CURRENT PRESERVATION ISSUES
Updated March 2008

BARLOW HOSPITAL

Barlow Respiratory Hospital, a very significant historic campus on the edge of Elysian Park along Stadium Way, continues to face potential demolition. Barlow has a rich history dating back to 1902, as the Barlow Sanitorium for tuberculosis patients. The site actually has thirty-one separate “contributing” (historic) buildings dating from 1902 to 1952, mostly in the Craftsman and Spanish Colonial Revival styles. It has been recognized as City Historic-Cultural Monument No. 504, and a historic resources evaluation in 1992 found the site eligible for listing as a National Register historic district.

In the early 1990s, and again from 2000-2002, the hospital had considered demolition of several significant structures on the site in order to accommodate a larger, more functional new facility. State law also now mandates hospitals to meet rigorous seismic requirements by 2013. The hospital’s leadership has stated that it cannot raise the funds necessary to build a new facility while also rehabilitating the historic structures. It is therefore offering the site to a range of developers, most of whom are considering higher-density residential developments that would demolish all or most of the site’s historic resources. The Conservancy has expressed its concerns publicly and is working with the Echo Park Historical Society and Elysian Park advocates to ensure that Barlow’s rich history remains a centerpiece of any proposed redevelopment of the site.

BARRY BUILDING

Ty Miller

Ending months of controversy and political maneuvering, the City Council voted unanimously on October 2 to designate the Barry Building in Brentwood a City of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument (HCM). HCM designation will not halt development at the site but, rather, will give the city's Cultural Heritage Commission the chance to review plans for the building and ensure thorough consideration of alternatives if demolition is proposed.

Located at 11973 San Vicente Blvd., the Barry Building was designed by Los Angeles architect Milton Caughey (1911-1958) and completed in 1951. It is a distinctive and highly intact example of mid-twentieth century office design, with the geometry and clean lines favored by European modernism. The building features a central courtyard with integrated landscaping and two gracefully curving staircases of concrete.

Robert Cleveland

The building's preservation effort has benefited greatly from a highly successful grassroots campaign. Diane Caughey, daughter of the architect, prepared the landmark nomination application, formed the Friends of the Barry Building coalition, and has sponsored several events to promote support for the building’s designation, including a presentation by members of the Conservancy's volunteer Modern Committee in May 2007.

Ty Miller

On July 12, the Cultural Heritage Commission voted unanimously to recommend landmark designation, followed by a contentious 2-1 vote of the Planning and Land Use Management Committee on September 18. All three hearings were packed with members of the Friends of the Barry Building, with Councilman Bill Rosendahl repeatedly imploring his colleagues to support the nomination.

Despite overwhelming community support, owner Charles Munger steadfastly fought landmark designation but unexpectedly withdrew his opposition at the final City Council vote. He remains elusive about his final plans for the building.

CASTERA-WARD RESIDENCE

The Conservancy has been working to ensure that the Castera-Ward Residence in Bel-Air does not become the latest casualty of the teardown trend. Designed by architect Paul Revere Williams in 1936, this Bel-Air residence is a rare and remarkably intact example of his residential work in concrete, as well as an important local example of French Provincial architecture. It was also the longtime home of actress Jane Wyatt, who donated the home to the California Community Foundation before her death in October 2006.

CITYWIDE HISTORIC RESOURCES SURVEY

The Conservancy is proud to participate on the advisory committee for the first-ever comprehensive survey of Los Angeles’ historic resources, led by the city’s Office of Historic Resources (OHR) and the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI). Known as SurveyLA: The Los Angeles Historic Resources Survey Project, this multi-year, multi-disciplinary effort will transform the city’s ability to protect our rich yet vulnerable architectural heritage.

The citywide survey has long been one of the Conservancy’s top legislative priorities and is one of the most important citywide historic preservation initiatives in many years. Historic resource surveys are the cornerstone of any local government preservation program. Only by knowing what historic resources exist can a city begin to take steps to protect them, and GCI’s research has revealed that less than fifteen percent of Los Angeles has ever been inventoried.

