angels walk bunker hill - stanchions...classic, imagined a 21st-century world of cooperative housing...

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BUNKER HILL / HISTORIC CORE BUNKER HILL / HISTORIC CORE BRADBURY BUILDING BRADBURY BUILDING TOP PHOTO AND LEFT PANEL: PHOTO COURTESY OF THE SECURITY PACIFIC COLLECTION / LOS ANGELES PUBLIC LIBRARY Los Angeles Police Bicycle Squad, 1904 PHOTO COURTESY OF DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LIBRARIES BUNKER HILL / HISTORIC CORE BUNKER HILL / HISTORIC CORE BRADBURY BUILDING BRADBURY BUILDING Special Thanks to: City Council of the City of Los Angeles John Ferraro, President Mayor Richard J. Riordan Council Member Richard Alatorre Council Member Rita Walters Supported by: Community Redevelopment Agency–City of Los Angeles Los Angeles Department of Transportation Los Angeles Department of General Services Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Los Angeles Times Project Team Project Development: Deanna Spector, Executive Director, Angels Walk LA Project Co-ordinator: Douglas Huls, Director of Operations, Angels Walk LA Stanchion Designer: Rogerio Carvalheiro Writer: Cecilia Rasmussen, Los Angeles Times Columnist Writer: Patt Morrison, Los Angeles Times Columnist Graphics: DesignTeal Acknowledgements: Nick Patsaouras Robert Timme, Dean of the School of Architecture, University of Southern California William Holland, City Architect, City of Los Angeles Gregory Scott, Director of Street Services Aldolfo V. Nodal, Director, Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles Angels Walk LA COPYRIGHT © 1999 BY ANGELS WALK L. A., INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PERMISSION TO REPRINT OR REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL MUST BE GRANTED IN WRITING BY ANGELS WALK L. A., INC. The Transit & Walking Districts of Historic Los Angeles BRADBURY BUILDING Sandstone to Celluloid Today, the Bradbury Building, home to corporations, real estate investment firms and the Los Angeles police department’s internal affairs division, is no stranger to fictional law enforcement; the Bradbury’s role in movies has made it familiar to people who have never crossed its threshhold. The unexpected death of its namesake and the otherwise undistinguished designs of its creator have not diminished the Bradbury Building’s reputation, and as one of the area’s most popular film settings, it seems assured of immortality as downtown Los Angeles’ most intriguing landmark. Meticulously Restored Purchased in 1989, and meticulously restored in 1991-92, with the help and encouragement of the Community Redevelopment Agency, by lawyer- turned-developer, Ira Yellin, the Bradbury Building has once again become one of the city’s most distinguished office buildings. The Bradbury Building was designated a National Historic Landmark by the United States Department of the Interior in 1977. Wyman, who, like Frank Lloyd Wright, had no academic credentials as an architect, employed the unusually narrow lot to his advantage. Throughout the Bradbury’s five stories are lavish displays of Italian marble and Mexican floor tiles, two delicate water-powered bird-cage elevators, 288 radiators, 50 fireplaces, 215 wash basins, all as decorative as they were functional — and the largest plate-glass windows in Los Angeles. The interior’s delicate foliate grillwork was made in France and was first displayed at Chicago’s World Fair before being installed. Bradbury never saw his building completed. More than a year before it opened in January 1894, he died. It had cost him $500,000, more than twice what he had budgeted for. It will Make You Famous George Herbert Wyman at first judged it unethical to accept because he worked for Hunt. But while playing with a Ouija board, he said he received a message from his dead brother, Mark: ‘’Take the Bradbury assignment. It will make you famous.’’ So he undertook the project, with that assist from the occult and inspiration from a book, ‘’Looking Backward,’’ by Edward Bellamy. The book, which eventually became a cult classic, imagined a 21st-century world of cooperative housing and workspaces organized around crystal courts. Wyman turned that inspiration into the focal point of the building’s interior, a vertical courtyard bathed in the Southern California sunlight filtering through a massive glass roof. Bradbury, son of a wealthy Maine family, came west in the 1850s, striking it rich in the Mexican gold mines of Mazatlan. At 45, he followed the pattern of other ambitious Yankee newcomers, and married Simona Martinez, a Mazatlan heiress 20 years his junior. After shuttling up and down California, the couple settled in Los Angeles, hoping the climate would improve Bradbury’s chronic asthma. Their ‘’country place’’ was a 2,750-acre ranch, the core of a town that would eventually be named Bradbury, and their city home was a 50-room showplace on Bunker Hill. It was from his Bunker Hill home that, in 1891, Bradbury fancied a unique office building he could walk to, and which would bear his name. The man he commissioned for the project was Sumner P. Hunt, a leading Southland architect who had already designed homes and mansions. But Hunt’s design left Bradbury uninspired, and he offered the job to a young, $5-a-week draftsman in the architect’s office. Mining Tycoon L. Bradbury Makes his Mark His name endures in the eponymous town of wealth and horseflesh set against the San Gabriel Mountains, but mining tycoon Louis Bradbury made his loveliest mark on Southern California with the magnificent architectural gem that also bears his name —the Bradbury Building, known affectionately as ‘’The Bradbury.’’ One critic has called the space ‘’a fairytale of mathematics,’’ from its red sandstone exterior to its brick and iron-lace inner spaces. It is one of Los Angeles’ truly breathtaking buildings, its interior as visually exciting for visitors and moviemakers now as it was a century ago — which is exactly what Bradbury envisioned, a building that would still be modern a hundred years after its cornerstone was laid. THIRD STREET SECOND STREET GRAND AVENUE GRAND AVENUE HOPE STREET HOPE STREET FLOWER STREET FLOWER STREET FIGUEROA STREET FIGUEROA STREET OLIVE STREET OLIVE STREET BROADWAY BROADWAY SPRING STREET SPRING STREET MAIN STREET MAIN STREET FOURTH STREET FIFTH STREET SIXTH STREET SEVENTH STREET EIGHTH STREET HILL STREET HILL STREET 110 HARBORFREEW AY ANGELS WALK BUNKER HILL/HISTORIC CORE DISTRICT The Ronald Reagan Building Biddy Mason Park Bradbury Building Million Dollar Theater Grand Central Market The Market Court Hotel Inter-Continental Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art Watercourt at California Plaza Wells Fargo Center Wells Fargo History Museum ARCO Center Ketchum YMCA Westin Bonaventure Hotel Bunker Hill Steps Library Tower One Bunker Hill The Gas Company Tower Regal Biltmore Hotel Pershing Square Jewelry District Oviatt Building Pacific Center Los Angeles Public Library and Maguire Gardens Macy’s Plaza Fine Arts Building Home Savings of America Tower Seventh Street/ Metro Center Citicorp Plaza Seventh Market Place Visitor Information Center 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 27 26 28 29 30 31 NORTH Metro Red Line Metro Blue Line Main Walk Side Stroll For more information about Angels Walk or for a copy of the Map/Guidebook, please contact the MTA Public Information Office at (213) 922-6000. 1 2 3 4 5 6 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 7 Angels Flight YOU ARE HERE Please Note: not all locations on Walk have Historic Site Markers Los Angeles cop Rick Deckard, a Blade Runner, played by Harrison Ford, specializes in terminating replicants, 21st-century androids, in the 1982 movie "Blade Runner." Right: Actor Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty. After publishing executive Will Randall, played by Actor Jack Nicholson, is bitten by a wolf, his life begins to change. Here he is seen in his office. Los Angeles Fire Department, 1913, working on a fire at the corner of Third Street and Broadway. PHOTO COURTESY OF DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LIBRARIES PHOTO COURTESY OF COLOMBIA PICTURES PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE LADD COMPANY AND WARNER BROTHERS The meticulously restored interior of the Bradbury Building. PHOTO COURTESY OF SHIRLEY BLEVISS L. Bradbury P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F T H E L O S A N G E LE S T IM E S BACKGROUND PHOTO COURTESY OF SHIRLEY BLEVISS ANGELS WALK ® LA Angels Walk Bunker Hill Select Stanchions 1 Historic Spring Street 2 Bradbury Building 3 Million Dollar Theater/Grand Central Market 4 Angels Flight 5 Water Court – Cal Plaza 6 Grand Avenue 7 Bunker Hill 8 Spanish Steps 9 Los Angeles Central Library 10 One Bunker Hill 11 The Millenium Biltmore Hotel 12 Pershing Square 13 The Oviatt Building 14 The Pacific Center 15 Fine Arts Building

