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”.
Dated at 1924, this appears to be one of the earliest known aerial photographs of the La Monica Ballroom on the Santa Monica Pier in California. The picture must have been taken shortly before or at the opening of the La Monica Ballroom on July 23, 1924, seen here at the end of the pier. (Dunning Air, Ernest Marquez Collection, The Huntington Digital Library)
Over time, the city of Santa Monica was home to several wharfs and piers, but only the Santa Monica Pier still exists today as a famous historic landmark.
Technically, what we see in the pictures consists of two separate piers. The long, narrow portion constitutes the “Municipal Pier”, which opened on September 9, 1909 and was originally constructed for the rather inglorious purpose of carrying sewage water beyond the breaking waves.
The wide “Pleasure Pier” to the south (on the right side in the pictures) was privately owned and also known as the “Newcomb Pier”. This portion was added by amusement park pioneers Charles I. D. Looff and his son Arthur.
Charles I. D. Looff (born Carl Jürgen Detlef Looff) was a Danish master carver and builder of hand-carved carousels and amusement rides, who immigrated to the United States of America in 1870. Looff built the first carousel at Coney Island in 1876. During his lifetime, he built over 40 carousels, several amusements parks, numerous roller coasters and Ferris wheels, including California’s famous Santa Monica Pier. He became famous for creating the unique Coney Island style of carousel carving.Photo: Long Beach Public Library.
On June 12, 1916, Santa Monica’s “Looff Hippodrome”, containing a carousel opened to the public. Eventually, other attractions included the Blue Streak Racer wooden roller coaster (which was purchased from the defunct Wonderland amusement park in San Diego), the Whip, merry-go-rounds, Wurlitzer organs, and a “funhouse”.
The La Monica Ballroom at the end of the pier and seen in the front of the photograph was designed by T. S. Eslick and featured a Spanish façade, and a French Renaissance inspired interior. It was advertised as “the largest dance hall on the west coast”.
La Monica’s 15,000-square-foot (1,400 m2) hard maple floor offered space for 5,000 dancers and competed with the the Bon Ton Ballroom (later renamed Aragon Ballroom) on what was then known as the “Lick Pier”, located a few miles down the coast in Venice.
Autos crowd the pier during the grand opening of the La Monica Ballroom on July 23, 1924.The event was reported to have attracted 50,000 people producing the first traffic jam in Santa Monica.
In the days before air conditioning, Santa Monica’s Pleasure Pier and its attractions thrived during the 1920s, but faded during the Great Depression.
Ca. 1926. Adelbert Bartlett Papers. Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.
Ca. 1930: The Santa Monica Deauville Club in the foreground, with the La Monica Ballroom rising in the distance above the pier.
People on the Santa Monica Pier looking out over Santa Monica Beach below, ca. 1930. The Santa Monica Athletic Club and part of the Deauville Club are in view at upper right.
Subsequently, during the 1930s most of the amusement park attractions were closed down, sold off, or falling into disrepair. Then in 1934, a breakwater was built. This provided protected docking for up to 100 fishing and pleasure boats near the pier, and helped attract new income.
Ca. 1934: A crowd amid beach umbrellas watching two pugilists boxing in an outdoor boxing ring on the beach in front of the Santa Monica Athletic Club. The Santa Monica Pleasure Pier with the La Monica Ballroom and Municipal Pier are in the background.
1936: Crowds of people standing in line at the Catalina Steamer Landing on Santa Monica Pier across from the La Monica Ballroom.
A 1936 postcard view of Santa Monica Beach showing the La Monica Ballroom on the pier. A portion of the Deauville Club (opened in 1927) can be seen in lower right. Photo by Burton Frasher Sr. (1888-1955), Pomona Public Library, Frasher Foto Postcard Collection).
The “Swinging Years” of Big Band Jazz from 1935 to 1945 also brought new crowds to the ballroom. And country music and “western swing” star Spade Cooley began broadcasting his weekly television show from the the La Monica Ballroom in 1948, where the program remained until 1954.
After that, in the summer of 1955, the Hollywood Autocade opened at the La Monica, featuring roughly one hundred famous and unusual cars, including Jack Benny’s Maxwell and a Rumpler Drop Car. Between 1955 to 1962, the ballroom served as a roller skating rink, first as “Skater’s Ballroom”, and later as the “Santa Monica Roller Rink”. A local speed skating club is said to have won many state and regional championships. Speed skater Ronnie Rains became a Roller Derby star. The rink’s operator was a former vaudeville and silent film star, Jack Goodrich, whose daughter, Michelle Goodrich, later became a showgirl in Ice Capades.
The owners of the pier and the ballroom, the Newcomb family didn’t invest enough in upkeep and upgrades to keep the venue from decaying.
And so, the La Monica Ballroom was closed to the public 1962, and demolished in 1963.
Only very few of the original space pioneers are still with us, and we keep losing the last remaining few.
Fellow pilot, war hero and astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who keeps very engaged online, posted this:
Grieving the loss of one of my best friends, Jim Lovell. His extraordinary legacy is cemented by many space missions: Gemini VII, Gemini XII, Apollo 8 and Apollo 13.
Our mutual respect had no limits. The Gemini XII mission we flew together paved the way for the Apollo missions. Heartfelt condolences to Jim’s family. Farewell Jim. You will be missed, my friend. Godspeed!
Few details about this photograph can be substantiated. The original caption was supposedly “Radio Pictures Chorus Girls“. This might have been a reference to RKO Radio Pictures Inc., which operated from 1929 to 1959.
The girls were almost certainly entertainers who were photographed while having fun exercising on a Hollywood rooftop — possibly in 1938. The automobiles in the background were likely built in the 1920s and 1930s, and the boxing scene was obviously posed for the photographer. (If you can identify the street address or know any of the girls in the image, I’d love to hear from you!)
RKO Studios at Melrose Avenue and Gower Street, Hollywood, circa 1937.
On this day in 1863, Abraham Lincoln was born into poverty. His birthplace was a log cabin on Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky. Raised on the frontier (mainly in Indiana) he was well-read and self-educated, and became a lawyer who opened a law practice in Springfield, Illinois.
I asked DALL-E to simulate what Lincoln might have looked like as a young man during this period of his life, using historical images as reference. Here are the results:
