(Photos by Los Angeles Public Library Image Archives, Carlin Stiehl/For The Times, Santa Monica Public Library Image Archives, Douglas Friedman, Security Pacific National Bank Collection, Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times)
These 10 buildings tell the story of L.A.’s monumental 1930s, year by year
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Maybe this was a pressure-creating-diamonds situation.
Somehow in the 1930s, amid the immense stresses of economic collapse, natural disaster, Olympic anxiety and the looming shadow of World War II, Los Angeles built some of its best-loved architectural gems. The jaw-dropping lobby of the Pantages Theatre (1930), the hilltop domes of Griffith Observatory (1935), the grand halls of Union Station (1939) — all were produced in that harrowing decade.
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How rough were the ’30s in L.A.? The Depression, beginning with the stock market crash in October 1929, put the brakes on new construction and farm production, pushing California unemployment to an estimated 28% in 1932. The City Council, meanwhile, was led by one of the most corrupt politicians in L.A. history, Mayor Frank Shaw.
The city did pull off the 1932 Summer Olympics, drawing a record 101,000 people to the Memorial Coliseum opening ceremony. But those Games drew only 1,332 athletes from 37 countries — half as many athletes as gathered for the 1928 Games in Amsterdam.
Hollyhock House, Egyptian Theatre, Huntington Library. A number of L.A.’s most inspiring structures went up in the 1920s and they’re enduring parts of the area.
In 1933, the Long Beach quake killed more than 100 people and destroyed at least 70 schools. The 19-story Los Angeles General Medical Center was completed (and after decades mostly idle, is now being repurposed).
In 1934 and 1938, major floods along the Los Angeles, Santa Ana and San Gabriel rivers took scores of lives and prompted the Army Corps of Engineers to build Hansen Dam in the San Fernando Valley and encase 51 miles of the L.A. River in a concrete channel.
Begun in 1936 and completed in 1959, that channel might be among the city’s largest and least attractive man-made landmarks — in the words of historian Kevin Starr, “A tombstone of concrete.” But it does its job.
As the city weathered these changes, its signature industry shrunk, then bloomed, as movies (priced at about 25 cents) distracted the masses. The arrival of color deepened the spell, as did blockbusters like 1939’s “Gone With the Wind” and “The Wizard of Oz.”
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The landmarks that went up during those years aren’t all great architectural innovations; many flow directly from the Art Deco and Streamline Moderne trends of the 1920s. But all carry hints about how Angelenos changed with the times.
As critic and author David Kipen has written: “If you don’t like the weather in San Francisco, they say, just wait five minutes. If you don’t like the architecture in Los Angeles, maybe give it ten.”
Here we take a year-by-year architectural stroll through the 1930s. You can enter most of these buildings, in some cases for free, in some cases by booking a tour, buying beer or seeing a show.
1930: Pantages Theatre
Hollywood Theater
(Photos by Security Pacific National Bank Collection, Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times)
Then: By June 4, 1930, when the Pantages opened as a Hollywood Boulevard venue for movies and vaudeville acts, Los Angeles had been on a theater-building binge for years, beginning with the Sid Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre in 1922. Many of those theaters featured the ascendant style of the era, Art Deco. But few had the panache — or the sordid backstory — of the Pantages.
Designed by B. Marcus Priteca and decorated by Anthony Heinsbergen just before the Great Depression hit, it was the last Hollywood movie palace and the last of more than 80 theaters run by impresario Alexander Pantages. (And where was Pantages on this grand theater’s opening day? In jail on a rape conviction. Though that conviction was overturned a year later, the Pantages empire crumbled quickly.)
Now: It’s been 25 years since the Nederlander Organization revitalized the Pantages as a live theater venue with about 2,700 seats. The Pantages has operated as a West Coast haven for traveling Broadway shows, including repeat visits by “The Lion King,” “Wicked,” “The Book of Mormon” and “Hamilton.”
It bowls over many guests before they reach their seats, thanks to the drama of the building’s barrel-vaulted lobby, including a pair of grand staircases, three big, jazzy chandeliers and assorted figures from mythology, aviation and early movie-making. The design fireworks continue inside the theater itself amid gold and silver zigzags, chevrons and starbursts against a deep blue background that suggest the night sky.
“I’ve been working here since 2005 and I’m not tired of it at all,” said Bradley Pierce, who tends one of the two lobby bars.
There are no regular tours of the interior, but maybe that’s just as well. Support live theater, buy a ticket and see these spectacular rooms in action.