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Page 1: Angels Walk Bunker Hill - Stanchions...classic, imagined a 21st-century world of cooperative housing and workspaces organized around crystal courts. Wyman turned that inspiration into

BUNKER HILL / HISTORIC CORE BUNKER HILL / HISTORIC CORE

BRADBURY BUILDINGBRADBURY BUILDING

TOP PHOTO AND LEFT PANEL: PHOTO COURTESY OF THE SECURITY PACIFIC COLLECTION / LOS ANGELES PUBLIC LIBRARY

Los Angeles Police Bicycle Squad, 1904PHOTO COURTESY OF DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LIBRARIES

BUNKER HILL / HISTORIC CORE BUNKER HILL / HISTORIC CORE

BRADBURY BUILDING

BRADBURYBUILDING

Special Thanks to:City Council of the City of Los Angeles John Ferraro, PresidentMayor Richard J. RiordanCouncil Member Richard AlatorreCouncil Member Rita Walters Supported by:Community Redevelopment Agency–City of Los AngelesLos Angeles Department of TransportationLos Angeles Department of General ServicesLos Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation AuthorityLos Angeles TimesProject TeamProject Development: Deanna Spector, Executive Director, Angels Walk LAProject Co-ordinator: Douglas Huls, Director of Operations, Angels Walk LAStanchion Designer: Rogerio CarvalheiroWriter: Cecilia Rasmussen, Los Angeles Times ColumnistWriter: Patt Morrison, Los Angeles Times ColumnistGraphics: DesignTealAcknowledgements:Nick PatsaourasRobert Timme, Dean of the School of Architecture, University of Southern CaliforniaWilliam Holland, City Architect, City of Los AngelesGregory Scott, Director of Street ServicesAldolfo V. Nodal, Director, Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles

Angels Walk LA

COPYRIGHT © 1999 BY ANGELS WALK L. A., INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PERMISSION TO REPRINT OR REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL MUST BE GRANTED IN WRITING BY ANGELS WALK L. A., INC.

The Transit & Walking Districts of Historic Los Angeles

BRADBURY BUILDINGSandstone to CelluloidToday, the Bradbury Building, home to corporations, real estate investment firms and the Los Angeles police department’s internal affairs division, is no stranger to fictional law enforcement; the Bradbury’s role in movies has made it familiar to people who have never crossed its threshhold. The unexpected death of its namesake and the otherwise undistinguished designs of its creator have not diminished the Bradbury Building’s reputation, and as one of the area’s most popular film settings, it seems assured of immortality as downtown Los Angeles’ most intriguing landmark.

Meticulously RestoredPurchased in 1989, and meticulously restored in 1991-92, with the help and encouragement of the Community Redevelopment Agency, by lawyer-turned-developer, Ira Yellin, the Bradbury Building has once again become one of the city’s most distinguished office buildings. The Bradbury Building was designated a National Historic Landmark by the United States Department of the Interior in 1977. Wyman, who, like Frank Lloyd

Wright, had no academic credentials as an architect, employed the unusually narrow lot to his advantage. Throughout the Bradbury’s five stories are lavish displays of Italian marble and Mexican floor tiles, two delicate water-powered bird-cage elevators, 288 radiators, 50 fireplaces, 215 wash basins, all as decorative as they were functional — and the largest plate-glass windows in Los Angeles. The interior’s delicate foliate grillwork was made in France and was first displayed at Chicago’s World Fair before being installed. Bradbury never saw his building completed. More than a year before it opened in January 1894, he died. It had cost him $500,000, more than twice what he had budgeted for.

