Gentle reader,
At the corner of Sixth and Broadway, in the very heart of the National Register Broadway Theater and Commercial District, there’s a stretch of sidewalk so gorgeous, it makes us giddy.
It’s a rectangular checkerboard that wraps around the southwest corner, alternating panes of pinkish-gold and green, ending just shy of the Los Angeles Theatre. Herman J. Schultheis, whose unknown mid-century photo archive was digitized by L.A. Public Library a decade ago, captured three views of the sidewalk in its original context, guiding strollers to enter The Owl Drug Co. corner store.
So we were gutted to see Chris Nichols’ tweet last month, calling out a massive section of the Broadway sidewalk that had been removed, presumably to access electrical gear for the new apartments above.
We reached out to the city’s Office of Historic Resources to find out if the work was permitted, and got a swift reply: it was not permitted, and “We notified Public Works staff, which has already been out at the site & in contact w/the contractor. We're following up to coordinate [OHR] role in reviewing appropriate in kind replacement of the removed terrazzo.”
This is all happening by virtue of geography: The Owl Drug Co. terrazzo serves as a stretch of sidewalk within the borders of a nationally designated historic district, which gives the city the discretion of overseeing visible construction work. OHR doesn’t always act to hold a property owner accountable, but we’re always grateful when they do.
Los Angeles has some of the most beautiful and interesting sidewalks anywhere, but there is absolutely no mechanism by which they can be individually protected as landmarks.
The only way to make sure these underfoot treasures stick around is for all of us who care to keep our eyes open and advocate—even if that means stepping in front of a work crew and demanding to talk to the boss before they fire up the jackhammer.
But we didn’t have to do anything like that at Sixth and Broadway. When we visited earlier this month, we found Jose Elvira’s skilled crew from El Verde Terrazzo replacing the missing checkerboard panes in the traditional manner: laying a clay-like matrix of ground stone by hand, then flattening it with a damp weighted roller.
Jose was kind enough to stop and talk about his career, starting out with an Italian owned L.A. terrazzo firm, training his younger family members in the traditional art, working on luxury mansions in Malibu and the grittier environs of Broadway. He was understandably proud having restored the Clifton’s Cafeteria terrazzo, the greatest sidewalk in Los Angeles.
We returned to Sixth and Broadway a week later to find the crew grinding down the top layer of dried terrazzo to even out any bulges. And here’s a snap of the gorgeous finished job, shared by happy Broadway stroller Jeremy Triggs!
Too often these days, beautiful things that Angelenos love get destroyed, and nobody is held accountable. They’re just gone. How much sweeter it is to see something made beautiful again, just like new.
While we watched the work, we thought about all the Angelenos who stopped to watch the original sidewalk’s installation in the 1930s, and then brought knowledge of the process along with them on every stroll in years to come. We bet at least one was a little kid who grew up to be an artist after seeing what beauty can be made from modest tools and materials.
So here’s to Sixth and Broadway and everyone who helped! We hope you find the process of terrazzo installation as interesting as we did, and that you’ll give El Verde a call if you’re in the market for a new flooring solution, or have some vintage terrazzo that needs a little love.
yours for Los Angeles,
Kim & Richard
Esotouric
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UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS
Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (Sat. 5/27) • Highland Park Arroyo Walk (Sat. 6/10) • Bunker Hill’s Modernist Marvels with Nathan Marsak Walk (Sat. 6/17) • The Real Black Dahlia Bus Tour (Sat. 6/24) • Echo Park Book of the Dead Bus Tour (Sat. 7/1) • New! The Run: Gay Downtown History Walk (Sat. 7/8) •Westlake Park Walk (Sat. 7/15) • Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles Bus Tour (Sat. 7/22) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue Walk (Sat. 8/5) • Charles Bukowski’s Los Angeles Bus Tour (Sat. 8/12)
CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS
Ten years ago, we feared the world's biggest tamale in East L.A. would be demolished for redevelopment. Supervisor Gloria Molina cared about this weird building, too, and created a landmarks ordinance to help protect it. We thank her & honor her memory.
