Tracing the Old State Building

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — shannon over at sha in LA had a post yesterday titled urban exploration in which she wrote:

It all began about a year ago. I give tours of City Hall. The highlight of the tour is when we go up to the 27th floor observation deck and get a 360º view of Downtown. One day I noticed that across the street from City Hall there was a fenced off empty lot where some kids were skateboarding. Then I noticed that they were skateboarding on something that resembled old marble flooring. It was the footprint of a building that had been demolished. Nothing remained except the original interior marble floor. WOW. My interest was peaked.

This weekend she went back, hopped the fence, took pictures, and got a nice bruise in the process. She asked for more information on the building, and my curious nature was piqued. So I turned to the historical LA Times...

Update (Apr. 28): Shannon took the info from this post and did a little research of her own, ending up with this new post with photos.

It turns out that the foundation at 217 W. 1st St. is that of the old State Building built in 1931 at a cost of more than $2,000,000. The building was dedicated the day before the 1932 Olympics opened, in a spate of ceremony:

On July 29, 1932, the day before the Olympic Games opened, Gov. Rolph and Gov. Balzar of Nevada dedicated the structure. Vice-President Curtis presented the Distinguished Flying Cross to Amelia Earhart. Public officials and civic leaders admired the building.

(LA Times; May 7, 1938; page A3)

The article from which that quote was taken ran with a picture of the front of the building, which it proclaimed as the first to ever show the building's entire front face. Apparently it had been partially obstructed since construction.

In 1960 a new state office building opened, the monostrosity currently standing at 1st and Broadway. The $9.4 million dollar structure wasn't even considered good looking when it was new. The Times article runs with a photo captioned:

SPARTAN- -Strictly functional is the plan of the new $9,460,000 Los Angeles State Office Building into which 2,600 workers will begin moving Dec. 1. Full occupancy is slated by Jan. 10. The structure contains 565,000 sq. ft. of space and will house 26 state branches. A seven-story, 900-car garage is included.

Inside the article the building is called "severely plain."

(LA Times; Nov. 20, 1960; Page D12)

But that's the (then) new State Building, which isn't what we care about right now.

Once out of active duty, the building became the "Old State Building" and continued to be put to use. In 1961 Gov. Brown took up residence for a few months, spending the first three days of each week in LA.

Getting the building built was a mess. A Jan. 7, 1930, article tells of the County's purchase of four parcels of land for the building (to add to those already owned). Just these four parcels had thirteen owners involved. One of these parcels had been owned by one family since the time of the pueblo.

When the Board of Supervisors early this year took over the Shumacher property, north of Spring street and Broadway, for the new State building, it brought back into civic control part of an estate that had existed intact, without debt or mortgage, in the Shumacher name ever since "Honest John" acquired a deed to it from the pueblo of Los Angeles in 1855. It is doubtful if there is another such instance of lengthy, unbroken, unincumbered ownership extant hereabouts.

(LA Times; Mar. 16, 1980; A8)

Finally in April of 1930 to County got the final deed it needed to have the whole site under control. In July title was transferred to the state. Groundbreaking took place on Aug. 21, 1930.

A March, 1932, article says that Gov. Rolph was going to try and get President Hoover to dedicate the building, but as we can see above, that didn't work out. On March 25, 1932, a man tried to commit suicide jumping from the top of the building, but changed his mind when surprised by State Police. Late March and early April saw state agencies move into the new building.