The Continental Building, formerly Braly Block, is known as the first skyscraper in downtown L.A. The lavishly decorated 1904 Beaux-Arts style tower remained the city’s tallest office building until the late 1950s. The Continental was the first fully-representative building of Beaux Arts style in Los Angeles, with a façade distinguished by rich ornaments of terra […]

The Rosslyn Hotel (1914) and its annex (1923) across the street were designed by John Parkinson in the popular Beaux Arts style. When the Rosslyn Hotel opened its annex in 1923, it became one of the largest luxury hotels on the West Coast. At one time it was the largest hotel on the Pacific Coast, […]

The Hotel Alexandria opened on opened on February 12, 1906 as an 8-story luxury hotel at the southwest corner of Spring and 5th Streets in downtown Los Angeles. Designed by architect John B. Parkinson of the firm of Parkinson & Bergstrom and constructed by developers Albert C. Bilicke and Robert A. Rowan,  its popularity resulted in […]

Built in 1924, the three-level glass-roofed shopping arcade connects two twelve-story office towers, one facing Broadway, one facing Spring Street. The building is on the site of the historic Mercantile Place, which in turn had been constructed on property once used as a schoolhouse. It is now used for retail and residential.  

Built in 1903 and the largest individual investment for an office building in Los Angeles at the time, the building was acquired and renovated in 1976 making it the first major step in revitalizing Spring Street. The Hellman Building, now known as Banco Popular,  is an eight-story building of granite, glazed brick, and terra cotta is designed […]

Built in 1914, the 10-story building was designed by Parkinson and Bergstrom. The building was once the Los Angeles headquarters of Crocker Citizens National Bank. Now known as the Spring Arts Tower, the building is part of a movement to convert the old financial district into the city’s “Gallery Row.” The building’s interior features original […]

Quinn’s Rialto Theatre opened on May 21, 1917. The Rialto was one of the first theatres to have stadium style seating and features the longest neon marquee in the Broadway National Register Historic Theatre District. Two years later, Sid Grauman took over the theatre, remodeled it, renamed it Grauman’s Rialto, and operated it until 1924. Since […]

The 1920 Pantages Theatre, a nine-story steel-framed building designed by architect B. Marcus Priteca, was the city’s second theatre (and the country’s sixteenth) built for the namesake vaudeville circuit. In 1929, the theatre became the Warner Bros. Downtown Theatre and eventually Warren’s Theatre. When the theatre finally closed in 1975, it was used as a […]

As Los Angeles expanded southward in the early twentieth century, the city’s banks and financial institutions began to concentrate along Spring Street. The Stock Exchange opened in 1931, in the midst of the Great Depression. Designed in the Classical Moderne style to impart a sense of financial stability, the building’s imposing, fortress-like street façade rises […]

The 1931 Roxie Theatre was the last theatre built on Broadway. The Roxie, noted for its stepped roofline, tower, decorative chevrons, and highly stylized geometric forms, was the only theatre downtown built in the Art Deco architectural style.

The Arcade Theatre marked the entry into Southern California by Vaudeville independent Alexander Pantages. When it opened in 1910 as the Pantages, it was one of a growing number of Vaudeville, legitimate and moving picture houses in Los Angeles’ thriving downtown retail and entertainment district. The theatre was built for Pantages by William Garland, an […]