California Theatre

What death threats did you receive gerew, I’m curious.

IF an injunction was filed with the court, it definitely was not filed by the LAHTF, LAC, CRA, Cultural Heritage or other public players in the drama. A reporter for the Downtown News, who covered the theatre beat at that time, backed a pick-up to the demolition site and got the central metal arch with “California” from the marquee and two capitals from the front facade terra cotta columns. One went to NJ with a pal of his and the other, who knows? 10 years ago, the marquee piece found its way to Heaven or Las Vegas, a neon prop house still extant in Mar Vista. The huge murals, added later, of Santa Ana and ?, thanks largely to Al Nodal,made their way to the Latino Museum collection. I should be able to dig up more info next week as to what else is around and where. Part of the final settlement that was reached with the Needlemans by the City of Los Angeles, through their agents, the Cultural Heritage Commission and the CRA, was that artifacts would be saved and displayed at the building that replaced the theatre. Of course, this didn’t happen. For a time, there was a display window built into the Main st. facade where photos and a brief hitory were on display. This is no longer the case. Perhaps, you could get the Needlemans and the CRA to consider getting that display back up. We could work together to locate any “pieces” appropriate for display. The two balcony chandelier bowls – about four feet across – are in storage in Hollywood. We might even be able to track down the facade pieces that would fit into the display niche. So yes, the “preservationists” have “preserved” what others would have consigned to the scrap heap. The box office was gone by the time I got there. There was a gaping hole in the roof and workmen were on site throwing roofing material through the hole to a large pile in the orchestra floor. Who knows what else is out there? It’s hard to understand your use of “pilfer”, when the folks there, that fateful day, were there at the invitation of the owners. Just like you. Bottom line: Steve Needleman did a woderful thing for this city when he used family funds to do a partial Orpheum restoration. The theatre looks great, seems to be very busy and sets an example for what is possible with the rest of the theatres. If that is the legacy of the demolition of the California, it all didn’t come out too badly, after all.

