The Ugly Broad

I’ll say it: the second half of the 20th Century will go down in history as the time when contemporary architecture went to hell. From the 1960s onward, rarely ever did a newly constructed edifice improve upon what was there before.

The example below shows the southwest corner of the intersection between Grand Avenue and 2nd Street in Downtown Los Angeles, where the old Bunker Hill landmark, the Dome Hotel, once stood at 201 S. Grand Avenue. Built in 1905 as a luxury hotel, the Dome was the embodiment of early century Southern California elegance. (Nathan Marsak has more historical information about the Dome here).

The hotel was later converted to an apartment building. Sadly, there was a fire on July 25, 1964, in which three victims lost their lives, and six more were injured. The reasons for the inferno and its severity have come under suspicion, but foul play could never be proven. By October that year, the ruins had been razed, and no trace of the hotel’s former glory remained.

For the next 44 years, the site was a parking lot. And today, it is home to one ugly broad of a building – the Broad Museum, below.

But since it’s surrounded by other unimaginative, modern structures ranging from bland to hideous, at least some might fight the Ugly Broad stands out as … “interesting”.