Last month, I posted a photo of the striking office of Municipal Light, Water, and Power at 59th and Vermont. The one in this 1932 photo was Municipal’s Hollywood office at 1613 N. Cahuenga Blvd. Look at that gorgeous clock tower and the zig-zag grillwork below the sign! For a public utility, I love that MLWP (later DWP) took the trouble to create such memorable building that add diversity to the cityscape.
Shockingly, the building still exists. Well, it’s most interesting feature does: the angular clock tower. It’s now a restaurant called Beauty and Essex. This image is from May 2022.
I still wish they would have left it just as it was. I can’t understand why these people always have to go in and change something. Can someone explain this to me?
I don’t know about this particular case, but sometimes changes come because of earthquake damage or proactive quake safety. My grandparents had a building with a striking design, built in the 1940s in the San Fernando Valley, but the quake in 1971 forced them to completely redesign the front and forever alter the building’s appearance. It’s not always people just being ignorant and tasteless – though I’m sure it often is!
You make a very valid point that we often forget – earthquakes can do a lot of damage, especially to older buildings, and have to be razed or extensively retro-fitted, which is an expensive process. Also, tastes change. What as considered gorgeous in the 1930s is old-hat in the 1960s.