Lyceum Theatre, Main Street Los Angeles, 1941. Photo from Los Angeles Public LibraryClick to "embiggen" for detail
A commenter posted a question in a post below asking why downtown Los Angeles appeared so dangerous and run down, when in most cities, the central core is usually vibrant and quite posh. It made me think, and I started looking through the photo collection at the Los Angeles Public Libray.
I ran some searches on a few random terms, one of which was "parking lot." And among the results, I found a photo of this amazing building that once stood in downtown Los Angeles.
It's the Lyceum Theatre, that once stood at 227 Spring Street. Built in 1898 as the Los Angeles Theatre, it became L.A.'s second Orpheum Theatre (there would be four), it was renamed the Lyceum before being torn down in 1941.
What hauled it into the search engine's net was that the caption said it had been demolished to make way for a parking lot.
Gone.
I ran some searches on a few random terms, one of which was "parking lot." And among the results, I found a photo of this amazing building that once stood in downtown Los Angeles.
It's the Lyceum Theatre, that once stood at 227 Spring Street. Built in 1898 as the Los Angeles Theatre, it became L.A.'s second Orpheum Theatre (there would be four), it was renamed the Lyceum before being torn down in 1941.
What hauled it into the search engine's net was that the caption said it had been demolished to make way for a parking lot.
Gone.
So very, very sad.
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It's Starchless
Another fantastic building gone for good!
ReplyDeleteDevelopers did that to a wonderful Art Deco cinema in Manchester not so long ago, and built apartments on the site. People were trying to get a Listed Building notification put on it, but the "developers" knocked it down too quickly!
Very sad, all these lovely buildings becoming dust. For what?
What a charming blog you have. You obviously have an eye for the unusual.
ReplyDeleteThis is happening so many places...sad.
ReplyDeleteSue
Such beauty, lost to the ages because of such short-sightedness. I grew up in Montreal during a period when the mayor singlehandedly destroyed much of the city's heritage building stock.
ReplyDeleteTo this day, it pains me to walk past what's taken their place: parking lots, antiseptic concrete boxes, forgettable structures with no artistic flair.
We all lose when this happens. Thankfully we have you to share the memory.
fantastic building gone for good!
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Downtown L.A. is much more bustling than it was, say, 20 years ago. Now there are apartments and such, folks don't leave at the end of the day to go home. I always thought the reason the downtown was so insubstantial was because "Nobody Walks in L.A." You seem to make up for the rest of the Angelenos. You are always up-close and personal with the true beauty of the place.
ReplyDeleteNobody walks in Detroit, either. Downtown is buzzing on the riverfront (the Detroit River connects Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie, WIndsor, Ontario is on the south side of the river), then a little bit north is Comerica Park and Ford Field and a small theater district. North of that is the university district, with the DIA and the science center and the Black History museum. So far, the three oases remain unconnected except by blight.
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