Also built in 1930: The Eastern Columbia Building, a 13-story Art Deco building covered in turquoise terra-cotta tiles, opens. In 2006, it was converted into condos.
Designed by B. Marcus Priteca and decorated by Anthony Heinsbergen just before the Great Depression hit, it was the last Hollywood movie palace and the last of more than 80 theaters run by impresario Alexander Pantages. (And where was Pantages on this grand theater’s opening day? In jail on a rape conviction. Though that conviction was overturned a year later, the Pantages empire crumbled quickly.)
Now: It’s been 25 years since the Nederlander Organization revitalized the Pantages as a live theater venue with about 2,700 seats. The Pantages has operated as a West Coast haven for traveling Broadway shows, including repeat visits by “The Lion King,” “Wicked,” “The Book of Mormon” and “Hamilton.”
It bowls over many guests before they reach their seats, thanks to the drama of the building’s barrel-vaulted lobby, including a pair of grand staircases, three big, jazzy chandeliers and assorted figures from mythology, aviation and early movie-making. The design fireworks continue inside the theater itself amid gold and silver zigzags, chevrons and starbursts against a deep blue background that suggest the night sky.
“I’ve been working here since 2005 and I’m not tired of it at all,” said Bradley Pierce, who tends one of the two lobby bars.
There are no regular tours of the interior, but maybe that’s just as well. Support live theater, buy a ticket and see these spectacular rooms in action.
Also built in 1930: The Eastern Columbia Building, a 13-story Art Deco building covered in turquoise terra-cotta tiles, opens. In 2006, it was converted into condos.
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1931: John Marshall High School
Los Feliz School
(Photos by Herman J Schultheis Collection, Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times)
Then: If you could plot all of American pop culture on a single map, this might be the universal high school. John Marshall High School’s three-story brick walls have the good looks and screen credits for the role, and there’s a real-life rescue story behind the Los Feliz campus as well.
Architect George M. Lindsey designed it to serve 1,300 students in 1931. But within a year, enrollment had swollen to 2,100. Soon the school added a gym, a second classroom building and an auditorium.
“The architecture is very unique for Los Angeles. It’s called Collegiate Gothic Revival,” said Krisztina Tokes, L.A. Unified School District’s chief facilities executive and a 1990 Marshall graduate.
In the 1930s, “this was a city that was trying to be taken seriously,” Tokes said. “We were a scrappy little nothing town ... trying to prove to the East Coast and San Francisco that we were legit.” She recalls the first time she stepped into Marshall’s main building. “I just knew that it was something kind of special,” she said.
Now: Marshall’s enrollment, which surged to 4,760 students in 2005, has dipped to 1,849 (as of fall 2024). Tours are not usually available (except to prospective students), but home football games (usually 4 p.m. on Fridays) are open to all.
Strolling Tracy Street, you pass the classic school facade, framed by grass and tall trees. From Griffith Park Boulevard, you see the football field and track.
And film crews kept coming. Besides the movies “Grease” (1978), “A Nightmare on Elm Street” (1984), “Pretty in Pink” (1986), “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (1992) and “Grosse Point Blank” (1997), the campus shows up in TV’s “The Wonder Years” (1988-1993), “Boy Meets World” (1993-2000) and “Yellowjackets” (2021-ongoing).
Also in 1931: Griffith Park’s Greek Theatre hosts its first performance, an operatic concert.
Architect George M. Lindsey designed it to serve 1,300 students in 1931. But within a year, enrollment had swollen to 2,100. Soon the school added a gym, a second classroom building and an auditorium.
“The architecture is very unique for Los Angeles. It’s called Collegiate Gothic Revival,” said Krisztina Tokes, L.A. Unified School District’s chief facilities executive and a 1990 Marshall graduate.
In the 1930s, “this was a city that was trying to be taken seriously,” Tokes said. “We were a scrappy little nothing town ... trying to prove to the East Coast and San Francisco that we were legit.” She recalls the first time she stepped into Marshall’s main building. “I just knew that it was something kind of special,” she said.
Now: Marshall’s enrollment, which surged to 4,760 students in 2005, has dipped to 1,849 (as of fall 2024). Tours are not usually available (except to prospective students), but home football games (usually 4 p.m. on Fridays) are open to all.
Strolling Tracy Street, you pass the classic school facade, framed by grass and tall trees. From Griffith Park Boulevard, you see the football field and track.
And film crews kept coming. Besides the movies “Grease” (1978), “A Nightmare on Elm Street” (1984), “Pretty in Pink” (1986), “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (1992) and “Grosse Point Blank” (1997), the campus shows up in TV’s “The Wonder Years” (1988-1993), “Boy Meets World” (1993-2000) and “Yellowjackets” (2021-ongoing).
