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.
Here’s another (undated) photo that Carrie B. sent me. She found it among her late father’s belongings.
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. !
My grandfather, Abraham M. Trester, was the general contractor on the construction of the William Penn Hotel in Los Angeles. He came to this country on Feb. 27, 1906 on the S.S. Finland and disembarked at Ellis Island.He was 20 years old at the time. He was a native of Russia. His father owned a furniture factory in what is now Belaruss (White Russia). His father and his mother and 3 sisters were thrown out of his house by occupying Russian troops. When hid father went back into the house to retrieve his wallet, which he had left on the dresser, he was shot, and died several days later. Abraham had left for the United States where they had family already living. Abraham was a skilled craftsman and builder. He helped my father to build his home at 6108 Flores Ave in Los Angeles, Ladera Heights area in 1949-1950. He also worked on many houses in the south central and southwest part of Los Angeles. . He was known to have been the first carpenter on a job site to use a power saw: He hooked a drive belt from the rear axel of his car to a table-saw drive wheel. He had 4 children. He could neither read nor write English when he arrived in this country, as far as I know. I have what looks like a picture taken very soon after the hotel’s construction, as there are no cars on the road. I can email you a copy if you send me your email address. On the copy of what looks like an old post card that I got from Abraham’s daughter, this comment:
“Abraham M. Trester was general contractor at this site. Pretty good for a guy that never had a formal education. Note. Each gable is a different size!”