Recycling an L.A. Landmark

An old and treasured Los Angeles building--the old Bullock’s Wilshire, an Art Deco landmark--is undergoing a restoration that will give both uplift and face lift to one of the city’s venerable neighborhoods and, at the same time, provide a space for tomorrow’s lawyers. That’s a far sight better than the mini-malls that often sprout in the lower floors of L.A.’s classic but obsolete architectural treasures.

The soaring building at Wilshire and Westmoreland has become the new technology library for Southwestern University School of Law, which served both the public and itself by buying the 1929 landmark, a signature of the Wilshire Corridor in its midcentury prime.

Southwestern, long established in humbler digs nearby, bought the building in 1994 from R.H. Macy & Co. Altogether the deal came to $8.6 million; another $10 million has been allotted to restoration and adaptation. The basement and parts of the first and second floors have become the library, with reading spaces where well-fixed Angelenos once found ladies lingerie and menswear. Plans for the remaining three floors will provide more space for Southwestern’s 1,160 students.

None of this has come without a struggle. The building, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, closed in 1993 and hit the depths under Macy’s, whose officials decided to strip the structure of 166 chandeliers and other fixtures. The Los Angeles Conservancy, city officials and Bullocks Wilshire loyalists objected fiercely, and the chandeliers have been returned.

The law library--alas, closed to the public--houses 374,000 volumes under the Southwestern reconfiguration, which may ultimately include restoration of the famous old Bullocks Wilshire tearoom, where generations of shoppers dined and watched models parade the latest fashions. The library is testimony to what can happen when forces combine to save a classic. It’s no longer a shopping institution, but you can almost hear the click of castanets and the call at the elevator: “Going up!”