LA Downtown’s hidden riches that reach for the stars

Skyscrapers and stardom were pies in the unsullied skies when 44 settlers arrived from Mexico in 1781 and established a pueblo in today’s Downtown Los Angeles. The Spanish settlement gave way to Victorian farmsteads, constructions in the mission revival, beaux arts, art deco and mid-century modernist styles, and – eventually – the luminous high rises that exemplify LA’s skyline today. Beyond the historic core stretch freeways and gridiron streets and sun-washed neighbourhoods; beneath it stir intangible stories of the region’s original inhabitants, the Gabrielino-Tongva.

The Biltmore and its sky scraping neighbours.Credit: iStock

“There aren’t any sites that we can visit because none of their structures were permanent,” says Alex Inshishian, program manager at the Los Angeles Conservancy. “Most of the Gabrielino-Tongva people were taken from their villages to San Gabriel Mission, where they were converted to Catholicism. [But] these are people who are still here, still existing, and this is really their homeland.”

Also erased from the landscape are properties acquired by enslaved woman Biddy Mason after she was granted her liberty in the “free state” of California in 1856. Mason was beloved in the community for her work as a midwife, nurse and philanthropist; she founded the First African Episcopal Church and became one of the city’s most prominent landowners. Her legacy is commemorated at Biddy Mason Memorial Park.

“A lot of the land we’re walking through today was owned at one point by Biddy Mason,” Inshishian says. “All that we really have to remember her by are a couple of photos that we can see at the end of the [park’s] wall.”

The atrium of the Bradbury building.Credit: iStock

This dearth of bygone buildings underscores the importance of the conservancy’s work: to preserve the city’s historic structures and cultural sites. Edifices that have survived are unearthed on guided walking tours, among them the landmark Bradbury Building, commissioned by miner and real estate developer Lewis Bradbury in the late 19th century. His inspiration came from the tale of a Victorian time-traveller who alighted in the year 2000 and discovered a dazzling new architectural vernacular.

“One of the things that he really loved was the description of these buildings that were tall, and they had light coming in them, not just through the side windows, but through a giant atrium on the ceiling,” Inshishian says.

This futuristic vision is superseded, of course, by the sunstruck high rises now dominating the skyline. But the Bradbury is nonetheless groundbreaking, a five-storey Romanesque property topped by a glass ceiling that illuminates sublime interior details: French ironwork balustrades over lofty walkways, Mexican tiles and Belgian marble.

“The marble actually glows with the sun because it’s so bright in this building,” Inshishian says. “But it really is that atrium that blows people away.”

The fabulous Million Dollar Theatre.Credit: iStock

Across the road is the Million Dollar Theatre, one of the city’s earliest such venues. Ornamented with Churrigueresque (Spanish baroque) flourishes, it’s said to have cost impresario Sid Grauman $1 million dollars (about $25 million in today’s money) to build in 1917.

“Now of course you probably couldn’t get a small condo in LA for a million dollars,” Inshishian says.

A litany of stars performed here. When Downtown residents started moving to Mid-Wiltshire (now Koreatown) and Pasadena, the theatre became a popular venue for Latino films.

“If you were a Mexican movie star doing a movie premiere in LA, you were doing it here,” Inshishian says. “So there’s a very rich Spanish history at the Million Dollar.”

But the city’s reputation as a starry metropolis was cemented with the opening of the Beaux Arts-style Biltmore Hotel on Pershing Square in 1923. Seven years later, a contender stepped into the limelight across the square: the Title Guarantee Building.

“The building’s art deco style is a reaction against beaux arts – vertical lines draw the eyes upwards, the fire escape is hidden,” Inshishian says.

Bas reliefs are traced onto the Title Guarantee Building’s facade; framed with sprockets, they’re said to represent film reels. A gothic tower flanked by flying buttresses soars heavenwards – a feature that cheekily flouted the city’s height limits, and distinguished the insurance office block from its height-compliant neighbours. Feet planted firmly on ground, it appears to be reaching for the stars.

THE DETAILS

The Los Angeles Conservancy has a range of guided weekly walking tours; the Historic Downtown tour runs on Saturday mornings and costs $US25 ($38). See laconservancy.org

The writer was a guest of the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board. See discoverlosangeles.com