Also in 1931: Griffith Park’s Greek Theatre hosts its first performance, an operatic concert.
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1932: First Congregational Church of Los Angeles
Koreatown Historic Landmark
(Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Examiner/USC Libraries/Corbis via Getty Images)
Then: One of the grandest church buildings in all of Los Angeles was built to lure a beloved reverend back to the city from a Midwestern seminary. Rev. Carl Safford Patton agreed to give up his professorship at the University of Chicago and return to the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles if the community pledged to build a new church building with space for a growing congregation and a church school of up to 1,200 pupils.
Clara Shatto, a wealthy widow with extensive landownings in and around downtown, donated the land — a parcel on West 6th Street that stretched from Commonwealth Avenue to South Hoover Street. The congregation secured the $350,000 needed to finance the building by 1929, just before the stock market crashed. Construction of the Gothic Revival-style cathedral designed by brothers James E. and David C. Allison began in December 1930, and employed about 1,000 men over the next 18 months.
When the church opened its doors in March 1932, a celebratory pamphlet declared, “It is a permanent, adequate, and beautiful building, for education of young and old in morals and religion, and for the public worship of God.”
Now: Today FCCLA hosts a variety of programs in its awe-inspiring sanctuary and chapel including concerts, sound baths and arts activities. In addition to its breathtaking architecture, the building features a state-of-the-art sound system and an array of colored LED lights all designed to enhance its drama.
The sanctuary is home to one of the largest organs in the world with 18,000 pipes and the weekly Sunday service is preceded by a 30-minute organ prelude concert at 10:30 a.m. that is open to the public.
Although the building may be traditional, the congregation is decidedly not, said Rev. Laura Fregin, senior minister and CEO of the church. “We are a very open church,” she said. “We fly a trans flag in the forecourt.” FCCLA is technically Christian, but Fregin said people from all religions including Muslim, Buddhist and Jewish, as well as atheists and agnostics, attend services.
Clara Shatto, a wealthy widow with extensive landownings in and around downtown, donated the land — a parcel on West 6th Street that stretched from Commonwealth Avenue to South Hoover Street. The congregation secured the $350,000 needed to finance the building by 1929, just before the stock market crashed. Construction of the Gothic Revival-style cathedral designed by brothers James E. and David C. Allison began in December 1930, and employed about 1,000 men over the next 18 months.
When the church opened its doors in March 1932, a celebratory pamphlet declared, “It is a permanent, adequate, and beautiful building, for education of young and old in morals and religion, and for the public worship of God.”
Now: Today FCCLA hosts a variety of programs in its awe-inspiring sanctuary and chapel including concerts, sound baths and arts activities. In addition to its breathtaking architecture, the building features a state-of-the-art sound system and an array of colored LED lights all designed to enhance its drama.
The sanctuary is home to one of the largest organs in the world with 18,000 pipes and the weekly Sunday service is preceded by a 30-minute organ prelude concert at 10:30 a.m. that is open to the public.
Although the building may be traditional, the congregation is decidedly not, said Rev. Laura Fregin, senior minister and CEO of the church. “We are a very open church,” she said. “We fly a trans flag in the forecourt.” FCCLA is technically Christian, but Fregin said people from all religions including Muslim, Buddhist and Jewish, as well as atheists and agnostics, attend services.
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1933: The Georgian Hotel
Santa Monica Historic Landmark
(Santa Monica Public Library Image Archives, Douglas Friedman/For The Times)
Then: The Depression was already in full swing in 1933 when the Georgian hotel opened its doors across the street from the Pacific ocean in Santa Monica. Fortunately for developer Rosamond Borde, there was still enough money circulating in Hollywood for the luxury hotel (and its basement speakeasy) to quickly attract a well-heeled clientele including stars like Clark Gable, Carole Lombard and Charlie Chaplin.
Newspapers of the era regularly reported on visiting dignitaries staying at the hotel and for years, First Mother Rose Kennedy entertained guests at the Georgian when she was in town. The eight-story hotel was also conveniently located a few blocks from the Santa Monica Pier, giving guests easy access to the gambling boats that docked three miles from shore. The Georgian was designed with both Romanesque Revival and Art Deco influences by M. Eugene Durfee, who also designed the Central Tower Building on 4th Street in Santa Monica as well as several buildings in Anaheim and Fullerton.
