Hippodrome Theater
314 S. Main Street,
Los Angeles,
CA
90013
314 S. Main Street,
Los Angeles,
CA
90013
7 people
favorited this theater
Showing 26 - 50 of 180 comments
yes but they didn’t always demolish the foundation….they just throw dirt over it and some asphalt. I notice when they started digging down for the parking garage where the westminster hotel stood there were all of these underground brick walls.
If you see the smaller of the two buildings on the right, that’s about where the wall was. There was also an exposed concrete floor at that spot, but because it was ten feet below street level I wasn’t sure that was part of the new construction.
maybe you can see the wall on this map: View link
Construction has resumed on the 4th and Main project. They have now torn up the area where the theater was. I checked out the excavation, lots of bricks and shards in the debris but no theater footprint or anything else of interest. A retaining wall is now visible below ground on Los Angeles Street, but the theater didn’t extend that far. That wall could have been from one of any number of buildings over the years.
The Westminster bites the dust, 2/24/60. Photo is from the USC archives:
http://tinyurl.com/6yt24c
Here are 2 links to excellent LATimes.com blog entries made in Nov. 2007 with photos and explanations that confirm exactly what happened with the Hippodrome. According to this information, the theatre opened on Aug. 31, 1913. The auditorium was demolished first, on or around Oct. 26, 1952, and only the facade and a small portion of the building remained for many years, part of which was used for retail space and the Main Street Gym. Finally, everything was demolished around 1984.
First, see this link for (1) a photo of the exterior of the Hippodrome and marquee, and (2) a photo of the Hippodrome’s proscenium being demolished on Oct. 26, 1952:
View link
Now see this link for pictures of the facade that remained for many years as entries to stores and the Main Street Gym, and a photo of the interior of the Gym:
View link
Enjoy,
The big hole in the ground that occupies the 4th and Main block is going to be a hole for some time. The oweners of the plot have suspended construction of the mixed use development due to the current soft real estate market in DT LA. To give you an example, the Tribune Company wants to unload the entire LA Times megaplex on Spring Street, but no one wants it.
The Hippodrome lives on!
http://hippodromeArtWalk.notlong.com
The downtown Art Walk has christened their new shuttle, “The Hippodrome”, complete with live 19th century styled and sung songsters.
See you on the bus!
OK, my mistake.
Ken, that photo, being from 1949, actually shows the earlier Main Street Gym, across Main Street from the Hip in the former Turner Hall, which was for a time the Regal Theatre. That’s the building that was destroyed in the 1951 fire, after which the gym moved into the former dance hall space above the Hippodrome’s entrance.
From that photo I’m almost certain that it is the same gym featured in The Street With No Name.
Here is a 1949 view of the gym, from the UCLA collection:
http://tinyurl.com/6rxoxn
Here are two photos before and after demolition in 1952, from the same source:
http://tinyurl.com/6aplyy
http://tinyurl.com/5z4fh5
Here are two 1976 photos that Larry Harnisch posted on his “Daily Mirror” blog for the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/64rjmz
http://tinyurl.com/6m2zrl
Thank you for your reply. I was able to find the Hippodrome, but not the others. I’m still looking.
Did you try the LA library website? There are thousands of photos there. www.lapl.org
I am searching for the following photos: Hippidrome, Danceland, Liberty, One Eleven, Red Mills, Four O One, Hidalgo and Montezuma. They were popular Taxi Dance Halls in Los Angeles during the 1930s and 40s. Please contact me if you have a photo of these places. Thank you so much. My email address is
Carina Forsythe
Here is a 1940 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/25qg4q
More of the tiles have been uncovered. Not for long, though, as I think the construction will obliterate this area soon.
Help yourself.
I wonder if there’s a way to pry a few of those tiles loose without getting caught…..hmmm.
They are ripping up the concrete probably just to the right of the theater, going south. I didn’t have a photo with me, so I was approximating. I generally go by the theater driveway cutout that I’ve matched up to the old photos before. Hopefully they will start digging up the theater area next.
Wow….amazing find. I looked on the satellite map overlay thing and the actual place where the Hippodrome stood is where all of the bulldozers were parked a few weeks ago. The big hole is where the hotel was. Have they started digging a hole where the theater was also?
I was walking by the Hippodrome site today and I noticed that some of the tile in front of the building had been exposed during the recent construction. Here are a couple of photos:
http://tinyurl.com/yogvz3
http://tinyurl.com/ywu4tt
I just realized that the Panorama’s dark, round roof is partly visible in this old favorite photo, too, sticking up from behind the King Edward Hotel at extreme right.