A nifty, ancient part of Sawtelle—once home to Bundy's Lock & Safe Co., AKA Bundy's Lock & Key (est. across the street in 1929, and which moved to this location in 1947), is headed to the landfill:
Now, according to the Assessor's Office, this structure was built in 1915. I'm gonna go ahead and posit no, it's much earlier.
In the first place, DBS has no records of any purported 1915 build. As we all know, extant DBS records commence with 1905: thus, with no construction permit on file, it's safe to say this building predates 1905. Which is overwhelmingly evident given its pre-1900 bracketed eaves.
But, you know, I'm sure Donghao Li knows better—as he replaces this with one of his Tripalink, which are wonderful.
And yes, I've expressed my admiration for Tripalink before.
Sorry Sawtelle! Say goodbye to the oldest building in the neighborhood!
About Nathan Marsak
NATHAN MARSAK says: “I came to praise Los Angeles, not to bury her. And yet developers, City Hall and social reformers work in concert to effect wholesale demolition, removing the human scale of my town, tossing its charm into a landfill. The least I can do is memorialize in real time those places worth noting, as they slide inexorably into memory. In college I studied under Banham. I learned to love Los Angeles via Reyner’s teachings (and came to abjure Mike Davis and his lurid, fanciful, laughably-researched assertions). In grad school I focused on visionary urbanism and technological utopianism—so while some may find the premise of preserving communities so much ill-considered reactionary twaddle, at least I have a background in the other side. Anyway, I moved to Los Angeles, and began to document. I drove about shooting neon signs. I put endless miles across the Plains of Id on the old Packard as part of the 1947project; when Kim Cooper blogged about some bad lunch meat in Compton, I drove down to there to check on the scene of the crime (never via freeway—you can’t really learn Los Angeles unless you study her from the surface streets). But in short order one landmark after another disappeared. Few demolitions are as contentious or high profile as the Ambassador or Parker Center; rather, it is all the little houses and commercial buildings the social engineers are desperate to destroy in the name of the Greater Good. The fabric of our city is woven together by communities and neighborhoods who no longer have a say in their zoning or planning so it’s important to shine a light on these vanishing treasures, now, before the remarkable character of our city is wiped away like a stain from a countertop. (But Nathan, you say, it’s just this one house—no, it isn’t. Principiis obsta, finem respice.) And who knows, one might even be saved. Excelsior!””
Nathan’s blogs are: Bunker Hill Los Angeles, RIP Los Angeles & On Bunker Hill.
