Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
The Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, opened as the Portland Publix Theater before becoming the Paramount Theatre after 1930, is a historic theater building and performing arts center in Portland, United States. Part of the Portland Center for the Performing Arts, it is home to the Oregon Symphony, Portland Youth Philharmonic, Metropolitan Youth Symphony, White Bird Dance Company, Portland Arts & Lectures, it is a concert and film venue. The Paramount Theatre, it is locally nicknamed "The Schnitz", it is the last surviving theater building on Broadway, once lined with large theater houses. Seating for 2,776 Dressing rooms for 90 Portable acoustic shell Entries on Broadway and Main Street; the architectural firm Rapp and Rapp, famous for its theater buildings, designed the Italian Renaissance-style building. The building was variously described by the newspapers as being of the French Renaissance or Northern Italianate style; the Paramount was considered, at its opening, to be the largest and most lavish theater for a city the size of Portland.
Opened as the Portland Publix Theatre, a vaudeville venue in March 1928, the name changed to the Paramount Theater in 1930, as the owners had a contract to run Paramount films locally. The building continued to show films until 1972. Visitors were greeted by a 65-foot high "Portland" sign above the Broadway Marquee, which contained 6,000 theatrical lights; the sign read "Paramount" from 1930–1984. The theatre was designed with many lobbies; the main entrance to the auditorium boasted huge French-paned windows facing east and south, covered with velvet drapes. The walls were covered with mirrors and marble, the floors were covered with expensive carpets; the furnishings had been purchased from private collections. The concessions stand was stretched nearly half the length of the main lobby, it was described as the "longest candy counter in the West."The lobby was lit with huge crystal chandeliers. Nearly $35,000 had been spent on them; the largest had a span of nearly 8 feet, containing 181 lights.
The largest chandelier has 137 candle bulbs, the smaller ones each have 124 bulbs. The top row of the balcony seats was six stories above the stage. Small staircases from the main lobby led to the balcony area which contained men's and ladies' lounges; the men's lounge was equipped with fireplaces, radios and attendants. The women's lounge was furnished with dressing tables, mirrors and hairdressers. There was a self-playing Louis XV Ampico-Knabe grand piano in ivory and gold on the bridge over the lobby; the walls of the auditorium were elaborately decorated with murals and near the front of the stage, small balconies were hung with drapes which hid the pipes from the $46,500 Wurlitzer organ. This four-manual organ console was mounted on an elevator and could be raised to the level of the stage at the touch of a button; the seating capacity of the theater was said to have been 4000 seats by the newspaper ads of the day. The ads promised "An acre of seats"; the seating capacity was 3000. The ceilings were of a special design.
The ceiling panels were suspended from the roof of the building and jutted out toward the sides of the auditorium, leaving a small cove next to the wall. A series of electric light bulbs were set in the hollow, not visible to the audience, their glow fell on the patrons indirectly, giving the effect of freedom. The orchestra pit could hold a 30-piece orchestra. There was a "flying" stage which could be raised or lowered or moved about above the main stage. In July 1928, the theatre appeared on the front page of the newspaper, figuring in an unusual robbery. A young man, Robert Nolan, had lived in Southern California for a time. While living there, he appeared as an extra in the movie, "Wheel of Chance." He had moved back to Oregon and when he saw that the movie was showing at the Portland theatre, he decided to go see himself on the "silver screen." While he was in the lobby, he saw two people walking by carrying the day's receipts. As he was watching the movie, the idea formed that he should take a chance before he left Portland to acquire a little extra money.
He went to the box office and held up the attendants for $1176. He was apprehended several days having spent all but $1.50 of the money on bootleggers and drinking parties. During the Great Depression, the theatre hired roving musicians and a "psychic" to entertain in the lobby before movies, in an effort to attract patrons to the theatre. Admission was 50 cents at this point, down 10 cents from opening night. By 1936, the theater had been sold to the Evergreen chain, in conjunction with John Hamrick, between them, they owned eight movie theatres in Portland. In 1965, the exterior and interior of the building were in a decline, in September of that year, part of the cast iron balcony which faces Park Avenue, gave way and fell to the pavement below; the break was along an old fracture line caused by a previous earthquake. The iron had rusted over time without proper maintenance. In August 1970, chunks of the masonry on the corner of Main and Broadway gave way. Two huge blocks, 350 lb each, fell from the facade, one of them crashing into the main marquee below.
The masonry blocks were said to have fallen due to the age of the building. The owners did not seem to be putting any money into maintenance; the theatre was offered for sale in December 1970 and was purchased by John Haviland in 1
United States
The United States of America known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U. S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D. C. and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico; the State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean; the U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The diverse geography and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.
Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century; the United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776; the war ended in 1783 with the United States becoming the first country to gain independence from a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, with the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, being ratified in 1791 to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties; the United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, acquiring new territories, displacing Native American tribes, admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848. During the second half of the 19th century, the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery.
By the end of the century, the United States had extended into the Pacific Ocean, its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power; the United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Sweeping civil rights legislation, notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, outlawed discrimination based on race or color. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Space Race, culminating with the 1969 U. S. Moon landing; the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world's sole superpower. The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation, it is a representative democracy.
The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, other international organizations. The United States is a developed country, with the world's largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP, accounting for a quarter of global GDP; the U. S. economy is post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge-based activities, although the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world. The United States is the world's largest importer and the second largest exporter of goods, by value. Although its population is only 4.3% of the world total, the U. S. holds 31% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share of global wealth concentrated in a single country. Despite wide income and wealth disparities, the United States continues to rank high in measures of socioeconomic performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP, worker productivity.
The United States is the foremost military power in the world, making up a third of global military spending, is a leading political and scientific force internationally. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America in honor of the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci; the first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" is from a letter dated January 2, 1776, written by Stephen Moylan, Esq. to George Washington's aide-de-camp and Muster-Master General of the Continental Army, Lt. Col. Joseph Reed. Moylan expressed his wish to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the revolutionary war effort; the first known publication of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776. The second draft of the Articles of Confederation, prepared by John Dickinson and completed by June 17, 1776, at the latest, declared "The name of this Confederation shall be the'United States of America'".
The final version of the Articles sent to the states for ratification in late 1777 contains the sentence "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be'The United States of America'". In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence; this draft of the document did not surface unti
Los Angeles
Los Angeles the City of Los Angeles and known by its initials L. A. is the most populous city in California, the second most populous city in the United States, after New York City, the third most populous city in North America. With an estimated population of four million, Los Angeles is the cultural and commercial center of Southern California; the city is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity and the entertainment industry, its sprawling metropolis. Los Angeles is the largest city on the West Coast of North America. Los Angeles is in a large basin bounded by the Pacific Ocean on one side and by mountains as high as 10,000 feet on the other; the city proper, which covers about 469 square miles, is the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the country. Los Angeles is the principal city of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second largest in the United States after that of New York City, with a population of 13.1 million. It is part of the Los Angeles-Long Beach combined statistical area the nation's second most populous area with a 2015 estimated population of 18.7 million.
Los Angeles is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States, with a diverse economy in a broad range of professional and cultural fields. Los Angeles is famous as the home of Hollywood, a major center of the world entertainment industry. A global city, it has been ranked 6th in the Global Cities Index and 9th in the Global Economic Power Index; the Los Angeles metropolitan area has a gross metropolitan product of $1.044 trillion, making it the third-largest in the world, after the Tokyo and New York metropolitan areas. Los Angeles hosted the 1932 and 1984 Summer Olympics and will host the event for a third time in 2028; the city hosted the Miss Universe pageant twice, in 1990 and 2006, was one of 9 American cities to host the 1994 FIFA men's soccer World Cup and one of 8 to host the 1999 FIFA women's soccer World Cup, hosting the final match for both tournaments. Home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California.
The city was founded on September 4, 1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence. In 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850, five months before California achieved statehood; the discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, delivering water from Eastern California assured the city's continued rapid growth; the Los Angeles coastal area was settled by the Chumash tribes. A Gabrieleño settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ, meaning "poison oak place". Maritime explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo claimed the area of southern California for the Spanish Empire in 1542 while on an official military exploring expedition moving north along the Pacific coast from earlier colonizing bases of New Spain in Central and South America.
Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2, 1769. In 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area. On September 4, 1781, a group of forty-four settlers known as "Los Pobladores" founded the pueblo they called El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles,'The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels'; the present-day city has the largest Roman Catholic Archdiocese in the United States. Two-thirds of the Mexican or settlers were mestizo or mulatto, a mixture of African and European ancestry; the settlement remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820, the population had increased to about 650 residents. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the historic district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street, the oldest part of Los Angeles. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, the pueblo continued as a part of Mexico.
During Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles Alta California's regional capital. Mexican rule ended during the Mexican–American War: Americans took control from the Californios after a series of battles, culminating with the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13, 1847. Railroads arrived with the completion of the transcontinental Southern Pacific line to Los Angeles in 1876 and the Santa Fe Railroad in 1885. Petroleum was discovered in the city and surrounding area in 1892, by 1923, the discoveries had helped California become the country's largest oil producer, accounting for about one-quarter of the world's petroleum output. By 1900, the population had grown to more than 102,000; the completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, under the supervision of William Mulholland, assured the continued growth of the city. Due to clauses in the city's charter that prevented the City of Los Angeles from selling or providing water from the aqueduct to any area outside its borders, many adjacent city and communities became compelled to annex themselves into Los Angeles.
Los Angeles created the first municipal zoning ordinance in the United States. On September 14, 1908, the Los Angeles City Council promulgated residential and industrial land use zones; the new ordinance established three residential zones of a single type, where industrial uses were
Wilshire Boulevard
Wilshire Boulevard is one of the principal east-west arterial roads in the Los Angeles area of Southern California, extending 15.83 miles from Ocean Avenue in the city of Santa Monica east to Grand Avenue in the Financial District of downtown Los Angeles. It is one of the major city streets though the city of Beverly Hills. Wilshire Boulevard runs parallel with Santa Monica Boulevard from Santa Monica to the Miracle Mile district, after which it runs a block south of Sixth Street to its terminus. Wilshire Boulevard is densely developed throughout most of its span, connecting Beverly Hills with five of Los Angeles's major business districts to each other. Many of the post-1956 skyscrapers in Los Angeles are located along Wilshire. Aon Center, at one point Los Angeles' largest tower, is at 707 Wilshire Boulevard in downtown Los Angeles. One famous stretch of the boulevard between Fairfax and Highland Avenues is known as the Miracle Mile. Many of Los Angeles' largest museums are located there; the area just to the east of that, between Highland Avenue and Wilton Place, is referred to as the "Park Mile".
Between Westwood and Holmby Hills, several tall glitzy condominium buildings overlook this part of Wilshire, giving it the title of Millionaire's Mile. This section is known as the Wilshire Corridor and Condo Canyon; the Wilshire Corridor, located next to Century City, is one of Los Angeles' busiest districts, contains many high-rise residential towers. The Fox and MGM studios are located in a series of skyscrapers, along with many historic Los Angeles hotels. Wilshire Boulevard is the principal street of Koreatown, the site of many of Los Angeles' oldest buildings, as well as skyscrapers. Koreatown and Mid-Wilshire are among Los Angeles' most densely populated districts. Much of the length of Wilshire Boulevard can be traced back to the indigenous Tongva people who used it to bring back tar from the La Brea pits in today's Miracle Mile section of Wilshire Blvd, back to their settlement on the coast; this road was used by Spanish explorers and settlers, calling it El Camino Viejo. The route that became Wilshire crossed the original pueblo of Los Angeles and five of the original Spanish land grants, or ranchos.
Wilshire was pieced together from various streets over several decades. It began in the 1870s as Nevada Avenue in Santa Monica, in the 1880s as Orange Street between Westlake Park and downtown. Nevada and Orange were renamed as parts of Wilshire; the boulevard was named for Henry Gaylord Wilshire, an Ohio native who made and lost fortunes in real estate and gold mining. In 1895 he began developing 35 acres of a barley field, stretching westward from Westlake Park for an elite residential subdivision, donated to the city a strip of land 120 feet wide by 1,200 feet long for a boulevard, on the conditions that it would be named for him and that railroad lines and commercial or industrial trucking would be banned; the road first appeared on a map under its present name in 1895. A historic apartment building on the corner of Wilshire Blvd. and S. Kenmore Ave. the Gaylord, carries his middle name. The Wilshire Boulevard home of J. Paul Getty was used as the filmset for the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard: it was demolished in 1957.
The Purple and Red subway lines of the Los Angeles Metro run along Wilshire Boulevard from just past the 7th/Figueroa Street station before serving the Westlake/MacArthur Park and Wilshire/Vermont stations, where the Purple Line continues along Wilshire to serve two stations at Normandie Avenue and at Western Avenue in Koreatown, while the Red Line branches off to terminate in North Hollywood. The construction of the future Purple Line extension along Wilshire Boulevard commenced in November 2014; the construction timeline would see the project from the existing Wilshire/Western station to the planned Wilshire/La Cienega station on the corner of Wilshire and La Cienega Boulevard, to be completed by 2023. The second phase got under way on February 23, 2018 from Wilshire/La Cienega to Century City Station. Phase three of the Purple Line extension, when completed, will extend to UCLA and Westwood/VA Hospital, will follow Wilshire Boulevard for most of its route. Phase four to downtown Santa Monica has no funding.