Made possible by matching grant funding of up to $2.5 million from the Getty Foundation, the survey will take place in two phases over five years. The first phase, now under way, will provide a consistent framework for the survey by creating a citywide historic context statement and a field guide to survey evaluation.

SurveyLA will methodically identify, catalog, and make publicly accessible information about potentially historic resources throughout the city. In addition to enabling proactive preservation measures for specific structures, the survey’s findings will inform development and urban planning decisions, helping to shape the city’s future growth in a way that respects our cultural heritage.

COMMONWEALTH SAVINGS & LOAN BUILDING

Commonwealth Savings & Loan Building. Photo by John Eng.

In May 2007, the Conservancy and its volunteer Modern Committee nominated the Commonwealth Savings & Loan Building in North Hollywood as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument. The Cultural Heritage Commission narrowly voted to take the nomination under consideration. The third and final hearing before the commission will take place on September 6, at which time the commissioners will vote on whether to recommend the building’s landmark designation to the City Council.

Designed by architect Gerald Bense and completed in 1961, the six-story office building at 5077 Lankershim Boulevard is one of the finest mid-twentieth-century office buildings in the San Fernando Valley. Remarkably, today’s development climate allows the six-story Commonwealth building to be seen as a plausible teardown. The current owner proposes to demolish the historic office building and replace it with a large, 136-unit condominium project. The Commonwealth building occupies a relatively small part of the larger development parcel, and the Conservancy sees great potential for a scaled-back project that would sensitively embrace and reuse the historic tower.

GOLDEN GATE THEATRE

The 1927 Golden Gate Theatre, one of Los Angeles' most significant neighborhood movie palaces, is in escrow for purchase by a private development firm. The current owner, the Charles Company, intends to remove most of the theatre's interior features to accommodate retail use, most likely a Walgreens Drug Store. The 1,454-seat theater, at the prime corner of Whittier and Atlantic Boulevards in unincorporated East Los Angeles, has sat vacant for over a decade and has been repeatedly threatened with demolition, despite its listing in the National Register of Historic Places.

The Spanish Churrigueresque-style theatre was built by developer Peter Snyder, known as the "Father of the East Side." It was designed by William and Clifford Balch, who also participated in the design of the El Rey Theatre on Wilshire Boulevard and the Fox Theatre in Pomona. The Vega Building, a historic retail building that once surrounded the theatre, suffered damage from the Whittier Earthquake and was demolished in the early 1990s. The Conservancy will be working with the new buyer, as well as County Supervisor Gloria Molina's office, to seek retention of the theatre's historic interior features, such as the proscenium, lobby, clamshell-shaped concession stand, and mezzanine level, while encouraging the adaptive reuse of this long-vacant historic property.

HALL OF JUSTICE

Hall of Justice, 1939. Photo by Burton O. Burt, from the WPA Collection/Los Angeles Public Library.

The Conservancy has been participating in discussions with the County of Los Angeles to finalize plans for its proposed rehabilitation of the Hall of Justice building, on Temple Street in the Civic Center, as the new headquarters of the Sheriff’s Department and for other county offices. The 1926 Beaux Arts building has been vacant since the 1994 Northridge earthquake, and FEMA funding will cover a portion of the rehabilitation costs. The project will result in the exterior rehabilitation and thorough cleaning of the building, as well as the restoration of the building’s grand lobby and loggia.

The upper floors will be significantly transformed to convert the building to office space, including the top five floors that formerly served as the county’s main jail facility. It played a significant role in the criminal justice history of Los Angeles, housing such notable arrestees as “Bugsy” Siegel, Robert Mitchum, Charles Manson, and Sirhan Sirhan. The county will relocate a representative corridor of jail cells to the building’s basement, where it will be periodically accessible to the public.

HPOZ LOGJAM

The Gregory Ain Mar Vista Tract, the city's first postwar HPOZ. Photo by Dwayne Howard.

