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Thursday, October 22, 2009 – Imperial City
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The Los Angeles Times Building, 1st and Spring Street, opened in 1935 – the work of Gordon Kaufmann, the American architect mostly known for his work on the Hoover Dam. Newspapers are dying, and now the building just looks defensive, a mass of concrete put in place to hold back the inevitable forces of nature, kind of like that dam. But empires crumble. And the Los Angeles Times is crumbling.
The building won a gold medal at the 1937 Paris Exposition, for its Moderne architectural style, but it's more of a response to the 1910 bombing – the owners of the Times hated unions, fought against them everywhere, and fought against any union trying to organized their workers. The Times' headquarters were bombed on October 1, 1910, killing twenty-one people. It was a big deal – visit the monument. Two union leaders, James and Joseph McNamara, were charged, and the American Federation of Labor hired Clarence Darrow to represent them, but they eventually pleaded guilty. Darrow was later found innocent of giving a four thousand dollar bribe to a juryman. It was a mess. And the paper finally relocated to this building, and it's no wonder they hired the architect of the Hoover Dam.
In the end it didn't do any good.
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A fresco on the east wall of the Los Angeles Times' parking structure – Tony Sheets, 1988 – but full of irony –
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The brand new LAPD headquarters across the street is all blue reflecting glass, and it makes City Hall look less imperious, and imperial –
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If you wish to use any of these photos for commercial purposes I assume you'll discuss that with me. And should you choose to download any of these images and use them invoking the "fair use" provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976, please provide credit, and, on the web, a link back to this site.
Technical Note:
These photographs were taken with a Nikon D200 – the lenses used were AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or AF Nikkor 70-300 mm telephoto. The high-resolution photography here was modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0 software.
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All text and photos unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 - Alan M. Pavlik
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