Downtown's Oddest Building

By Eric Richardson
Published: Thursday, May 25, 2006, at 09:13AM

Application Support Center -- Figueroa and Wilshire Eric Richardson
Asian Publications Building -- Wilshire and Lucas Eric Richardson

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — What would you say is Downtown's oddest building? I'll leave odd up to you, but just a building that you see and sort of puzzle at. I'm going to throw out two entries to get the discussion started:

Application Support Center

At the corner of Figueroa and Wilshire. An odd one-story building on at least a mid-rise corner. And all it says is "Application Support Center." Application for what? Shouldn't they be a bit more specific in their signage?

Figueroa is an odd street to me. It's the least pedestrian friendly of the Downtown streets, owing largely to several intersections where you need to push crossing buttons in order to get a Walk sign.

And here it intersects with Wilshire, which to the west is one of the City's most important roads but Downtown it just sort of stumbles to an end amid odd buildings and parking structures that pretend to be buildings.

Thanks to Kimmi for spurring me toward discovering that this oddity opened in February of 1980 as the home of Western Federal Savings and Loan. From a Times write-up on the opening event:

The hospitality was abundant for the grand opening of Western Federal Savings and Loan Assn.'s new home office downtown at 888 Wilshire.

Hugh Evans Jr., chairman and president, and John T. Gausepohl, vice president, were accepting compliments and dispensing Tiffany sterling key rings aand mementos to a prominent group including Norman Barker, Fritz Larkin, the Z. Willard Carrs, Maynard Toll and Henry Duque.

Asian Journal Publications

On Wilshire again, this time at the intersection with Lucas just west of the 110. Lots of odd bumps and indentations, and what looks like a loading door front and center.

This building sits right next door to a fancy but low-rise law office, and then next to that is the infamous 1100 Wilshire.

The side looks odd as well, but unfortunately I didn't snap a photo of that while walking back from Home Depot yesterday. I knew I should have, but I didn't feel like walking back far enough to get the shot.

So those are my two picks for Downtown's oddest building. Can you come up with better?



Comments

1
Kimmi writes:

I believe that "odd" building at Figueroa and Wilshire originally was developed for a savings and loan, back around the 1980s.

# on May.25.2006 AT 10:04 AM
2
Klaus writes:

the application support center is an INS office where foreigners apply to have their green card renewed.

# on May.25.2006 AT 03:32 PM
3
Joel C writes:

I figured out that it was INS-related when I stared in the window one day and read the signs hanging around. But how odd that they wouldn't have a bit more description on the outside.

I have a strange feeling there's a lot more building underground, perhaps a secret loading dock for repatriation buses.

# on May.25.2006 AT 04:29 PM
4
Tim Quinn writes:

Pershing Square !

# on Jun.01.2006 AT 09:03 PM
5
Jeremiah Haynes writes:

What about the Disney Concert Hall? Or is that just a such a famous odd building that everyone just skips over it when thinking about odd buildings? Does a well-known odd looking building make it less odd? To me that would be the oddest. Second would probably be the Dome Village for homeless near the Staples Center.

# on Jul.31.2006 AT 04:50 PM
6
Ron Deazy writes:

The oldest surviving commercial building in Los Angeles, Downtown or otherwise, is the Bradbury Bldg. (B-way & 4th). The interior stood in for Jack Nicholson's NY office in "Wolf".

# on Aug.16.2006 AT 04:32 AM
7
Scott Mercer writes:

This post was about the "oddest" building, not the "oldest" building.

I have to make a correction though: the oldest surviving commercial building in Los Angeles, still being used by a business, is St. Vibiana's Cathedral, built 1874. Currently being rented out for events.

If you don't want to count that one, it's still not the Bradbury. The oldest is the Sperl Building in Little Tokyo on First Street, built 11 years before the Bradbury in 1882. It currently houses a video store.

www.you-are-here.com

# on Oct.03.2006 AT 10:45 PM
8
Kenarch writes:

The 7th St. Produce Market certainly is odd. It has been in the press a bit recently due to some particularly foul conditions there (and that's not cool in a produce market. It wouldn't even be cool in a chicken house...).

It is a byzantine network of bizarre additions, walled off areas, dead end halls that fly in the face of the Building Code, propped open fire doors, etc... and vacant filthy offices up above funky produce stalls.

What makes it so odd to me, as opposed to the myriad of other decrepit buildings around here, is that it is so totally unsuited to its use as a place for handling fresh food, semi trucks and all that jazz. Without a particularly major overhaul (just some basic reorganization and a whole helluva lot of cleanup) it would be 10x more efficient. Considering that it is a place of business, and it hasn't been done, that is odd to me.

I'm glad it is several big blocks away from my loft...

# on Feb.21.2007 AT 12:31 AM

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