A CITY IN CRISIS : Some L.A. Landmarks Reduced to Rubble and Ashes : Architecture: A number of significant structures are damaged. ‘These buildings are what gave our city character. They root us to our history,’ a preservationist says.

Some architectural landmarks from a bygone era could be forever lost because of the riots.

Many of the Los Angeles’ oldest neighborhoods--home to a number of historically important buildings--have been severely hit by fires and looting. Where once stood many of the city’s earliest monuments are charred graves of earth littered with glass, concrete, wood and remnants of the consumer goods they once held:

* A 1924 beaux-arts office and hardware store at 7th and Union streets (Young Market Building) was looted and burned Thursday night. Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Capt. Steve Ruda said its interior was destroyed. It once was filled with marble and antique mosaics.

* At Broadway and 6th Street, Carl’s Jr.--in a 1927 Spanish Colonial building that formerly housed a Schauber’s Cafeteria--was destroyed.

* The Palace Theatre, 630 S. Broadway, suffered peripheral smoke and fire damage. Damage to the interior is presently unknown. Built in 1911, it is Los Angeles’ oldest operating movie house.

* In the Mid-Wilshire district, Bullocks Wilshire, one of the city’s most important architectural monuments, sustained smashed windows and other damage from first-floor looting. Built in 1928 by John and Donald Parkinson, among the leading architects of the time, the department store is an internationally renowned Art Deco masterpiece, filled with murals, furnishings and designs from 65 years ago. When looting started Thursday morning, armed security guards were called to the scene and boards were placed over its showcase windows.

* In Hollywood, the Consumer Drugs Building--an Art Deco monument nearly 60 years old--burned to the ground.

* The neighboring Frederick’s of Hollywood store, a Streamline Moderne building from 1935, suffered smoke damage, shattered windows and interior damage from looting.

“I feel a tremendous sense of sadness and sorrow,” said Barbara Hoff, director of preservation issues at the Los Angeles Conservancy, who watched on television as the Young Market Building--which she called one of her favorite downtown structures--went up in flames. “These buildings are what gave our city character. They root us to our history. Now they’re being destroyed.”

Members of the Los Angeles Conservancy have remained “glued to (their) television sets, monitoring the riot, answering questions and assembling a list of architects and structural engineers who will provide technical assistance to owners of historic properties,” said Linda Dishman, executive director of the conservancy.

Dishman said the organization has appealed to the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington for emergency funds to assist property owners in restoration, and to the Office of Historic Preservation in Sacramento for additional technical and architectural assistance.

As looters scurried in and out of Hollywood Boulevard stores, the owners of Whitley Court--a cluster of Spanish Colonial bungalows built from 1903 to 1919--grabbed hoses and frantically fought off a blaze only 150 feet from the buildings. They also hired an armed security guard to patrol the premises and discourage looters from trespassing.

“We have been very worried,” said Whitley Court co-owner Christy McAvoy. “These buildings are important. You can’t replace a historic building. When it burns, you lose it forever.”

Once the lootings and fires stop for good, damage assessment will begin. Of concern are the numerous Queen Anne-style houses and Craftsman bungalows built 80 to 100 years ago in South Los Angeles.

Some may not be rebuilt, and reconstruction of others will be an arduous process because many materials are now too hard to find or too expensive. Also, duplicating historic designs might be impossible unless they were elaborately documented.

“You know, after a war, the first thing you notice is the absence of buildings,” Hoff said. “And when your buildings are gone, where are you?”