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Where the story goes sideways is all on our end. The Office of Historic Resources was given materials by the developer with which to determine the validity of painting over the eighty-year-old sign.
Which, to be correct, is not truly a ghost sign, as it _still_ advertises the famed, magnificent Hotel Cecil. It is the grandest of our great painted palimpsests, originally added to the wall in 1924
I revere the Catholic faith. I believe the Church to have had a vastly civilizing influence on humanity, as society now considers statue destruction and church burning the ideal Sunday outing.
So, it’s been a while here at RIP Los Angeles. Is that because the Powers That Be stopped tearing down everything that makes Los Angeles special? Certainly not. In fact, the opposite. We’ve watched
You know, not everything is about the demolition of our built environment in toto. (Like, say, [the razing of an entire Whittlesey Sometimes it’s more subtle. Over in Highland Park, there’s a house.
There’s a very special part of the world. Beverly Boulevard. You go ahead and cross town on (shudder) the freeways; or traverse the city on, Santa Monica (bless your heart); I go in for cruising Bever
I am forever fascinated by GrowLA’s. They are first-tier density cheerleaders, fervently committed to tearing down any and all Los Angeles and replacing it with vast swaths of multi-units.
Can’t believe it’s been nigh on four months since I’ve posted. I must beg your forgiveness—in September we birthed the Bunker Hill book with Angel City Press thereafter doing lots of publicity, while
Say you’re living peacefully in your vintage home on your block of gracious low-slung craftsmans when some developer decides to tear down the house next door to put something grossly out-of-scale
Up in the Valley there’s an indication as to how we used to live.Low slung structures, lots of open space. Cool shade from the towering trees.This is of course a rare, precious, disappearing commodity
So, as you might imagine, it and its corner neighbors are due to be replaced by a Newport Beach development concern called PacTen Partners (so named because its partners were all athletes at PacTen
So you may remember my “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Taix* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)” post from September. Of course, since you read this blog, you’ve probably already seen the recently-
That’s right, it came from somewhere else. Figueroa south of downtown used to be full of grand homes, once upon a time (like, say, this one). And Martin Bekins’s house at 1341 South Figueroa St, built
Architectural historian Nathan Marsak loves Los Angeles, and hates to see important buildings neglected and abused, whether by slumlord owners or the savage public. Follow him on his urban adventures
Episode 21 finds Nathan in an obscure corner of Ernest Batchelder’s 1914 Dutch Chocolate Shop in Downtown Los Angeles, researching the stylistic differences between the tile master’s catalog output,
Episode 23 finds Nathan on the 700 block of South Normandie, where his wee L.A. Preservation Imp has lured him to see the greatest interbellum street in all of Los Angeles.Unfortunately, this gorgeous
Episode 22 finds Nathan in front of the Pantages Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, to confirm the terrible rumors that have been circulating on social media since Saturday, 2/29/2020.
Episode 20 finds Nathan back in Pico-Union, a disenfranchised community of immigrants and renters that is experiencing unprecedented development-fueled displacement & demolition. 2700 blck W Francis
Wiseman, Messrs. Cohanzad, but whoever you are, you have done this for the last time. On behalf of Los Angeles, enough is enough. As Marsellus Wallace says to Butch, you’ve lost your LA privileges.
They won’t be happy until every shingled building in Los Angeles is gone. I mean, they’re kind of obsessed with them. They who? Everybody. Both sides of the political spectrum. Social engineers on
Down on Crenshaw there’s The Liquor Bank, which is my kind of place to make a withdrawal. And appropriately named because it is, in fact, an old bank. Look closely, see the ship on the sign pylon?
Here’s something that came over the transom, not in the form of some Planning Department notice, but via social media. The properties in question are buildings at 4629 West Maubert Avenue:
Just a quick post, didn’t want this gorgeous 1913 G. L. Synder-designed Hollywood home to fly under the radar. You know what has character? A beautiful old Craftsman lurking behind the
This seven-room, 1,840sf Craftsman bungalow was built in the spring of 1912, in the Country Club Park tract, by the contracting team of Peter J. Schulte & William J. Wisler. Wisler was the owner.
I get it. We have private property rights. If I have the money to outbid a museum to buy a Tintoretto or an Edward Hopper, and then go home and toss it in the fireplace, more power to me.
The continued abhorrence of anything lo-slung and lo-density requires these be replaced with, as you might imagine, vastly increased height and density, and because density proponents will tell you
two-story six-unit apartment building was designed by engineer J. Doherty in the spring of 1962, and will be gone soon, which is a shame, as there aren’t a whole lot left in area that reek so of 1962.
This handsome Los Feliz house was built in 1912. She needs a little love, but don’t we all? Like my aunt Gladys, nothing a coat of paint can’t fix.
When the people of Budapest have a piece of Soviet-era architecture, like Kossuth Square 4-6 (Béla Pintér, 1972), which they deem…_inappropriate_, especially in a landscape as great as Kossuth Square
I was on the last week and came across something that made me ask, _can a developer make a building so ugly even a YIMBY can’t love it? analogous to the old test o’ faith can God make a rock that he
The social engineers insist it’s green because, despite the fact that with this density comes, say, overburdened resources, emissions from outflow stacks, the Urban Heat Island, car sitting in traffic
I had based my tale of 1238 on the application at Planning for the 36-unit that was being plopped on the site; the demo permit I linked to in the text was issued back in July. Was contacted by an
Couple days ago I posted about the forthcoming loss of an unpresuming little stuccoed side-gabled number which nobody's going to shed a tear over. Well, I will, and you should too. . .
My Lord, who stuccos a house anymore? Seriously, I thought that nonsense disappeared years ago, like kids selling crack or approaching you to replace your pea stone with tar macadam.
Ah, you thought you were going to see the faces of those souls cast into the streets by the Ellis Act. Well this isn’t that kind of blog.
People sure hate courtyard living in Hollywood. Or they love it; that is, at least, they love tearing it down.
In December of 1916 it is announced that Andre H. Cuenod—a Swiss lumberman who came to Los Angeles in 1891—was putting up this nifty Colonial he’d designed himself. The two-story,
In February 1958, one Mr. Norman Leibow bought Carmen’s Garage (U. J. Gray, 1924) at 1314 Echo Park Avenue. Leibow tore off the front thirty feet facing Echo Park and rebuilt it
We launched and were going gangbusters there for a little while, when all went dark…because the City of Los Angeles decided to halt all demolitions, making this blog obsolete! Well, maybe not.
More than just a shadow encroaching; that’s doom. Taix Restaurant, at 1911 West Sunset, has not had her demo permit pulled. Yet. But it will happen. Taix is not long for this world.
A nice piece of San Pedro Streamline is going away. And with it, a big chunk of Southland history.
For our first post, we’ll take a look at 371-377 North St. Andrews Place, at the southwest corner of St. Andrews and Elmwood Avenue.
Los Angeles was sold to me, as she had been to countless others, on the booster’s promise of light and air and orange trees. That I would move here and live in a charming little Spanish