Our preservation pal Price T. Morgan fell in love with architecture growing up in a Paul R. Williams gem in SeaView, Rancho Palos Verdes. Now that lovely home can be yours! We can't promise your kid will grow up as cool as Price, but...
After each failed gentrification, the freaks come back downtown: The GAP factory store that displaced the Quinceanera shop in 2015 has been replaced with Beatology Vintage/Aes-Nihil Productions Super Store, in the spirit of AMOK and Mondo Video.
Earlier this month, we shared our thoughts on "If we could choose the next Los Angeles Conservancy president..." The position is now circulating, with a shocking statistic. We wondered why they stopped publicizing its membership numbers, and now we know: it’s due to a drop in household memberships from 7000 in 2007 to 4500 today, a 36% decline! It is time for fresh blood, not just in the Presidency, but on the governing board that let this happen. This was a sad update to add to the post, but it shows we were correct to write and share it. Los Angeles can’t afford to have a flabby preservation organization. We need warriors!
We’re glad to see the L.A. Times giving the Skid Row Housing Trust receivership the scrutiny this no-bid deal deserves. Our investigation continues here.
Rest in Hell, Sam Zell, for bankrupting the Los Angeles Times and leaving Angelenos unprotected by the 4th estate, as real estate corruption devoured City Hall and out into our neighborhoods spreading displacement and blight. Wrap him in yesterday's paper—if you can find one!
"Fun" with the LADBS Vacant Building Abatement list, hundreds of derelict properties contributing to Los Angeles' housing USE crisis. This horror is The Illington Apts., 626 West 17th St. (1913), 17 RSO units held off the market since at least 2008. Open it up!
Care to make your home in a Beachwood Canyon mystery spot? This much expanded Theosophical Society cottage, likely built for lecturer Carlos S. Hardy in 1912 (not '05!), is a rare opportunity to own a part of Hollywood's original intentional community.
Glendale has landmark loathers on city council: first they blew off CEQA to doom a scarce Tropico Craftsman. Now they think demolition by neglect of Rockhaven will look good to a judge. It won't, and the landmark is rotting right now.
This is a wild one: 3477 N. Laurelvale is a SFR South of Ventura where "Swim with Bill" ran unpermitted classes. A neighbor was so frustrated LADBS wouldn't enforce the law, they blasted Howard Stern, got an injunction. The fight goes on—500 pages worth!
At the book release event for Driving Force at the Natural History Museum Collection Center in Vernon, we were encouraged to hear NHM President Lori Bettison-Varga refer proudly to the three museums in the County's collection: Natural History, Page (La Brea Tar Pits) and William S. Hart's House! We hope it stays that way.
Fascinating Penn State project takes students and researchers to natural disaster sites to help develop best practices for sustainable historic restoration. Los Angeles, with its rash of fires in heritage buildings, could use their help.
This is awful! 839 East 27th Street (1897), between the National Register District and the LAPD fireworks blast, sold in June and now has a demo permit for a duplex and ADU.
Hot stuff! Before Canter's Deli remodeled the Esquire Theater into dining rooms, this independent film house lured patrons with Italian neo-realism marketed as soft core sleaze. "Censors Were Lenient!" is perhaps the greatest review of all time. (10th big week - July 1946)
We love Andrea Hazel's paintings based on photographs of her Charleston neighborhood, destroyed for the six-lane Crosstown Expressway. She thought she needed permission, but they are in the public domain—a small positive in a sea of pain.
There's footage making the rounds of a gang of punks beating a man on the sidewalk in Downtown L.A. This is the scene of the $1 Billion money laundering case that no local outlet still has covered. Crowdsourced video is easy. Journalism is hard.
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Ladies & Gentlemen, We Give You The Greatest (And Only) Show On Broadway: Terrazzo Restoration!