Now: The Georgian’s glamour began to fade in the 1960s and the building changed hands several times in the subsequent decades, becoming apartments and then a retirement home. Hoteliers Jon Blanchard and Nicolo Rusconi, who also developed SoHo Warehouse and the Ace Hotel in downtown L.A., bought the property in 2020 and after a three-year restoration reopened the hotel to the public in May 2023. Working with the design firm Fettle, Blanchard and Rusconi created a modern hotel steeped in history where visitors can enjoy lunch or a late-afternoon snack on the hotel’s wide veranda overlooking the ocean or a steak dinner in the atmospheric Georgian Room outfitted with leather banquettes and red velvet curtains, much as previous guests did nearly a century ago.
If you decide to stop by, make sure to keep your eyes out for a bellhop in a powder blue uniform with brass buttons right out of the 1930s. And definitely remember to pick up the old rotary phone in the lobby to eavesdrop on a conversation between a wannabe starlet and her new beau.
Newspapers of the era regularly reported on visiting dignitaries staying at the hotel and for years, First Mother Rose Kennedy entertained guests at the Georgian when she was in town. The eight-story hotel was also conveniently located a few blocks from the Santa Monica Pier, giving guests easy access to the gambling boats that docked three miles from shore. The Georgian was designed with both Romanesque Revival and Art Deco influences by M. Eugene Durfee, who also designed the Central Tower Building on 4th Street in Santa Monica as well as several buildings in Anaheim and Fullerton.
Now: The Georgian’s glamour began to fade in the 1960s and the building changed hands several times in the subsequent decades, becoming apartments and then a retirement home. Hoteliers Jon Blanchard and Nicolo Rusconi, who also developed SoHo Warehouse and the Ace Hotel in downtown L.A., bought the property in 2020 and after a three-year restoration reopened the hotel to the public in May 2023. Working with the design firm Fettle, Blanchard and Rusconi created a modern hotel steeped in history where visitors can enjoy lunch or a late-afternoon snack on the hotel’s wide veranda overlooking the ocean or a steak dinner in the atmospheric Georgian Room outfitted with leather banquettes and red velvet curtains, much as previous guests did nearly a century ago.
If you decide to stop by, make sure to keep your eyes out for a bellhop in a powder blue uniform with brass buttons right out of the 1930s. And definitely remember to pick up the old rotary phone in the lobby to eavesdrop on a conversation between a wannabe starlet and her new beau.
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1934: The Original Farmers Market
Fairfax Shopping Center
(Herman Schultheis Los Angeles Public Library Digital Collections, Jay L Clendenin/Los Angeles Times)
Then: At the height of the Depression, Roger Dahlhjelm, a former Stanley Steamer car salesman, and advertising writer Fred Beck pitched an idea to E.B. Gilmore that still resonates today: Create a marketplace on the Gilmore family’s empty dairy farm on the corner of Fairfax Avenue and 3rd Street and invite farmers to rent stalls and sell their produce out of the back of their trucks. Gilmore agreed, and more than a dozen farmers came that day, paying 50 cents a day in rent. This was the start of not just a market but a community, as evidenced by one man who didn’t have 50 cents and paid with grapes, and a woman who sold flowers for 25 cents a day.
Their idea took off and wooden stalls with canvas awnings soon replaced the trucks, although not without some growing pains. The first year was brutal, plagued by rain and mud, according to Blanche Magee of Magee’s Kitchen.
“My husband and I begged the tenants to stay one more year, because the sun would shine again,” she told The Times in 1994. “They did.”
As the market grew in popularity, it wasn’t out of the ordinary then to pass by the cafe tables and see celebrities. Marilyn Monroe showed up for the grand opening of Michael’s Cheesecake. When Shirley Temple made an appearance at Brock’s Candies, the fire department was forced to drill a hole in the roof so she could be whisked away from the crowds. And according to Beck’s memoir, “Second Carrot From the End,” “it’s the only market where Monty Woolley suffered the inconvenience of getting his beard caught in a peanut butter mill.”
Today: Despite the changes over the years, the market retains its old-world charm. You can still savor a slice of blueberry pie at Du-par’s pie shop, although it is currently struggling to stay afloat. The family-run Bob’s Coffee and Doughnuts, famous for its chocolate-glazed doughnuts, has been making them on site since 1947. And you can still sample homemade peanut butter at Magee’s House of Nuts.
Though the market has seen the arrival of chains like Williams Sonoma, World Market and Kiehl’s, it still boasts more than 100 specialty shops. From the throwback stalls to the bright green wood-slat shopping carts, the lively setting serves as a reminder of what initially spearheaded the endeavor: the diverse community of Los Angeles.