Metro Local Line 20, Metro Rapid Line 720, Santa Monica Transit Line 2 operate along Wilshire Boulevard. Due to the high ridership of line 720, 60-foot NABI articulated buses are used on this route, bus lanes are in place along some segments of the line. All of the boulevard is at least four lanes in width, most of the portion between Hoover Street and Robertson Boulevard has a raised center median; the widest portion is in the business district of central Westwood, where mobs of pedestrians crossing Wilshire at Westwood Boulevard must traverse ten lanes. According to a 1991 study by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation and the nearby intersection of Wilshire and Veteran are among the busiest in Los Angeles; the boulevard's widest portion is in Westwood and Holmby Hills, where it expands to six, eight lanes. The sections of Wilshire Boulevard in the city of Los Angeles are notorious for their giant potholes. Wilshire Boulevard ended at the MacArthur Park lake, but in 1934 a berm was built for it to cross and link up with the existing Orange Street into downtown Los Angeles.
Orange Str
Tom Petty
Thomas Earl Petty was an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, actor. He was the lead singer of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, formed in 1976, he led the band Mudcrutch. He was a member of the late 1980s supergroup the Traveling Wilburys. Petty recorded a number of hit singles as a solo artist. In his career, he sold more than 80 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time, he and the Heartbreakers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. Petty died at the age of 66, of an accidental overuse of prescription drugs, one week after the completion of the Heartbreakers' 40th anniversary tour. Petty was born October 20, 1950, in Gainesville, the first of two sons of Kitty Petty, a local tax office worker, Earl Petty, who worked in a grocery store, he had a brother, seven years younger. His interest in rock and roll music began at age ten. In the summer of 1961, his uncle was working on the set of Presley's film Follow That Dream, in nearby Ocala, invited Petty to watch the shoot.
He became a Presley fan, when he returned that Saturday, he was greeted by his friend Keith Harben, soon traded his Wham-O slingshot for a collection of Elvis 45s. Of that meeting with Presley, Petty said, "Elvis glowed." In a 2006 interview, Petty said he knew he wanted to be in a band the moment he saw the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. "The minute I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show—and it's true of thousands of guys—there was the way out. There was the way to do it. You get your friends and you're a self-contained unit, and you make the music. And it looked like so much fun, it was something. I had never been hugely into sports.... I had been a big fan of Elvis, but I saw in the Beatles that here's something I could do. I knew, it wasn't long before there were groups springing up in garages all over the place." He dropped out of high school at age 17 to play bass with his newly formed band. In an interview with the CBC in 2014, Petty stated that the Rolling Stones were "my punk music", he credited the group with inspiring him by demonstrating that he and musicians like him could make it in rock and roll.
One of his first guitar teachers was Don Felder, a fellow Gainesville resident, who joined the Eagles. As a young man, Petty worked on the grounds crew of the University of Florida, but never attended as a student. An Ogeechee lime tree that he planted while employed at the university is now called the Tom Petty tree, he worked as a gravedigger. Petty overcame a difficult relationship with his father, who found it hard to accept that his son was "a mild-mannered kid, interested in the arts" and subjected him to verbal and physical abuse on a regular basis. Petty remained close to his brother, Bruce. Shortly after embracing his musical aspirations, Petty started a band known as the Epics to evolve into Mudcrutch; the band included future Heartbreakers Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench and was popular in Gainesville, but their recordings went unnoticed by a mainstream audience. Their only single, "Depot Street", released in 1975 by Shelter Records, failed to chart. After Mudcrutch split up, Petty reluctantly agreed to pursue a solo career.
Tench decided to form his own group. Petty and Campbell collaborated with Tench, Ron Blair and Stan Lynch, forming the first lineup of the Heartbreakers, their eponymous debut album gained minute popularity amongst American audiences, achieving greater success in Britain. The single "Breakdown" was re-released in 1977, peaked at No. 40 in early 1978 after the band toured in the United Kingdom in support of Nils Lofgren. The debut album was released by Shelter Records, their second album, You're Gonna Get It!, was the band's first Top 40 album, featuring the singles "I Need to Know" and "Listen to Her Heart". Their third album, Damn the Torpedoes went platinum, selling nearly two million copies. In September 1979, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers performed at a Musicians United for Safe Energy concert at Madison Square Garden in New York, their rendition of "Cry to Me" was featured on No Nukes. The 4th album Hard Promises, released in 1981, became a top-ten hit, going platinum and spawning the hit single "The Waiting".