Historic Preservation Overlay Zones (HPOZs), or historic districts, offer the strongest tool available to preserve the character and architectural integrity of L.A.’s diverse and historic neighborhoods. Starting with Angelino Heights in 1983, the city has now designated a total of 22 HPOZs. Each was designated because of its special character, but there are many other intact, historically important, and architecturally distinguished neighborhoods that are unprotected. As residents throughout the city know all too well, current development pressures can radically alter the appearance and character of these areas in a surprisingly short time. (For more information about HPOZs, see the Neighborhood Initiative section of this site.)

From the period revival mansions of Hancock Park to the river rock-clad homes of Stonehurst in the northeast Valley, from the venerable turn-of-the-(twentieth)-century homes of Garvanza near Highland Park to the mid-century Modern tract homes of Balboa Highlands in Granada Hills, numerous neighborhood groups are moving through the process of becoming an HPOZ. The Conservancy is currently working with more than 10 neighborhoods to help them gain the protections provided by HPOZ status.

A home on historic Bonnie Brae Street, in the Pico-Union HPOZ.

The city’s Planning Department is the agency charged with shepherding potential HPOZs through this process and then, once they are designated, with monitoring and regulating proposals for new work. Despite its hard work, the department lacks the funding and staffing to meet the demand for new designations. The remedy for this is, of course, more funding. The Planning Department needs more staff whose time can be dedicated to HPOZs. The Conservancy believes that the city must expand its commitment to the preservation of our historic neighborhoods. To do this, the Planning Department's Office of Historic Resources must be funded at a level that will allow for a realistic expansion of the HPOZ program in the coming years.

We urge you to contact your City Councilmember and ask for full HPOZ funding for the Office of Historic Resources. Be sure to let your representative know how important HPOZs are to maintaining a diverse and dynamic city.

JOHNIE'S BROILER

Johnie's Broiler after illegal demolition, January 7, 2007. Photo by Adriene Biondo.

In the year since the illegal destruction of Johnie's Broiler in Downey, members of the Coalition to Rebuild the Broiler have worked tirelessly to keep hope alive for the eventual resurrection of the Googie landmark. An exceptionally dedicated coalition of preservationists, vintage car enthusiasts, and students has organized numerous community events, lobbied elected officials, produced a documentary, applied for grants, and faithfully attended each and every court hearing since the drive-in’s partial demolition in January 2007.
 
Constructed in 1958 as Harvey’s Broiler, this combination coffee shop and drive-in restaurant in Downey was substantially and illegally demolished on January 7, 2007.  Working without permits, the wrecking crew started bulldozing without fencing off the property, disconnecting the electricity, or completing asbestos abatement. Only a portion of the restaurant’s front façade and its distinctive signage, including the famous “Fat Boy” mascot, remain. 

After pleading no contest to three misdemeanor charges in October 2007, property lessee Ardas Yanik was sentenced to three years’ probation, a $2,500 fine, reimbursement of $4,600 to the city of Downey, and fifteen days of community service work with the California Department of Transportation. A year-long development moratorium placed on the 90,000-square-foot site by the Downey City Council will expire on January 23, 2008. In December 2007, the city entered into an agreement with the site’s owner, Christos Smyrniotis, in which he will secure the site from further deterioration, work with the city to evaluate alternatives and appropriate mitigation measures for the site, and pay for a historic preservation consultant hired by the city.

With the development moratorium coming to an end, the Conservancy, its volunteer Modern Committee, and the coalition are organizing a multi-day community design charrette. The charrette will engage the local community in exploring options for reconstruction of the Broiler, including possible uses for the building combined with new construction elsewhere on the site. The concepts generated during the event will be crucial to demonstrating the economic feasibility of reconstructing Johnie’s as part of any future development proposal for the site, and will inform future consideration of alternatives under the California Environmental Quality Act. The charrette will be funded by a $3,000 grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, up to $1,000 from the California Preservation Foundation, and additional matching funds provided by the Modern Committee.

