Remember the time when people would go out for an evening of dinner and dancing? Yeah, neither do I, but I saw it an awful lot in the movies before television glued our collective butts to the sofa. This place started out life in 1925 as El Patio Ballroom, then became Rainbow Gardens, and then in 1936 it became the Palomar Ballroom, which claimed to be “the largest and most famous dance hall on the West Coast.” The place was an entire block long of Vermont Ave (between 2nd and 3rd Streets) so they were probably right. On August 21, 1935, Benny Goodman and his band began a three-week engagement there, thus ushering in the Swing Era. This photo was taken in 1938, a year before the place burned to the ground on October 2, 1939.
Advertisement for Benny Goodman playing the Palomar Ballroom, Vermont Ave, Los Angeles.
This is a shot of the dance floor. Pretty spiffy, wasn’t it?
The 54,000-square-foot building at 3rd Street and Vermont Avenue featured a mezzanine, a balcony and an additional 7,500-square-foot patio. It could easily accommodate 4,000 couples. Admission was 30 cents for ladies; gentlemen, 40 cents. Cocktails cost 25 cents.
Disaster struck the Palomar on Oct. 2, 1939, when 2,000 patrons fled the ballroom in terror as flames broke out on stage shortly after Charlie Barnett’s orchestra had taken a break. The fire, accidentally started when the bass player dropped a resin-covered rag on a hot floodlight, reduced the building to ashes in what officials called “the most sensational fire of the decade.” No one was killed.
Since the poster shows that Benny Goodman making his West Coast premiere at the Palomar and since that was 1935 the name had to have been the Palomar before 1936.
Hi John,
I did notice that discrepancy in dates, so I checked several sources about when the Rainbow Gardens changed to the Palomar, and they all said it was in 1936. So I’m guessing that advertisement must have been for 1936 too…?
Remember the time when people would go out for an evening of dinner and dancing? Yeah, neither do I, but I saw it an awful lot in the movies before television glued our collective butts to the sofa. This place started out life in 1925 as El Patio Ballroom, then became Rainbow Gardens, and then in 1936 it became the Palomar Ballroom, which claimed to be “the largest and most famous dance hall on the West Coast.” The place was an entire block long of Vermont Ave (between 2nd and 3rd Streets) so they were probably right. On August 21, 1935, Benny Goodman and his band began a three-week engagement there, thus ushering in the Swing Era. This photo was taken in 1938, a year before the place burned to the ground on October 2, 1939.
Per the LA Times: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-12-14-me-1617-story.html
The 54,000-square-foot building at 3rd Street and Vermont Avenue featured a mezzanine, a balcony and an additional 7,500-square-foot patio. It could easily accommodate 4,000 couples. Admission was 30 cents for ladies; gentlemen, 40 cents. Cocktails cost 25 cents.
Disaster struck the Palomar on Oct. 2, 1939, when 2,000 patrons fled the ballroom in terror as flames broke out on stage shortly after Charlie Barnett’s orchestra had taken a break. The fire, accidentally started when the bass player dropped a resin-covered rag on a hot floodlight, reduced the building to ashes in what officials called “the most sensational fire of the decade.” No one was killed.
Thanks for that, PDQ. I never knew the circumstances behind the Palomar’s unfortunate demise.
Since the poster shows that Benny Goodman making his West Coast premiere at the Palomar and since that was 1935 the name had to have been the Palomar before 1936.
Hi John,
I did notice that discrepancy in dates, so I checked several sources about when the Rainbow Gardens changed to the Palomar, and they all said it was in 1936. So I’m guessing that advertisement must have been for 1936 too…?