The album featured Petty's first duet, "Insider" with Stevie Nicks. Bass player Ron Blair quit the group and was replaced on the fifth album, Long After Dark, by Howie Epstein. In 1985, the band participated in Live Aid, playing four songs at John F. Kennedy Stadium, in Philadelphia. Southern Accents was released in 1985; this album included the hit single "Don't Come Around Here No More", produced by Dave Stewart. The song's video featured Petty dressed as the Mad Hatter and chasing Alice from the book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland cutting and eating her as if she were a cake; the ensuing tour led to the live album Pack Up the Plantation: Live! and an invitation from Bob Dylan—Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers joined him on his True Confessions Tour. They played some dates with the Grateful Dead in 1986 and 1987. In 1987, the group released Let Me Up which includes "Jammin' Me" which Petty wrote with Dylan. In 1988, Petty joined George Harrison's group, the Traveling Wilburys, which included
Los Angeles Conservancy
The Los Angeles Conservancy is a historic preservation organization in Los Angeles, California. It works to document and revitalize historic buildings and neighborhoods in the city; the Conservancy is the largest membership based historic preservation organization in the country. The group was formed in 1978 to preserve Los Angeles Central Library, threatened with demolition; the organization has over 400 volunteers. There is a volunteer Modern Committee, dedicated to the preservation of postwar architecture as well as a Historic Theaters Committee that produces the annual "Last Remaining Seats" film series of classic films in the historic movie palaces in downtown Los Angeles; the executive director since 1992 has been Linda Dishman. The Conservancy hosts an annual preservation awards ceremony at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel and works with the business and development communities to find preservation solutions for historic buildings. Https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g32655-d2227049-Reviews-Los_Angeles_Conservancy_Walking_Tours-Los_Angeles_California.html Some of the Conservancy's biggest success stories have included Bullocks Wilshire, the Cathedral of Saint Vibiana, the Wiltern Theater and the oldest operating McDonald's in Downey, CA.
In 2006, the L. A. Conservancy won the American Planning Association's Daniel Burnham award, its most prestigious National Planning award. LA Conservancy Official Website Modern Committee
Fine Arts Building (Los Angeles)
The landmark Fine Arts Building is located at 811 West 7th Street in Downtown Los Angeles, California. Known as the Global Marine House, it was declared a historic cultural monument in 1974; the building was designed by the architects Albert Raymond Walker and Percy Augustus Eisen in 1927. It is a compact twelve-storey block on an H-shaped plan with a facing of smooth and squared slabs of light-coloured stone; the first three stories present a striking façade with a trapezoidal profile. The façade rises the entire height of the building, the side of which on the street is divided into three horizontal registers that echo the classic arrangement of a Renaissance palace in distinct lower and upper sections. In the Fine Arts Building as in its ancient Italian models, being closest to the eye of the beholder, the bottom section is the part on which the most sumptuous decoration and precise architectural definition is lavished; the façade's central axis is emphasized by a large entrance portal, with a rounded arch that rises the height of two storeys.
This deep, splayed passageway has an arched lintel decorated with plant motifs that introduces serried ranks of arches on either side. They are resting alternately on small columns and pillars variously decorated with fantastic creatures and inlaid geometric patterns; the wall beneath the great arch is densely worked with volutes of acanthus leaves and concatenated circles simulating rope made of terracotta reliefs. The entrance is divided in two by a column of green marble with a capital and decorated entablature on which the two smaller arches rest. Echoes of the architecture of the temple and the religious edifice return boldly in the three uppermost storeys, with a double order of arches on spiral columns, capitals decorated with foliage, keystones with small animal heads. A tympanum with a curious internal colonnade crowns the façade in a riot of minute decoration and majestic architectural sculpture groups; the two-storey interior lobby is set in large wall arches that enclose smaller arches on brackets at the lower level.
A large balcony-type gallery is above, with spaces designed for artists’ studios. It is modelled on the matroneum overlooking the nave of a church. A shallow pool adorned with bronze sculptures, by the sculptor Burt Johnson, reflects light in the center of the lobby; the lobby walls are decorated with ceramic relief panels, small sculptural inserts, seventeen showcases made of glass and finely chased bronze like reliquaries. They now display a tenants’ paintings and artworks; the Fine Arts Building still asserts itself in the 21st century as a total work of art — where architecture and painting coexist in one extraordinary edifice. Oil wildcatter Russell E. Havenstrite owned a penthouse in the building. In June 2012, Los Angeles Fine Arts Building was purchased by Sorgente Group of America; the building appears in the film Days of Summer, where the protagonist — an aspiring architect — describes it as his favorite building. The lobby has housed art galleries in recent years. List of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments in Downtown Los Angeles Publicartinla.com: Fine Arts Building