For more information and updates, visit the website of the Coalition to Rebuild the Broiler.

LANKERSHIM TRAIN DEPOT

The Conservancy has been advocating for the restoration of North Hollywood’s Lankershim Train Depot at the corner of Lankershim Blvd. and South Chandler Boulevard. Built circa 1896, the depot is one of the San Fernando Valley’s few nineteenth-century landmarks and is the Valley’s oldest unmodified railroad structure. The structure is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places and is currently under review for Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument designation.

The building has sat vacant for several years on Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) property as the MTA and Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) struggled to reach agreement on its future. Previously, both agencies were considering a proposed development project for the site that would have relocated the depot to a less visible location about a block west of its historic location. In 2006, the MTA proposed spending $3.6 million to rehabilitate the station, potentially as a transit information center, as the depot is located at the terminus of the Orange Line East-West busway and across from the North Hollywood Red Line station. The Conservancy applauds the MTA’s initiative and will continue to oppose the relocation of the building that historically anchored the entire North Hollywood community.

LOS ANGELES RIVER BRIDGES

The Riverside Drive Bridge, Glendale-Hyperion Viaduct, North Spring Street Bridge, and Sixth Street Viaduct are among several Los Angeles River bridges slated for improvements ranging from seismic strengthening, to widening, to replacement. The Conservancy is monitoring the cumulative effects of these various projects and tracking specific efforts, such as one targeting the Sixth Street Viaduct, an important artery connecting downtown and Boyle Heights. Built in 1932 in the Moderne style popular during the Works Progress Administration era, the viaduct stands as an iconic gateway to both sides of the Los Angeles River and was determined eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. The longest, tallest, and last built of the downtown Los Angeles River bridges, the Sixth Street Viaduct is currently the subject of a Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering (BOE) project that seeks either to stabilize and seismically upgrade the historic span or to replace the structure with a new bridge.

Prompting particular concern for the viaduct’s replacement is the presence of a chemical reaction known as Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR), a process by which alkali and silica components in the concrete combine with moisture to form a gel that expands, causing cracking and weakening of the structure. Because the viaduct is a historic resource, rehabilitation alternatives that seismically retrofit and preserve the structure must be considered alongside the replacement options. The Conservancy acknowledges first and foremost the importance of ensuring public safety, but would also like to see a thorough evaluation of preservation alternatives and consultation with bridge engineers who have experience working with ASR before any replacement scenarios might be considered.

Several community advisory committee meetings over the summer informed community members of the project’s goals and allowed for public input. The Conservancy is concerned with the BOE’s seeming promotion of replacement alternatives at this early stage, as these meetings were intended to inform the public and allow for the unbiased exploration of all alternatives. The Conservancy will be submitting comments in response to the Initial Study released earlier this summer, which formally begins the Environmental Review process for the viaduct.

THE LOT MOTION PICTURE STUDIO

On May 21, by a vote of 4 to 1, the West Hollywood City Council approved a revised development plan for the lot motion picture studio (formerly Warner Bros. on Santa Monica Boulevard at Formosa Avenue), including demolition of the historic Santa Monica West building. Built in 1919, this structure is one of three buildings fronting Santa Monica Boulevard that date to the studio’s original development.

After approving the original development plan in 1993, the city attempted eminent domain of a portion of the studio property and settled litigation by shifting all development rights vested under the 1993 development plan onto a smaller parcel. In 2006, the city issued a Supplemental Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the revised development plan, focusing on the project’s new impacts on historic resources. The expansion is scheduled to occur in phases over the next twelve years, depending on market demand for new office space and studio facilities.

Both the Conservancy and Hollywood Heritage testified at the Planning Commission and the City Council hearings, focusing on the Supplemental EIR’s failure to consider any new alternatives despite significant differences between the original project approved in 1993 and the proposed revised development plan. The Conservancy also urged officials to provide incentives to the owner to encourage more preservation of historic buildings on studio property. Several residents also expressed concern over the project’s scale, its impacts on the historic studio buildings, and the lack of review by the historic preservation commission. Despite the City Council’s recent approval of the project, the Conservancy hopes to continue to work with the applicant to improve the project and reduce impacts on historic resources.