It will Make You FamousGeorge Herbert Wyman at first judged it unethical to accept because he worked for Hunt. But while playing with a Ouija board, he said he received a message from his dead brother, Mark: ‘’Take the Bradbury assignment. It will make you famous.’’ So he undertook the project, with that assist from the occult and inspiration from a book, ‘’Looking Backward,’’ by Edward Bellamy. The book, which eventually became a cult classic, imagined a 21st-century world of cooperative housing and workspaces organized around crystal courts. Wyman turned that inspiration into the focal point of the building’s interior, a vertical courtyard bathed in the Southern California sunlight filtering through a massive glass roof.

Bradbury, son of a wealthy Maine family, came west in the 1850s, striking it rich in the Mexican gold mines of Mazatlan. At 45, he followed the pattern of other ambitious Yankee newcomers, and married Simona Martinez, a Mazatlan heiress 20 years his junior. After shuttling up and down California, the couple settled in Los Angeles, hoping the climate would improve Bradbury’s chronic asthma. Their ‘’country place’’ was a 2,750-acre ranch, the core of a town that would eventually be named Bradbury, and their city home was a 50-room showplace on Bunker Hill. It was from his Bunker Hill home that, in 1891, Bradbury fancied a unique office building he could walk to, and which would bear his name. The man he commissioned for the project was Sumner P. Hunt, a leading Southland architect who had already designed homes and mansions. But Hunt’s design left Bradbury uninspired, and he offered the job to a young, $5-a-week draftsman in the architect’s office.

Mining TycoonL. Bradbury

Makes his MarkHis name endures in the eponymous town of wealth and horseflesh set against the San Gabriel Mountains, but mining tycoon Louis Bradbury made his loveliest mark on Southern California with the magnificent architectural gem that also bears his name —the Bradbury Building, known affectionately as ‘’The Bradbury.’’ One critic has called the space ‘’a fairytale of mathematics,’’ from its red sandstone exterior to its brick and iron-lace inner spaces. It is one of Los Angeles’ truly breathtaking buildings, its interior as visually exciting for visitors and moviemakers now as it was a century ago — which is exactly what Bradbury envisioned, a building that would still be modern a hundred years after its cornerstone was laid.

THIRD STREET

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ANGELS WALKBUNKER HILL/HISTORIC CORE DISTRICT

The RonaldReaganBuilding

Biddy Mason Park

BradburyBuilding

Million Dollar Theater

Grand Central Market

The MarketCourt

Hotel Inter-Continental Los Angeles

Museum ofContemporaryArt

Watercourt atCalifornia Plaza

Wells FargoCenter

Wells FargoHistoryMuseum

ARCO Center

KetchumYMCA

WestinBonaventureHotel

Bunker HillSteps

Library Tower

One Bunker Hill

The GasCompanyTower

Regal Biltmore Hotel

PershingSquare

Jewelry District

Oviatt Building

Pacific Center

Los Angeles Public Libraryand MaguireGardens

Macy’s Plaza

Fine ArtsBuilding

Home Savingsof AmericaTower

Seventh Street/ Metro Center

Citicorp Plaza

SeventhMarket Place

VisitorInformationCenter

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Metro Blue Line

Main Walk

Side Stroll

For more information about Angels Walk or for a copy of the Map/Guidebook, please contact the MTA Public Information Office at (213) 922-6000.

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7 Angels Flight

YOU ARE HERE Please Note: not all locations on Walk have Historic Site Markers

Los Angeles cop Rick Deckard, a Blade Runner, played by Harrison Ford, specializes in terminating replicants, 21st-century androids, in the 1982 movie "Blade Runner."

Right: Actor Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty.

After publishing executive Will Randall, played by Actor Jack Nicholson, is bitten by a wolf, his life begins to change. Here he is seen in his office.

Los Angeles Fire Department, 1913, working on a fire at thecorner of Third Street and Broadway.

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The meticulously restored interior of the Bradbury Building.

