Los Angeles

[whitetail]

Spring Street, Los Angeles, 1889.

Comments

[nemica]

What a shame!

[whitetail]

A crime, really. The city government itself was responsible for a huge number of eminent domain condemnations, particularly on residential Bunker Hill, west of the Civic Center. Now, that whole area is home only to skyscrapers and parking lots.

[lulu_girl]

oh man. these buildings are great! :(

[whitetail]

Yes, I totally agree. Hard to believe Los Angeles once looked like that, isn't it?

[dahliablue]

Wow, those buildings were beautiful! That's such a loss.

[whitetail]

Yes, particularly the County Court House on the hill in the background, and the Bryson-Bonebrake building (the one with the waving flag). That was designed by the famous American Victorian-era architect J.C. Newsom. Here's another period view:

[dahliablue]

I can't get over the detail on these buildings. It's a shame that there isn't the attention to detail like that anymore.

Hard to imagine these were in Los Angeles. And torn down after only 46 years?? That's such a relatively young age.

(whoops, meant to reply to your comment but something went funky and I ended up posting a new comment, which I've deleted.)

[whitetail]

The buildings were just considered to be old and in the way, particularly those that were located near the then-expanding Civic Center, like these were. Many others were condemned simply because they could not be retrofitted - for air-conditioning, not earthquakes. It took an earthquake and a fire to destroy Victorian San Francisco, but Victorian Los Angeles was destroyed almost exclusively (and even more completely) by the hand of man.

[redmags]

I really had no idea it looked like this. What a shame!

[whitetail]

All that change in less than two 65-year human life-spans. It's really quite astonishing.