Their idea took off and wooden stalls with canvas awnings soon replaced the trucks, although not without some growing pains. The first year was brutal, plagued by rain and mud, according to Blanche Magee of Magee’s Kitchen.
“My husband and I begged the tenants to stay one more year, because the sun would shine again,” she told The Times in 1994. “They did.”
As the market grew in popularity, it wasn’t out of the ordinary then to pass by the cafe tables and see celebrities. Marilyn Monroe showed up for the grand opening of Michael’s Cheesecake. When Shirley Temple made an appearance at Brock’s Candies, the fire department was forced to drill a hole in the roof so she could be whisked away from the crowds. And according to Beck’s memoir, “Second Carrot From the End,” “it’s the only market where Monty Woolley suffered the inconvenience of getting his beard caught in a peanut butter mill.”
Today: Despite the changes over the years, the market retains its old-world charm. You can still savor a slice of blueberry pie at Du-par’s pie shop, although it is currently struggling to stay afloat. The family-run Bob’s Coffee and Doughnuts, famous for its chocolate-glazed doughnuts, has been making them on site since 1947. And you can still sample homemade peanut butter at Magee’s House of Nuts.
Though the market has seen the arrival of chains like Williams Sonoma, World Market and Kiehl’s, it still boasts more than 100 specialty shops. From the throwback stalls to the bright green wood-slat shopping carts, the lively setting serves as a reminder of what initially spearheaded the endeavor: the diverse community of Los Angeles.
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1935: Griffith Observatory
Griffith Park Observatory
(Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection, Carlin Stiehl/For The Times)
Then: When the Griffith Observatory opened to the public on May 15, 1935, it introduced Los Angeles to the concept of a public observatory.
Funded by Griffith J. Griffith, the observatory was a unique creation. Unlike traditional research facilities, it was designed by architects John C. Austin and Frederick M. Ashley as a place where everyone, regardless of their scientific background, could marvel at the universe’s wonders.
Inspired by a visit to Mt. Wilson Observatory, where he gazed through the world’s largest telescope at the time, Griffith offered the city of Los Angeles $100,000 in 1912 to build an observatory on the summit of Mt. Hollywood. If all humanity could look through a telescope, he said, “it would change the world” and elevate people from “the trenches of ignorance.”
Although he died before the observatory and Greek Theatre below it opened, his dream was realized in 1935 when the observatory opened and Los Angeles residents flocked to see the 25-cent planetarium show and look through the 12-inch Zeiss refracting telescope.
Today: Visit today and you’ll witness the observatory’s mission “to inspire everyone to observe, ponder, and understand the sky” as busloads of fifth-graders try to decipher the mystery of the Foucault pendulum (hint: it does not tell time) and tourists from around the world study exhibits on moon phases and the paths of the sun and stars. Visitors can also choose from three planetarium shows presented by a live storyteller in the Samuel Oschin Planetarium throughout the day or enjoy a free telescope viewing every evening around 7 p.m.
Perched on the hillside, with the Hollywood sign as its backdrop, the Art Deco building, which former Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne hailed as “a masterpiece of ornamented concrete,” is a reassuring presence from L.A.’s distant freeways and the nearby trails of Griffith Park. And like the infinite expanse of space, admission is always free.
Also in 1935, the Los Angeles Times building, an Art Deco building designed by Gordon B. Kaufman, was completed. Like the rotunda of the Griffith Observatory, the lobby of the building’s Globe Lobby features 10-foot-high murals by artist Hugo Ballin. It is currently vacant.
Funded by Griffith J. Griffith, the observatory was a unique creation. Unlike traditional research facilities, it was designed by architects John C. Austin and Frederick M. Ashley as a place where everyone, regardless of their scientific background, could marvel at the universe’s wonders.
Inspired by a visit to Mt. Wilson Observatory, where he gazed through the world’s largest telescope at the time, Griffith offered the city of Los Angeles $100,000 in 1912 to build an observatory on the summit of Mt. Hollywood. If all humanity could look through a telescope, he said, “it would change the world” and elevate people from “the trenches of ignorance.”
Although he died before the observatory and Greek Theatre below it opened, his dream was realized in 1935 when the observatory opened and Los Angeles residents flocked to see the 25-cent planetarium show and look through the 12-inch Zeiss refracting telescope.