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angels walk® la

Angels Walk Bunker HillSelect Stanchions1 Historic Spring Street

2 Bradbury Building

3 Million Dollar Theater/Grand Central Market

4 Angels Flight

5 Water Court – Cal Plaza

6 Grand Avenue

7 Bunker Hill

8 Spanish Steps

9 Los Angeles Central Library

10 One Bunker Hill

11 The Millenium Biltmore Hotel

12 Pershing Square

13 The Oviatt Building

14 The Pacific Center

15 Fine Arts Building

Page 2: Angels Walk Bunker Hill - Stanchions...classic, imagined a 21st-century world of cooperative housing and workspaces organized around crystal courts. Wyman turned that inspiration into

BUNKER HILL / HISTORIC CORE BUNKER HILL / HISTORIC CORE

GRAND CENTRAL MARKET

GRAND CENTRAL MARKETBUNKER HILL / HISTORIC CORE

BUNKER HILL / HISTORIC CORE

MILLION DOLLAR

THEATRE

MILLION DOLLAR

THEATRE

Angels Walk LA

Special Thanks to:City Council of the City of Los AngelesMayor Richard J. RiordanCouncil Member Richard AlatorreCouncil Member Rita Walters Supported by:Community Redevelopment Agency–City of Los AngelesLos Angeles Department of TransportationLos Angeles Department of General ServicesLos Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation AuthorityLos Angeles Times

Project TeamProject Development: Deanna Spector, Executive Director, Angels Walk LAProject Co-ordinator: Douglas Huls, Director of Operations, Angels Walk LAStanchion Designer: Rogerio CarvalheiroWriter: Cecilia Rasmussen, Los Angeles Times ColumnistWriter: Patt Morrison, Los Angeles Times ColumnistGraphics: DesignTeal

Acknowledgements:Robert Timme, Dean of the School of Architecture, University of Southern CaliforniaWilliam Holland, City Architect, City of Los AngelesGregory Scott, Director of Street Services

COPYRIGHT © 1999 BY ANGELS WALK L. A., INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PERMISSION TO REPRINT OR REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL MUST BE GRANTED IN WRITING BY ANGELS WALK L. A., INC.

The Transit & Walking Districts of Historic Los Angeles

Grauman’s Million Dollar BabyIn a city that makes landmarks out of coffee shops, two truly venerable landmarks, opened within a year of each other during World War I, still stand, still thrive, and still draw applause. Before the Sunset Strip, there was Broadaway. Downtown Los Angeles’ jazziest entertainment district was a bustling thorough-fare aglow with bright lights and lined with glitzy motion picture and vaudeville palaces. And at the top of the street, the Million Dollar Theatre – named

for its then-exorbitant price tag.

In 1917, showman Sid Grauman

commissioned architect Albert C.

Martin Sr. to design a theatre for the ground floor of what would become the Edison building, a

theatre worthy of a city that

was the film capital of the world.

When the Million Dollar Theatre opened on February 1, 1918, it was hailed as one of the first great motion picture ‘’palaces,’’ a model for its future sister theatres, the Egyptian and fabled Chinese.

Silent stars Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish and Charlie Chaplin

walked under its ornate Churrigueres-que terra-

cotta arch to attend the opening-night premiere, the Mack Sennett comedy, ‘’The Silent Man.’’ Its success was instant, and durable.

At exclusive after-hours screenings,

Grauman entertained his private guests, among

them Chaplin, Gloria Swanson, and comedian Harold Lloyd.

Water Wars and Latin StarsAfter Edison moved to different quarters a dozen years later, several of the building’s dozen floors were leased by the powerful Metropolitan Water District, and in its boardroom, the City Department of Water and Power’s legendary engineer William

Mulholland worked with his somtimes-rivals in the region’s water wars to bring water to the city. By the lean 1930s, movies were hugely popular but movie palaces had become more common and less ornate. For more than four decades beginning in 1939, the theatre began showing Spanish-language movies and inviting stage acts. Stars from Latin America – Javier Solis, Cantinflas, Vincente Fernandez and Lola Beltran among them – performed over the years. The sidewalk in front bears plaques honoring Latino performers, among them Mexican screen idol Jorge Negrete. In 1954, as he prepared for a week long engage-ment at the theatre, he died. Hundreds of disbelieving fans showed up at the Million Dollar, hoping to hear that it wasn’t true.

