From the Ruins of Lingerie and Perfume Rises Library of Law
“It’s still boarded up,” my wife said gloomily the other night as we passed Bullocks Wilshire on the way home from the Westside.
It was true. Shutters darkened the windows that in past seasons would have been alive with stylish mannequins or Santa and his reindeer.
Bullocks Wilshire has long been considered the most beautiful commercial building in Los Angeles. It has been called a modern cathedral.
When the Art Deco landmark was built in 1929, the neighborhood was in the suburbs. The store was built for the automobile, with its opening on the parking lot.
It was hailed as a piece of art that would define a generation, designed to project an aura of modern luxury, down to its radiator covers and drinking fountains. Its famous rose marble interior walls and modern-style murals remain intact, as does the granite and copper exterior.
In the parking lot--or “motor court”--uniformed valets helped shoppers out of their cars at the porte-cochere under a richly colored ceiling fresco depicting a brave new world of transportation: a Zeppelin, an airplane, a luxury steam liner and Mercury, the winged god of commerce.
The store was acquired by R.H. Macy & Co. in 1988, and was closed shortly after Macy’s went bankrupt. When it closed its doors on April 13, 1993, a pall fell over the neighborhood.
When my wife and I drove by the boarded-up store, I was reminded of a letter I had received a day or two earlier from a Connecticut man who had worked for Bullocks Wilshire and for Robinson’s in his youth. He had read a magazine article I wrote recently about Bullocks Wilshire.
“I got the shock of my life,” wrote Jack Bryant of Cornwall, Conn., “when I read in your column that Bullocks Wilshire was boarded up. I worked at Robinson’s and what we used to call BW when I was a senior at Los Angeles High School. A lot of fast kids got their clothes at BW and I thought I’d go for the glamour.”
Bryant liked Robinson’s better than BW because it was more humane in its treatment of customers, who were called patrons. But BW had experience with bogus buyers and con artists. Some said they (the glamorous) were the worst.
“When I left Robinson’s to go to BW it was like I had gone over to the enemy. A nice Catholic boy. Why did I go there? All those snooty people. The Fremont Place crowd. Christmas trees made of ostrich feathers. Chartreuse and cranberry Christmas wrappings. Whores in the lingerie. Face lifts in the tearoom. . . .”
Much of the interior of the store remains as it was. As The Times described it, “Intricate bronze-colored doors welcome the shopper into a cosmetics hall more like a marble basilica than a store, with vertical stripes of lights reaching from the pale, rose-colored walls across the ceiling. . . .”
When I was in high school I used to wander with feigned nonchalance through that basilica, breathing its exotic perfumes and ogling the pretty counter saleswomen. I never bought anything.
Later, when I became more affluent, I sometimes had lunch in the tearoom, sipping white wine and watching the models slink down the steps to parade in the latest fashions.
Not long after the store was sold to Macy’s, it was discovered--to the horror of Los Angeles culture buffs--that numerous articles and fixtures were disappearing and turning up in I. Magnin stores (which are also owned by Macy’s and now also will all be closed).
Among those who were disaffected by this rapacious practice was Mayor Richard Riordan, who wrote a letter to Macy’s asking that it desist. Riordan and Los Angeles preservationists strongly urged that missing items--such as chandeliers from lingerie and massive light fixtures from the former saddle shop--be returned.
Most shocking was the revelation that some of the missing chandeliers were found hanging in an I. Magnin store in San Francisco.
Macy’s agreed to return some of the missing pieces and to talk about the others.
After reminiscing about his days in the store, Bryant wrote: “I now come to the point of my letter. What’s going to happen to BW’s beautiful building?”
Not to worry, Bryant.
The cathedral of commerce is about to become a cathedral of education. The 39-year lease owned by Macy’s has been sold to the Southwestern University School of Law, whose academic and business offices are nearby.
As much as possible, the old building and its treasures will be kept intact. The first two floors will be converted into a library for the university’s 340,000 books.
Said Lee H. Taylor, dean of Southwestern, renovation is already under way. “One of the most admired and significant structures in the country, the Bullocks Wilshire building will, over the next year and a half or so, become Southwestern’s Law Library. We’ve only just begun.”
Where young women used to go for lingerie and perfume, they will hereafter be able to peruse Sir William Blackstone’s commentaries on English law and the most significant decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court.
* Jack Smith’s column is published Mondays.
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