Today: Visit today and you’ll witness the observatory’s mission “to inspire everyone to observe, ponder, and understand the sky” as busloads of fifth-graders try to decipher the mystery of the Foucault pendulum (hint: it does not tell time) and tourists from around the world study exhibits on moon phases and the paths of the sun and stars. Visitors can also choose from three planetarium shows presented by a live storyteller in the Samuel Oschin Planetarium throughout the day or enjoy a free telescope viewing every evening around 7 p.m.
Perched on the hillside, with the Hollywood sign as its backdrop, the Art Deco building, which former Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne hailed as “a masterpiece of ornamented concrete,” is a reassuring presence from L.A.’s distant freeways and the nearby trails of Griffith Park. And like the infinite expanse of space, admission is always free.
Also in 1935, the Los Angeles Times building, an Art Deco building designed by Gordon B. Kaufman, was completed. Like the rotunda of the Griffith Observatory, the lobby of the building’s Globe Lobby features 10-foot-high murals by artist Hugo Ballin. It is currently vacant.
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1936: Crossroads of the World
Hollywood Historic Landmark
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(Photo by UPI/Bettmann Archive/Getty Images, Deborah Netburn/Los Angeles Times)
Then: Dreamed up by the widow of an L.A. crime boss and built on the site of her husband’s murder, Crossroads of the World is an international-themed outdoor shopping mall that opened in 1936. Ella Crawford inherited the 2.7-acre property on Sunset from her husband Charlie, a.k.a. “the grey wolf of Spring Street” and hired celebrated architect Robert V. Derrah to realize her vision. The complex opened just five years after her husband’s death with space for 100 shops, artist studios and offices.
Spectacle and cinematic whimsy were always part of the vision. “Visitors coming here expect to see something beautiful and unusual, given the widespread publicity in some of our motion pictures,” Ella told The Times. With a central building that looks like an ocean liner surrounded by a backlot mash-up of Spanish, Moorish and medieval European architectural styles, Crossroads of the World predated the storybook feel of Disneyland by nearly two decades.
Now: The mall’s iconic 60-foot tower topped by an enormous globe remains a Hollywood landmark, but the gates leading from the street are locked and the storefronts were turned into offices and artist studios long ago. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Alfred Hitchcock, Warren Zevon and Tim Burton all worked here at one time. More recently, the ocean liner building, which still features portholes and life preservers, was home to the U.S. offices of art book publisher Taschen.
Today most of the office spaces are completely abandoned. A woman working in a rental office in what looked like a Bavarian Village said the entire complex is private property, suggesting random visitors are not especially welcome. But there is some hope that this strange theme park-like space might one day thrive anew. In 2019 the city approved a $1 billion development that would add 960 apartments, retail space and a hotel in the area, as well as rehabilitate Crossroads of the World.
Spectacle and cinematic whimsy were always part of the vision. “Visitors coming here expect to see something beautiful and unusual, given the widespread publicity in some of our motion pictures,” Ella told The Times. With a central building that looks like an ocean liner surrounded by a backlot mash-up of Spanish, Moorish and medieval European architectural styles, Crossroads of the World predated the storybook feel of Disneyland by nearly two decades.
Now: The mall’s iconic 60-foot tower topped by an enormous globe remains a Hollywood landmark, but the gates leading from the street are locked and the storefronts were turned into offices and artist studios long ago. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Alfred Hitchcock, Warren Zevon and Tim Burton all worked here at one time. More recently, the ocean liner building, which still features portholes and life preservers, was home to the U.S. offices of art book publisher Taschen.
Today most of the office spaces are completely abandoned. A woman working in a rental office in what looked like a Bavarian Village said the entire complex is private property, suggesting random visitors are not especially welcome. But there is some hope that this strange theme park-like space might one day thrive anew. In 2019 the city approved a $1 billion development that would add 960 apartments, retail space and a hotel in the area, as well as rehabilitate Crossroads of the World.
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1937: Firestone Tire Building (now All Season Brewing)
Mid-Wilshire Brewery
(Charles J. Fisher, Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times)
Then: Cars were taking over the world and Firestone wanted to sell all the world’s tires. So the company grabbed a high-traffic corner on La Brea Boulevard near Wilshire and built a tire sales center in 1937. One with lots of long lines and curvy edges, like a fancy car.
World War II and tail fins came and went, as did the Edsel, Pacers, Pintos, Gremlins, Cobras, Vipers, Barracudas, Beetles and the Thing. Yet the Firestone shop endured until 2016. By then, preservationist Charles Fisher had successfully nominated it as a city historic-cultural landmark, calling it “an excellent unaltered example of a Streamline Moderne garage building.”