The Saga of Grand Central MarketBut even as the theatre struggled, its next-door neighbor, the Grand Central Market, thrived. In 1898, Homer Laughlin Sr., a Civil War veteran who

made a fortune manufacturing fine dinner wear that carried his name, had commissioned architect John Parkinson to build the city’s first reinforced steel and ‘’truly fireproof’’ six-story building. It housed the Coulter Dry Goods Co., and eventually the ground floor was extended to Hill Street and two stories were added overhead, where the Central Library took up residence for two years. By 1908, Coulter’s store had moved, and the City of Paris department store set up shop. But an entrepreneur from Seattle had other ideas for the space. Chester A. Goss partnered with Laughlin’s heir to open a huge ground-floor food hall. So in 1917, the City of Paris moved out and Grand Central Market was open for business, beginning a run of popularity that only the movies could rival.

Actor Jack Nicholson as Private Eye J.J. (Jake) Gittes in “Chinatown”, 1974

The twinned buildings, market and theatre, were purchased in the 1980s by Ira Yellin, a lawyer-turned-developer with a penchant for urban preservation

who had them restored with the Community Redevelopment Agency’s assistance and private funds as a staging ground for revival of a downtown residential and shopping district.

MILLION DOLLAR THEATRE/GRAND CENTRAL MARKET

Grand Opening of Sid Grauman’s Million Dollar Theatre, February 1, 1918

William Mulholland, Chief Engineer of the Bureau of Waterworks and Supply, 1928

Flower Shop in Grand Central Market, 1919

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ANGELS WALKBUNKER HILL/HISTORIC CORE DISTRICT

The RonaldReaganBuilding

Biddy Mason Park

BradburyBuilding

Million Dollar Theater

Grand Central Market

The MarketCourt

Hotel Inter-Continental Los Angeles

Museum ofContemporaryArt

Watercourt atCalifornia Plaza

Wells FargoCenter

Wells FargoHistoryMuseum

ARCO Center

KetchumYMCA

WestinBonaventureHotel

Bunker HillSteps

Library Tower

One Bunker Hill

The GasCompanyTower

Regal Biltmore Hotel

PershingSquare

Jewelry District

Oviatt Building

Pacific Center

Los Angeles Public Libraryand MaguireGardens

Macy’s Plaza

Fine ArtsBuilding

Home Savingsof AmericaTower

Seventh Street/ Metro Center

Citicorp Plaza

SeventhMarket Place

VisitorInformationCenter

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1617 18

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20 21

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24

25

27

26

28

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30

31

NORTH

Metro Red Line

Metro Blue Line

Main Walk

Side Stroll

For more information about Angels Walk or for a copy of the Map/Guidebook, please contact the MTA Public Information Office at (213) 922-6000.

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7 Angels Flight

YOU ARE HERE Please Note: not all locations on Walk have Historic Site Markers

Grand Central Market, circa 1940

Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford,circa 1920

Interior of 2,200-seat auditorium inside Million Dollar Theatre Building, 1918

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angels walk® la

Angels Walk Bunker HillSelect Stanchions1 Historic Spring Street

2 Bradbury Building

3 Million Dollar Theater/Grand Central Market

4 Angels Flight

5 Water Court – Cal Plaza

6 Grand Avenue

7 Bunker Hill

8 Spanish Steps

9 Los Angeles Central Library

10 One Bunker Hill

11 The Millenium Biltmore Hotel

12 Pershing Square

13 The Oviatt Building

14 The Pacific Center

15 Fine Arts Building

Page 3: Angels Walk Bunker Hill - Stanchions...classic, imagined a 21st-century world of cooperative housing and workspaces organized around crystal courts. Wyman turned that inspiration into