SANTA ANITA RACETRACK

The Conservancy has worked to preserve the historic Santa Anita Racetrack since 1999, when owner Frank Stronach erected large elevator towers that dramatically altered the racetrack’s façade, as well as a new restaurant in the historic grandstand, without submitting the project for appropriate public review. Most recently, the Conservancy responded to a Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) on developer Rick Caruso’s proposed retail/entertainment project at the property’s south parking lot.

In addition to its architectural significance, shaped by noted architect Gordon Kaufmann, and its associations with racing history, Santa Anita was the largest Assembly Center for the Japanese-American internment in World War II. About 20,000 Japanese-Americans lived at the racetrack during 1942, in temporary housing in the stable area and in barracks constructed on the site’s parking lot. The racetrack was determined eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.

In April 2007, the Arcadia City Council approved a plan to develop a 830,000-square-foot commercial, retail, and office project on the south parking lot of the racetrack. The Conservancy is particularly concerned about the potential demolition of the property’s 1938 Saddling Barn and South Ticket Gate. The Conservancy has asked developer Caruso to examine alternatives to this plan, as well as ways to reverse the inappropriate 1999 elevator tower additions.

TRADER VIC'S

The Conservancy and its volunteer Modern Committee continue our work to prevent the demolition of the portion of the Beverly Hilton hotel that has contained the historic Trader Vic’s restaurant since the hotel’s opening in 1955. Designed by Welton Becket, the Beverly Hilton debuted as the hotel’s West Coast flagship and included the first Trader Vic’s to be franchised in a Hilton hotel.

The Conservancy became involved with this issue in late 2006, when Oasis West announced plans to build three condo-hotel towers on the Hilton property, which would lead to the demolition of the entire site with the exception of the original hotel tower. From the outset and throughout the project’s ongoing environmental review, the Conservancy has emphasized the cultural significance of Trader Vic’s and urged the city to carefully consider the impacts of its potential loss.

Without notice, Trader Vic’s was suddenly closed by the Beverly Hilton on April 29, 2007, while the Hilton opened a new poolside bar called Trader Vic’s Lounge. The surprise closure seems an attempt to preempt discussion of possible alternatives that would have allowed the beloved cultural institution to remain in its historic location. The Environmental Impact Report for the project is expected at any time. Despite the loss of this beloved cultural institution, the Conservancy will continue to advocate for alternatives to demolition of the historic east wing, including the Trader Vic’s space.

WEST LOS ANGELES REGIONAL BRANCH LIBRARY

The Conservancy is working to protect the West Los Angeles Regional branch library, located on Santa Monica Boulevard at Purdue Avenue. A recently approved citywide master plan for the Los Angeles Public Library branch system has placed into question the future of this mid-century branch library. One of the proposed alternatives calls for the library’s demolition, followed by new construction on an expanded site that would encompass the area now occupied by the recently restored Civic Center Plaza with its futuristic band shell. The second alternative provides for the relocation of the library to a new building at a new site.

The West Los Angeles Regional Branch Library was constructed in 1956 by the local firm of Allison & Rible, who were responsible for several postwar-era buildings throughout Los Angeles. The architects sought to create a sense of harmony and cohesiveness with the mid-century modernist aesthetic found among the adjacent court buildings of the West Los Angeles Civic Center. The façade of the West Los Angeles Regional branch remains intact, although the interior has been remodeled.

If the library remains at its current location, the Conservancy advocates for the reuse of the current building through a sensitive and creative enlargement that preserves the distinctive portion fronting Santa Monica Boulevard while avoiding encroachment onto the Civic Center Plaza. The Conservancy believes that this is feasible and has pointed to a number of creative expansions successfully completed at other historic branch libraries, particularly those in neighboring Santa Monica.