Now: Will L.A.’s automotive era ever end?
This is a question worth contemplating over a beer at All Season Brewing, which has taken over the property. Open since 2021, the brewpub (which also sells tacos, pizza, cocktails and ginger beer) takes advantage of the old garage’s indoor-outdoor design, leaving many auto-shop details in place, including exposed ducts, metal girders and industrial fans. But in the absence of tires, there’s room now for a big mirror ball, a 15-barrel brewing operation, a 46-foot-long bar, games for kids and grown-ups, occasional line dancing and a counter where you can order from the All Season’s food partners, Chicas Tacos. (Children are OK before 7 p.m. and many customers bring dogs.)
Outside, two big old Firestone signs remain, along with a promise of “complete car service,” visible to all those passing cars.
Also in 1937: A vast Coca-Cola bottling plant, styled to look like a Streamline Moderne ocean liner, opens on South Central Avenue at 14th Street, complete with portholes. It’s still in business.
World War II and tail fins came and went, as did the Edsel, Pacers, Pintos, Gremlins, Cobras, Vipers, Barracudas, Beetles and the Thing. Yet the Firestone shop endured until 2016. By then, preservationist Charles Fisher had successfully nominated it as a city historic-cultural landmark, calling it “an excellent unaltered example of a Streamline Moderne garage building.”
Now: Will L.A.’s automotive era ever end?
This is a question worth contemplating over a beer at All Season Brewing, which has taken over the property. Open since 2021, the brewpub (which also sells tacos, pizza, cocktails and ginger beer) takes advantage of the old garage’s indoor-outdoor design, leaving many auto-shop details in place, including exposed ducts, metal girders and industrial fans. But in the absence of tires, there’s room now for a big mirror ball, a 15-barrel brewing operation, a 46-foot-long bar, games for kids and grown-ups, occasional line dancing and a counter where you can order from the All Season’s food partners, Chicas Tacos. (Children are OK before 7 p.m. and many customers bring dogs.)
Outside, two big old Firestone signs remain, along with a promise of “complete car service,” visible to all those passing cars.
Also in 1937: A vast Coca-Cola bottling plant, styled to look like a Streamline Moderne ocean liner, opens on South Central Avenue at 14th Street, complete with portholes. It’s still in business.
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1938: Chinatown West Gate
Chinatown Historical Landmark
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(Herman J. Schultheis_John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation, Deborah Netburn/Los Angeles Times)
Then: Located at the intersection of North Hill Street and the pedestrian Gin Ling Way, Chinatown’s towering West Gate built in 1938 is a testament to an immigrant community’s creativity, ingenuity and resilience. When the city’s first Chinatown was condemned in 1931 to make way for Union Station, the Chinese community, led by businessman and engineer Peter SooHoo, identified a new location in a brick yard less than a mile away. With the help of 25 Chinese American investors, the community built what is still the only Chinatown in the United States to be planned, funded and owned by Chinese Americans.
Designed by non-Chinese architects Erle Webster and Adrian Wilson, this “New Chinatown” was built to appeal to both the displaced residents of the old Chinatown and entice American tourists looking for a taste of the exotic. The West Gate — which bears the inscription “Cooperate to Achieve” in Chinese characters — was the first of four new gates to be built, with the East Gate on the other end of Gin Ling Way following a few months later.
Now: With its tall, red pillars and architectural flourishes outlined in glowing neon, Chinatown’s West Gate still beckons visitors to the restaurants and shops lining Gin Ling Way much as it did decades ago. On a recent evening, strings of glowing red lanterns blew in the breeze as tourists and teenagers posed for selfies in the outdoor mall.
With its traditional Chinese architecture and broad central plaza, the area hovers somewhere between theme park and business district just as its original founders intended. Beyond the West Gate you will find a wishing well and some of Chinatown’s original businesses including Sincere Imports selling paper parasols, woven hats, fans and other knickknacks and Phoenix Bakery, which opened the same year as the East Gate was built, and is still beloved today.
Designed by non-Chinese architects Erle Webster and Adrian Wilson, this “New Chinatown” was built to appeal to both the displaced residents of the old Chinatown and entice American tourists looking for a taste of the exotic. The West Gate — which bears the inscription “Cooperate to Achieve” in Chinese characters — was the first of four new gates to be built, with the East Gate on the other end of Gin Ling Way following a few months later.
Now: With its tall, red pillars and architectural flourishes outlined in glowing neon, Chinatown’s West Gate still beckons visitors to the restaurants and shops lining Gin Ling Way much as it did decades ago. On a recent evening, strings of glowing red lanterns blew in the breeze as tourists and teenagers posed for selfies in the outdoor mall.