BUNKER HILL / HISTORIC CORE BUNKER HILL / HISTORIC CORE

MILLENNIUM BILTMORE HOTEL

MILLENNIUM BILTMORE HOTEL

Top Photo and Left PanelPHOTO COURTESY OF THE REGAL BILTMORE HOTEL AND THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

Bottom Photo: Ectoplasmic exterminators Bill Murray and Dan Akroyd have just removed some uninvited guests, rather, ghosts from a fancy hotel in"Ghostbusters."PHOTO COURTESY OF COLUMBIA PICTURES CORPORATION

BUNKER HILL / HISTORIC CORE BUNKER HILL / HISTORIC CORE

MILLENNIUM BILTMORE

HOTEL

MILLENNIUM BILTMORE

HOTEL

Special Thanks to:City Council of the City of Los Angeles John Ferraro, PresidentMayor Richard J. RiordanCouncil Member Richard AlatorreCouncil Member Rita Walters Supported by:Community Redevelopment Agency–City of Los AngelesLos Angeles Department of TransportationLos Angeles Department of General ServicesLos Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation AuthorityLos Angeles TimesProject TeamProject Development: Deanna Spector, Executive Director, Angels Walk LAProject Co-ordinator: Douglas Huls, Director of Operations, Angels Walk LAStanchion Designer: Rogerio CarvalheiroWriter: Cecilia Rasmussen, Los Angeles Times ColumnistWriter: Patt Morrison, Los Angeles Times ColumnistGraphics: DesignTealAcknowledgements:Nick PatsaourasRobert Timme, Dean of the School of Architecture, University of Southern CaliforniaWilliam Holland, City Architect, City of Los AngelesGregory Scott, Director of Street ServicesAldolfo V. Nodal, Director, Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles

Angels Walk LA

COPYRIGHT © 1999 BY ANGELS WALK L. A., INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PERMISSION TO REPRINT OR REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL MUST BE GRANTED IN WRITING BY ANGELS WALK L. A., INC.

The Transit & Walking Districts of Historic Los Angeles

MILLENNIUM BILTMORE HOTELthere for 22 years. In 1980, her suite, 308, was renamed the Becker Suite. The hotel has long been a favorite location for films. Movie fans and Angelenos alike would recognize it from scenes in ‘’The Sting,’’ ‘’Chinatown,’’ “Ghostbusters,’’ ‘’Beverly Hills Cop,’’ “The Fabulous Baker Boys,” and ‘’Vertigo,’’ when director Alfred Hitchcock used the

11 flights of ornate, wrought-iron back-stairs to create dizzying scenes. Listed as a historical cultural landmark in 1969, the building has charms for moviemakers and guests alike, including the

cathedral-like ceilings in the public rooms, ornamented variously with murals of angels and cherubs, and teepees and bison, and Spanish conquistadors. The decorative friezes

elegantly camouflage Prohibition-era lookout windows in the Gold Room.

The Biltmore’s Best Kept GuestsThe Biltmore’s pillows have been plumped for assorted royalty and seven presidents, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy. In 1964, the Beatles were dropped by helicopter to the hotel rooftop, and hid out for a few days during their first U.S. tour. Lingerie saleswoman Thelma Becker was the hotel’s best-known in-house celebrity, and its longest resident. She called the hotel home for 57 years, until 1997, when a broken hip forced her to check out and move into a convalescent home. If she was ‘’in the mood and had time,’’ she said, she conducted impromptu tours for VIP guests. When she retired in 1975, the hotel management cut her room rate to $33 a night and kept it

The occasion was marked by 3,000 guests who dined on seven courses and danced to the music of seven orchestras and the birdsong of caged canaries. Among the guests were Cecil B. DeMille, Myrna Loy, Theda Bara and Ramon Novarro. Built by a consortium of local businessmen at a cost of $10 million, the Biltmore was the biggest hotel west of Chicago, and its luxury made it the grandest. Like some of the stars who would work and play there, the hotel was an overnight sensation. And six months after the hotel’s debut, the Biltmore Theatre opened, selling tickets printed on brass for opening night only. Designed by Schultze and Weaver, the New York firm that also designed the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York, the Biltmore was a success from the start, as was the 1,700-seat theatre.

