Built in 1928, the William Penn Hotel at 2208 W 8th St, Los Angeles always catches my eye whenever I drive past it. To me, it looks like it’s been plucked out of some centuries-old East Coast city and plopped down into the middle of LA. You don’t see many buildings like this anymore, and certainly not in that part of town, a block south of MacArthur Park, which makes it all the more striking when you come across it. Back in 1929, when this photo was taken, the area would have been a rather desirable place to be, not too far from crowded downtown but with lots of space and fresh air, so I can see why someone built a hotel there in the late 1920s. But with the Depression just around the corner, I wonder how the hotel fared in its early days.
The William Penn is still around. It’s now an apartment block called The Sinclair. This is how it looked in May 2022.
Why in the world would they have removed the top part of this building? That was the part that gave it the classical look back in 1929. I never can understand why people just can’t leave originality alone.
My thoughts exactly.
“John and Mary,” which is also a movie title… My go to answer for this is readily understandable: “Earthquake safety.” We very nearly lost Los Angeles City Hall in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. It was that close to being destroyed and don’t even think of how much money it cost to make it right. If it wasn’t as iconic, it wouldn’t have been saved. This hotel is made of brick. I worked in a two story brick building at that time that was very damaged. Earthquake retrofitting, a real pain, but necessary, happened soon after. It’s why you don’t see much, if any, ornamentation on any new buildings.
Of course, I don’t know for an absolute fact that’s why the top of this hotel was altered, but it certainly makes sense to me, what about you?
Yes, Martin, that made total sense to me until I saw today’s post. Maybe this one was constructed differently. Or perhaps it was more costly to repair those steeply, slanted roofs, than to just level them. If they had just not painted it and the first floor that gray. Many of the current color combinations applied to buildings of another era are lovely, but some are not.
I so agree about the color. I believe I mentioned before about gray being the color used for a lot of buildings in Los Angeles now. Sunny days and gray buildings are an awful combination. IMO. Before that a decade or two ago, it seems lots of buildings were painted, what I called, a diarrhea color. !
🤣 I don’t know which is worse!