With its traditional Chinese architecture and broad central plaza, the area hovers somewhere between theme park and business district just as its original founders intended. Beyond the West Gate you will find a wishing well and some of Chinatown’s original businesses including Sincere Imports selling paper parasols, woven hats, fans and other knickknacks and Phoenix Bakery, which opened the same year as the East Gate was built, and is still beloved today.
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Route Details
1939: Union Station
Los Angeles County Train station
(Security Pacific National Bank Collection, Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Then: The last of the grand American train stations took a long time to be born.
To get L.A.’s Union Station built, civic leaders had to secure a location — which meant tearing down the city’s original Chinatown. They had to win a public vote and wage a court battle to force three reluctant major rail lines — Southern Pacific, Union Pacific and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe — to share instead of each operating their own stations. Then they had to talk those railroads into a design they resisted at first — a daring marriage of Mission Revival and Streamline Moderne styles.
To see the result, step in and take a good look at the high ceiling (concrete disguised as wood), the grand arches, the jazzy fixtures and recurring octagon shapes, not to mention the 286 built-in mahogany chairs (for ticket-bearing travelers only).
Father-and-son architects John and Donald Parkinson teamed up on the project, as they had on the L.A. Memorial Coliseum. It became the busiest U. S. train station west of Chicago — until the rise of freeways and air travel.
Now: Owned by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and revived as a commuter hub, this is still the busiest train station in the west. And yes, somehow it wound up hosting the Oscars in 2021.
Its biggest change came in 1995, when the station added an East Portal, connecting the Metro light rail system to bus service and long-distance trains like the Coast Starlight to Seattle. Overhead in the East Portal you’ll see a cut-glass ceiling and artist Richard Wyatt’s 80-foot-long mural, which celebrates diversity by featuring 10 faces from contemporary and historical Los Angeles.
Stroll through on your own or sign up for an L.A. Conservancy walking tour, offered most Saturdays at 11 a.m. ($25 per adult, about two hours). You can eat at the station’s Traxx bar and restaurant, or get fast food from one of the outlets closer to the tracks.
Unfortunately, repeated efforts to revive the station’s former Fred Harvey restaurant dining room (just west of the station entrance) have failed. But you can peek in at that grand, idle space through its big glass windows.
Also in 1939: May Co. opens a grand Streamline Moderne department store on Wilshire Boulevard. Decades later, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hires Renzo Piano to adapt and expand the space, reopened in 2021 as the Academy Museum.
To get L.A.’s Union Station built, civic leaders had to secure a location — which meant tearing down the city’s original Chinatown. They had to win a public vote and wage a court battle to force three reluctant major rail lines — Southern Pacific, Union Pacific and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe — to share instead of each operating their own stations. Then they had to talk those railroads into a design they resisted at first — a daring marriage of Mission Revival and Streamline Moderne styles.
To see the result, step in and take a good look at the high ceiling (concrete disguised as wood), the grand arches, the jazzy fixtures and recurring octagon shapes, not to mention the 286 built-in mahogany chairs (for ticket-bearing travelers only).
Father-and-son architects John and Donald Parkinson teamed up on the project, as they had on the L.A. Memorial Coliseum. It became the busiest U. S. train station west of Chicago — until the rise of freeways and air travel.
Now: Owned by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and revived as a commuter hub, this is still the busiest train station in the west. And yes, somehow it wound up hosting the Oscars in 2021.
Its biggest change came in 1995, when the station added an East Portal, connecting the Metro light rail system to bus service and long-distance trains like the Coast Starlight to Seattle. Overhead in the East Portal you’ll see a cut-glass ceiling and artist Richard Wyatt’s 80-foot-long mural, which celebrates diversity by featuring 10 faces from contemporary and historical Los Angeles.
Stroll through on your own or sign up for an L.A. Conservancy walking tour, offered most Saturdays at 11 a.m. ($25 per adult, about two hours). You can eat at the station’s Traxx bar and restaurant, or get fast food from one of the outlets closer to the tracks.
Unfortunately, repeated efforts to revive the station’s former Fred Harvey restaurant dining room (just west of the station entrance) have failed. But you can peek in at that grand, idle space through its big glass windows.
Also in 1939: May Co. opens a grand Streamline Moderne department store on Wilshire Boulevard. Decades later, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hires Renzo Piano to adapt and expand the space, reopened in 2021 as the Academy Museum.
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