L.A. Landmarks: Then, Now and . . . Tomorrow?

In culling my bookshelves for volumes to give away, I found a forgotten treasure. It is called simply “Los Angeles,” and was compiled by workers of the Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration and published in 1941.

Thus it is a lasting contribution of the often maligned WPA, a New Deal agency that made work for thousands of unemployed writers, artists, artisans and laborers during the Depression. It is a guide to the city of 50 years ago.

It is remarkable for two phenomena: the landmarks that no longer exist, and the landmarks that do. Considering the city’s mania for demolishing and rebuilding, that anything remains is a marvel.

Most notable among the survivors is the Bertram Goodhue central library, now being restored after two disastrous arson fires; its pyramidal tile tower is dwarfed by the skyscrapers rising above it.

Other classic structures still mercifully in place are the Bradbury Building, with its skylighted inner court; the Biltmore Hotel, recently renovated; the moderne/classical Edison Building; the moderne Eastern Columbia building, with its green terra-cotta coating and large Gothic clock tower, and the 28-story City Hall, an exception to the 150-foot height limit that then existed.

Other notable structures that have escaped the wrecking ball are Union Terminal, which has survived hard times and may yet have a future; the Pico House, once the city’s finest hotel, now looking for a purpose; and several Broadway motion picture theaters, including the Million Dollar, the Los Angeles and the Orpheum.

Notable in their absence, however, are the Richfield Building, whose black terra cotta walls and vertical gold stripes once rose to a steel tower that symbolized the “black gold” of the oil industry. It was demolished to make way for today’s Richfield Towers.

Also vanished is Clifton’s Cafeteria, which once stood at 618 S. Olive St. It was famous for its South Seas decor, its singing waiters and waitresses, and its “pay what you can” policy. Angels Flight, the funicular railroad that once hauled passengers up and down Bunker Hill for a nickel, has vanished mysteriously into bureaucratic limbo. Now and then its remains are reported here and there, and its eventual restoration is promised; but I doubt that we will ever see it again. Nor will we ever be able to ride anything for a nickel.

Many memories fell with the Philharmonic Auditorium Building at 5th and Olive. This was the home of the Philharmonic Orchestra, ballet, opera and musical comedy before the Music Center was built. It was our claim to culture. It served double duty as the home of the Temple Baptist Church, a fact that vindicated our Eastern critics.

Missing from the Civic Center are the County Hall of Records, unique because it stood at an oblique angle to the streets and was topped by pyramidal gables, and the California State Building, which once stood on 1st Street between Broadway and Spring. Though it was a handsome building, with fine interiors, it was torn down years ago for another state building that has yet to be built. Mysterious are the ways of government.

Venturing out from the downtown area, the guide listed other landmarks that still exist, such as the domed Angelus Temple, by Echo Park. This was the home of Aimee Semple McPherson’s Foursquare Gospel. Mrs. McPherson was the most entertaining evangelist who ever labored in these ripe fields.

(Sister Aimee tweaked the noses of Los Angeles police and prosecutors when she vanished in the sea at Ocean Park, turned up weeks later in a Mexican border town, and claimed to have been kidnaped. Authorities were unable to prove what they suspected--that she had spent the time in a Carmel love nest with her radio station engineer.)

In the Wilshire district the book notes the presence in 1940 of Bullock’s Wilshire, which I consider the most beautiful building in the city; and the Ambassador Hotel. The Ambassador, whose Coconut Grove was once frequented by Hollywood’s most glamorous stars, is still standing, but barely. It will be torn down for a new high school, or, if he has his way, Donald Trump’s highest building--and the world’s. Trump’s fortunes not being at their highest, I’m betting on the high school.

“For many years,” the preface says, “the city has suffered from journalistic superficiality; it has been lashed as a city of sin and cranks; it has also been strangled beneath a damp blanket of unrestrained eulogy. . . .”

Whatever it was then, and is today, it will not be the same tomorrow.

I am reminded of the story about the American tourist in London who asked a cabbie to point out London’s monuments. “How long did it take to build that?” he would ask, and the cabbie would say, “Oh, 50 years.” The American would say smugly, “In New York it would take three months.”

Finally they came to Buckingham Palace. The American asked how long it had taken to build it. The cabbie said, “Don’t know, sir. It wasn’t there yesterday.”

Los Angeles is like that.