Los Angeles Theatre

I think it is a historic district.

I think this sign is still in the alley:
(Courtesy of the LA Library)

http://jpg2.lapl.org/theater2/00015042.jpg

To “UKuser”: You don’t give any contact information in your post or on your Profile page, so this will have to do.

The LOS ANGELES is one of the most lavish theatres remaining in the country and is even well documented in one of the ANNUALS of the Theatre Historical Society of America (www.historictheatres.org) and you would find it a very fine location.

However, you mention it in regard to the “paranormal” and if your quest is sincere and not merely a location for Halloween time special effects, then you are starting on a dangerous quest that could sooner or later cause you and yours injury! I have commented at length on this elsewhere here (can’t find the link) and elsewhere, so won’t repeat here, but do contact me via private Email if you want the gory details, by clicking on my name below in blue and noting the Contact data on my Profile Page to which you will be taken. I can likely save you horrors that you have no accurate knowledge of, and will dearly wish you had never encountered.

If you merely seek to do a real magazine piece on American movie palaces, then do contact the L.A. as well as the Society listed above, and they will be willing and able to assist you greatly. Best Wishes. Jim Rankin, member THSA since 1976

I saw “Some Like It Hot” also, back in 2004. I don’t think the Conservancy has shown a film at the Los Angeles in a while. This year’s films were all at the Orpheum. Speaking of Broadway, I often appear at the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board on the 9th floor of the original Broadway building on 4th street. I would be interested in any links that would show the interior of the store in its heyday. There are plenty of exterior shots on the LAPL database.

In early 1969 Russ Meyers classic soft core epic “Vixen” opened here at the Los Angeles. The three other locations were Loews Picfair, Loews Century and Loews Cine.

If you had read the previous comments you would have seen mine of May 2004 wherein I list the source of a large booklet crammed with large photos of the LOS ANGELES.

Hey,

Two questions. 1)Anyone know what year the Marquee was changed, and 2) Anyone know where their might be Historic photo’s, from its earlier years. (both interior and exterior shots?) if so please inform me with any information.

Thank you,
Ashley Paradiso

Yes, it was the unmistakeable LOS ANGELES, with the image computer colored to immitate the tints of the M&Ms. The scene following it was also shot in one of the lounges there, it too being tinted and dressed to further the theme of the commercial. It appears that the theatre is largely surviving on commercials these days, but then where else can they go for such a sweeping stairway shot? The FOX in San Francisco is gone, as is the MARBRO in Chicago, and their wonderful UPTOWN is not in any photographic condition. Thank goodness location scouts are aware of the LOS ANGELES and other movie palaces around the nation (and of course, it IS in their ‘back yard’ so moving and location expenses are much lower than going elsewhere)! The Theatre Historical Society once started a file of theatres used as film/commercial/video locations, but I don’t know if it is any longer maintained. Contact them via their web site: www.HistoricTheatres.org

View link

Here is a night shot

I think Downtown is another decade away from being a 24 hour destination. Many lofts are being redeveloped as we speek along with new condos and apartments. I think downtown in another ten years will have a large enough population to support more restaurants and theatres. The city of LA needs to continue to put money into cleaning up all the historic facades on Broadway.A lot of investment has gone into Downtown North of Broadway such as the Cathedral,Disney Concert Hall and the Staples Center. Maybe they can turn Broadway into an Old LA Historic District.brucec

CConnoly:

Downtown Los Angeles has never been forgotten, at least not in the sense that some of the old areas of lower Manhattan were forgotten and then rediscovered. Broadway has been a thriving commercial street for over a hundred years. As late as the 1980s, the sales per square foot in Broadway stores were the second highest of any shopping area in Southern California, exceeded only by pricey Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. They continue to be among the highest today.

By 1906, the three major department stores of downtown, (The Broadway, Bullocks, and May Company- then called Hamburger’s) were established at Broadway locations which they would occupy until at least the late 1960s. The Broadway Department Store was the first to go, ironically moving a few blocks west along Seventh Street. Bullocks and the May Company followed in the mid-1980s, moving six blocks west to Figuroa Street. Still, the smaller shops along Broadway have survived, and done quite well, and vacancies are rare.

Broadway has not been a popular destination for the middle class for at least four decades now, but lower income groups still throng to it. The neighborhoods in nearby sections of the city, and many of those those further out with easy access to Downtown by public transit, still attract large numbers of immigrants, and Broadway has long been a street on which you can hear many languages. The place is very cosmopolitan and, by day at least, very busy.

In fact, the theaters are almost the only buildings vacant (at the street level- the offices above have been mostly vacant for years now) along most of the street. Were the large movie palaces to be demolished and replaced with ordinary commercial space, that space would probably fill up quickly. It is a wonder that most of Broadway’s old theater buildings survive at all, so valuable would their space be for retail uses on this busiest of L.A.’s streets.

The area is pretty rough by night, now that the theaters no longer bring crowds, and skid row has long since spilled over and around Broadway, but then Downtown has not been the center of L.A. nightlife since the late 1920s, when the action shifted to Hollywood and, since then, to other parts of the west side. Even the modern business district a few blocks west of Broadway tends to empty out at night. There have been attempts to bring more residents into the area, and many proposals to convert the vacant offices above Broadway’s stores to apartments and lofts, but it’s pretty slow going.

There are a lot of inherent problems in getting a good urban neighborhood established in downtown. For one thing, the blocks are huge, making for poor pedestrian circulation. Also, the area is relentlessly commercial and industrial, with few apartments, and most of those are either in decay or, if built recently, are in projects that are deliberately isolated from surrounding streets. And though public transit has improved somewhat in recent years, it still doesn’t offer the sort of access and reliability that are necessary for urban neighborhoods.

Most importantly, Los Angeles lacks any real urban tradition and thus, those people who are trying to make downtown work like a real city, instead of just the big business district it has long been, come up against a lot of official ignorance, and even hostility. Chances are that Pasadena will develop a good urban core before Los Angeles does, even though Los Angeles has more to work with. But if L.A. does ever get its act together, Downtown could be a great place. It has great potential, but nobody has been able to tap into it yet.

Thank god this theatre is not in New York or it would have been torn down already. This place is as beautiful as a church.