For the record and to correct gross misrepresentations posted on the loss of the California by garagehero, here we go. The LA Historic Theatre Foundation was formed as an all-volunteer organization dedicated to the protection, preservation, rehabilitation and sustenance of Southern California’s historic theatres. Among the founding members were John E. Miller, David Cameron and Tom Owen – the three grand old men of LA’s theatres and Hillsman Wright, who was responsible for saving the Memphis Orpheum in the late 1970’s. The LA Conservancy’s first Last Remaining Seats series in 1997 was organized and executed by a committee of 8, 6 of whom were founding LAHTF members. At the same time, more theatres closed on Broadway than in any year since the Great Depression. Very simply, these theatre aficionados believed a specialized organization was required to address the crisis, raise awareness and protect the structures. Their position was to oppose the demolition and/or substantial alteration of any of the Broadway District theatres (there were 17 then) until a comprehensive study could be conducted to determine the best approach for saving and using the theatres for the benefit of all. For whatever reason, LA was far out of the mainstream of the major national theatre rehab movement. Maintaining a close relationship with and employing the freely offered advice and expertise of theatre members and professionals of the League of Historic American Theatres (LHAT), the LAHTF was chartered to own, operate, program, preserve and raise public awareness. The LAHTF immediately nominated all theatres in the Broadway district not previously designated as LA Cultural Historic Landmarks. Like most toothless and largely un-enforced local landmark ordinances, in the event of a proposed demolition, the best that could be hoped for was a temporary delay to try to convince the owners of the benefits of saving their theatre or to find a buyer who would. The California was given this protection. No court injunctions were ever filed by the LAHTF or anyone else. While DENMARST, run by the Needleman sons, owned the California, the primary player was their father Jack, who at that time was reputed to be the largest private property owner in downtown LA. His historic buildings primarily housed the garment manufacturing business. Along the way, he acquired buildings that just happened to have theatres in them, which were generally operated by Metropolitan Theatres. Money was not a limiting circumstance with this family and the statement that the family lost “hundreds of thousands of dollars in construction delays” is simply false. There was never an either/or choice between the Orpheum and California rehabs. Steve Needleman rehabbed the Orpheum years later – after the death of his father and after Metropolitan no longer operated the Orpheum. The LAHTF never contacted the Needlemans demanding a pay-off. Garagehero must be referring to a large contribution made to the LA Conservancy during this time by Jack Needleman. As far as the stripping of the California is concerned, the LAHTF was contacted by the Needleman family after demolition of the roof had begun. In what was viewed as a conciliatory gesture and with only one day’s notice, the LAHTF was offered any and all objects remaining in the building that could be removed the next day for their own preservation and disposition. Many of the “pieces” removed are still in storage awaiting proper display and re-use. One wonders what public benefit has been or will be derived from the “pieces” removed by garagehero and his crew and we must question who the true “looters” are.
The comments above argue eloquently for the historic importance of the California beyond its beautiful terra-cotta facade. Roxy! In LA! Unfortunately, Graumann’s Million Dollar Theatre on Broadway opened soon after the California and even Roxy could not alter the movement of the theatre district westward to Broadway.
The LAHTF has been largely responsible for saving dozens of historic theatres throughout Southern California. It hosted two national historic theatre conferences – on Broadway – to bring the best practices and national expertise available to bear on the extraordinary opportunities this collection of theatres offers to LA, the nation and the world. LAHTF members were drawn from throughout LA, Southern California, and even internationally (New Zealand and England). Garagehero does himself, the theatre district, this web site and thousands of historic theatre aficionados around the world a grave disservice by disseminating what can only charitably be called misinformation about the struggle to save the California. Rather than impugn the efforts of knowledgeable, public-spirited preservation advocates, such as the volunteers of the LAHTF, garagehero would likely be better served by seeking the facts rather than trusting what is clearly a fading, highly prejudiced and faulty memory of events. Disclaimer: like garagehero, gerew is getting older and 18 years after the events discussed above may have missed a detail or two. However, gerew was there for the hearings, the hassles, the “stripping”, and even the death threats. Full disclosure: gerew was a founding member of the LAHTF Board.

According to the LA Times, Fred Miller began showing “talkie films” in Spanish in August 1930.At that time the theater was called the “California International Theater”.

I cant get those last photos. Concerning the Latino films…latinos were allowed on Main by that time. Old-timers tell me that latinos and blacks were not allowed on Broadway or the surrounding city center until after the 1940s. One old latino gent told me that if you were black or latino, you needed a permission slip to be in the area from your employer or you would be arrested, escorted out, or beat-up by the police and passers-by. But by the 50s, this was no longer deemed feasable or proper, and much of downtown opened up to blacks and latinos. Interesting to note, in some John Fante and Raymond Chandler novels set in the 40s, the area bordering Main was already looked upon as run-down and even referred to as “skid-row”.

Here is a 1935 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/2f29k2

Check out the long gone old-world fountain where Main separates from Spring in that photograph. That disappears from the record around the 30s. Those are the little touches that make a city, a city. Many of our landmarks or architectural details disappeared during the development madness of the 60s and 70s. There are huge gaps in the natural architectural progression of our city, but luckily and inexplicably in some cases, so much has survived. I remember back in the 70s and 80s, so many buildings near the historic core and older neighborhoods were demolished( many of these structures built in the 1890-1900s) and no effort was made to salvage any important details. I remember wrecking balls smashing into two-story high stained glass windows and ornate neon marquees with a mechanical indifference that was mirrored in the eyes of developers. That “look” is STILL there. If the city would relax some of the square-footage and commercial tax issues that hamstring preservation efforts, without having commercial entertainment and private parties ( bogus preservation groups)taking advantage of it at the expense of the taxpayers, THAT would go a long way to putting the profit of developers in a permanent back-seat to the interests of the public. It is our birth-right.Citizens of European cities, residents of Boston, San Fran, San Diego, New York, and cities , towns and hamlets across the country can take a walk on their streets and witness layers of historical architecture. We still have most of our layers. Unless dictated by extraordinary circumstances, there should be zero demolition of any historic structure,especially of theaters.
(Yes Kenny, I guess the Cal was a “gem”…..for about 6 months anyway, or until the REAL palaces were built up on Broadway).

