Fire at 4th/Broadway

I've put a photo here

I just posted a couple videos of the fire on youtube. Shot from the 12th floor of the million dollar bldg.

5:32 am http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Oa-F0MsY3g

5:53 am http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbwpdRpoDNA

6:42 am is still processing

I was a part of the antiwar protest last weekend and took in the sights of the shops along Broadway, since it's not a place I had been before. I remember seeing that bridal shop, expecting to see Natalie Wood and Rita Moreno inside singing "I Feel Pretty..."

I know this had to be an old building. But did it really have any particular historical significance? Anyone have any insight on this? I'd feel a little better losing the building knowing that there wasn't too much important about it. Still bummed out, but a little better.

i think that building burning down means we just lost about twelve check cashing places.

i'm not seeing the history that eric says he added, but i believe it used to be a four-story building.

I'd guess that at the time of the fire, the building's historical value was minimal. I mean, it was only 28% there (with 5/7 stories having been removed).

The property is one block from the Metro and (someday) Angel's Flight, one block from the flourishing 3rd/Broadway corner, two blocks from the OBD corner of 4th/Main, etc.

IOW, it's a pretty critical corner. What will replace it? A mid-rise mixed-use building? A park? Surface parking?

I leave LA for ONE DAY and something happens. That's it, I'm not leaving again.

Wow you guys sound so excited!

Credit goes to LAFD for keeping this fire confined to the corner. Older buildings like the ones in the area, especially when filled with combustible stuff crammed into those tiny stores, and then having the buildings themselves covered with combustible facades and interior partitions, can burn very intensely.

Check this link out for an example of a fire a few days ago that was very much like what "our" fire could easily have become...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/6330277.stm

Joel:

Maybe they'll put an LAPD Headquarters annex there.

Just kidding!!!

It is amazing that more Historic Core buildings didn't have their upper floors torn down, since for decades it was the street level retail and maybe the floor above that had any economic value at all. Fortunately for those, like myself, who appreciate the urban, but very human, scale of this part of Downtown, it was far less expensive to just leave the upper floors alone... and if a building owner could manage to secure those floors (or if he/she cared to), well, the result was this sort of informal preservation we are enjoying today.

Eric's next post, about the cool old building that energed from below the ugly facade, makes me think of all sorts of other buildings, not just Downtown, that might be hidden below junky exteriors. Not that a fire would be the answer, but I think this gives us something to think about in terms of restoration in LA.

I just recently saw a building exposed (so to speak) in the fashion district. Link

speculation alert: I bet the upper floors were removed because of earthquake damage. I can't imagine an owner doing it for any other reason. We have a building here in the arts district like that at Third and Traction.

Thanks for the very cool pics of the exposed facade. I always considered that shingle exterior to be one of downtown's ugliest, and wondered what they hid. It is too bad it had to come to this to find out. Let's lobby the owner of the building at Fifth and Main to remove the steel siding there. I think we might find something entirely more presentable underneath.

Id like to to see the ugly facade on Clifton's removed.

I was happy to see that the sidewalk on the east side of Broadway between 3rd and 4th Streets has been reopened to pedestrian foot traffic for the first time since the fire back in February.