branch to carry its weight,” Ronald Owens, a spokesman for B of A, said.
The branch, which was the bank’s Los Angeles headquarters from about 1930 until 1972, is partly the victim of a banking industry trend toward reducing overhead by closing branches and relying more on automated teller machines, or ATMs.
Number of ATMs Increases
California’s four big banks have all trimmed the number of their branches in recent years, but none so drastically as B of A. At its peak in November, 1980, the bank dominated the state with 1,107 branches, the nation’s largest branch system. The shrinkage began in 1984, when 132 offices were closed. The following year, another 43 were shut.
When the 7th and Spring branch closes its doors March 22, the bank will have 880 branches, still more than any other California bank. At the same time, the number of ATMs run by B of A has grown to 1,358 today from 33 in 1979.
Other factors contributed to closing the branch. Spring Street was once the financial heart of Los Angeles. The building once used by the Pacific Stock Exchange, now transformed into a nightclub, is in the same block, and most big banks had their main offices in the neighborhood.
Records indicate that the building on the northeast corner of 7th and Spring was built in 1924 by Hellman Commercial Trust & Savings Bank. Hellman eventually merged with Merchants National Bank, which was in turn acquired by Bank of America in November, 1928.
Bank of America, based in San Francisco, eventually made the Hellman Commercial site its Southern California headquarters. The date the branch became the headquarters is uncertain, but it was around 1930.
The two-story lobby, marble floors, hand-painted ceiling, brass fixtures and walnut-paneled 12th-floor conference room seemed to symbolize the solidness of A. P. Giannini’s ambitious Bank of America, even in the Depression days.
What the Depression didn’t get, however, the changing urban landscape of the city did. In the 1970s, the financial industry moved up the hill to the west side of downtown, leaving Spring Street to retail outlets of a different nature.
B of A moved its headquarters to a shiny tower at 525 S. Flower in 1972 but kept the old building as a branch. Over the years, the bank kept reducing the space it was using in the building and leasing more to other tenants. The 250,000-square-foot structure was sold in 1980 to the owners of a chain of parking lots, and the bank became a tenant.
B of A currently leases the basement, ground floor and mezzanine, a total of 42,000 square feet, in an era when the average bank branch is closer to 3,000 square feet. Half of the lobby on Spring Street has been shut down for a long time, and the mezzanine is closed off by chains. The bank tried to supplement the income from the branch by leasing the space occasionally to movie and television companies for filming.
Owens said part of the movie “Ruthless People” was filmed there and such television shows as “Cagney & Lacey,” “The Law and Harry McGraw,” “Max Headroom,” and “Private Eye” have used the branch for episodes.
Owens said the overhead costs became too much and, despite having almost two years remaining on its lease, the bank is moving out. Branch employees have been offered jobs in other downtown locations, he said.
B of A hopes to sublease the space, Owens said. Jack M. Lumer, who manages the property for its owners, said interest has been expressed by several prospective tenants, including another bank.
In the meantime, according to Owens, it will probably be used more often for movie and television productions.