Christmas Day, 1918 (LA Times):

HAIL TO THE CALIFORNIA.
The Beautiful New Miller Theater Holds a Merry Christmas Eve.

Miller’s wonderful new motionpicture theater is open at last! All Los Angeles has been awaiting the great event, and last night, Christmas Eve, Main street was the most brilliant thoroughfare of our town, ablaze with lights, thronged with automobiles, jammed with pedestrians—and lights, machines and people were all focussed on one spot, the handsome white facade of the splendid new California Theater.

Thanks for the posting, Ken MC, I have the same one around here somewhere. I’m sure you’ll agree that it just goes to show how limited , as far as telling the whole story, that the snippet-journalism of media can be. For insatnce, the California was never considered a gem of the theatre district. Certainly the facade was beautiful, but if was a mere concrete box inside. Second, the so-called Hillsman-Wright group never really meant to rehabilitate the theatre, but merely wanted to loot and carry away as many architectural details as possible, or use the theatre for their own purpose, in essence, using the law to steal private property under the guise of historic preservation. As for the assertion that the Needlemans were not trying hard enough to preserve the structure, this is a definite canard and misreprentation of the truth, as we know now. The Needlemans, who at the time were known as the DENMARST company, were not a hugely wealthy limited, but a mediun-sized real
estate business. Tye were faced with a choice of rehabilitating the
Orpheum, a REAL and BONAFIDE movie palace, and the California, a water and earthquake damaged building that could have taken several million to re-hab. The Needlemans chose to rehab the Orpheum, which has now been brought back to its glory days, and IT has become THE centerpiece of the center-city rehabilitation. The Hillsman Wright group did manage to blackmail the Needlmans by slapping the Denmarst company with so many legal injunctions, which ended up costing the Needlemans hundreds of thousands of dollars in construction delays.
The so-called “preservationists” contacted Denmarst with the blackmail offer, in which Hillsman Wright, the Historic Theatre Preservation group and their cronies would drop all injunctions and the Needlemans were free in demolishing the theatre if the Needlemans would pay a donation/bribe of several hundred thousand dollars. This the Denmarst did, if only to stop bleeding money and resources. One of the stipulations was that the “Theatre Conservancy” agency would have first dibs on all the interior objets d'art, architectural details, seats, projector, lights, curtains, etc….however, the Needlemans, to their credit, gave me the keys a week before , and my crew and I were able to STRIP the theatre before the Conservancy folks got to it.In any case, kudos to landowners like the Needlmans, who are the REAL HEROES of downtown revitalization, and not these west-side blackmailers and artsy-fartsy looters!!!

Hooray!!! Hey William, I’ll try and upload a new photo on the Fox Arroyo today. Its got a new business inside, and I believe they changed the address from the original 3236 to 3232, but I am not sure so I’ll go by there today. I saw the comments by Joe Vogel on the theatre link. Its true that this place is surrounded by a great many historical residences, and not just Heritage Square. Highland Park/Cypress Park was one of the first suburbs of Los Angeles and has a plethora of interesting buildings , houses and sites of historical interest spanning many periods. And its an area blessed with several nice theatres, like the Highland further up Fig, and the Rialto in South Pas.

Not even a bag of popcorn???

Hey, there was a theatre in the Cypress park area of L.A., catty-cornered from Nightengale Middle school. It had been used as a sweat shop or warehouse for years, now I believe its a store or restaraunt. It still has its original Moorish facade. I wonder if anyone knows anything about it, I mean, what it was in its heyday. Its on 3232 North Figueroa. Hey, do I get credit for finding a new/old theatre? Do I get anything?