It eventually hosted 40 touring plays and musicals before the faded curtains dropped for the last time in 1964.

in the ballroom in 1927; Cedric Gibbons sketched the design for the Oscar on a hotel napkin. Beginning in 1931, and many years thereafter, the hotel hosted the Oscar ceremonies themselves, in the Biltmore Bowl, which also became a showcase for the Big Bands of the 1930s and ‘40s. `In 1947, a young woman named Elizabeth Ann Short, one of hundreds of hopeful starlets, who only gained fame as a murder victim known by the nickname ‘’Black Dahlia,’’ spent a few hours in the Biltmore lobby, making phone calls. It was the last place

she was ever seen alive; her mutilated body was found a week later, about five miles away.

The Biltmore’s Best Kept SecretThe Biltmore, like the rest of the city’s hostelries, observed the official rules of Prohibition, but in the luxurious Presidential suite — accessible by private elevator and occupied by seven presidents and scores of luminaries — a button hidden in the paneling opened a secret liquor compartment that was kept stocked during the ‘’dry’’ era and even today. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization that hosts the Academy Awards, was born at a gathering of film luminaries

Host of the CoastIts lore is as rich as its tapestries, as its gilded cupids and carved marble. From the moment it opened on October 2, 1923, the 11-story Biltmore Hotel became Los Angeles’ ‘’Host of the Coast,’’ a chandeliered statement to the rest of the world that, as a great American metropolis, Los Angeles had undoubtedly arrived.

Ninth Annual Awards of Merit Presentation Dinner, Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Biltmore Hotel, March 4, 1937

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Democratic Convention Los Angeles Headquarters, 1960

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Democratic Party hopefuls Senator John F. Kennedy and his running mate,Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, walk through Millennium Biltmore Hotel, July 16, 1960.

11th Academy Awards, February 23, 1939, held at the

Biltmore Bowl. Spencer Tracy receives Best Actor for “Boys

Town’’ and Bette Davis receives Best Actress for “Jezebel”

Shirley Temple presents Best Actress Award to

Claudette Colbert for “It Happened One Night,” at the 7th Academy

Awards, February 27, 1935, held at the Biltmore Bowl.

Actors Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway in the film "Chinatown."

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ANGELS WALKBUNKER HILL/HISTORIC CORE DISTRICT

The RonaldReaganBuilding

Biddy Mason Park

BradburyBuilding

Million Dollar Theater

Grand Central Market

The MarketCourt

Hotel Inter-Continental Los Angeles

Museum ofContemporaryArt

Watercourt atCalifornia Plaza

Wells FargoCenter

Wells FargoHistoryMuseum

ARCO Center

KetchumYMCA

WestinBonaventureHotel

Bunker HillSteps

Library Tower

One Bunker Hill

The GasCompanyTower

Millennium Biltmore Hotel

PershingSquare

Jewelry District

Oviatt Building

Pacific Center

Los Angeles Public Libraryand MaguireGardens

Macy’s Plaza

Fine ArtsBuilding

Home Savingsof AmericaTower

Seventh Street/ Metro Center

Citicorp Plaza

SeventhMarket Place

VisitorInformationCenter

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Metro Red Line

Metro Blue Line

Main Walk

Side Stroll

For more information about Angels Walk or for a copy of the Map/Guidebook, please contact the MTA Public Information Office at (213) 922-6000.

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7 Angels Flight

YOU ARE HERE Please Note: not all locations on Walk have Historic Site Markers

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Angels Walk Bunker HillSelect Stanchions1 Historic Spring Street

2 Bradbury Building

3 Million Dollar Theater/Grand Central Market

4 Angels Flight

5 Water Court – Cal Plaza

6 Grand Avenue

7 Bunker Hill

8 Spanish Steps

9 Los Angeles Central Library

10 One Bunker Hill

11 The Millenium Biltmore Hotel

12 Pershing Square

13 The Oviatt Building

14 The Pacific Center

15 Fine Arts Building