by Paul R. Spitzzeri
With the grand opening of the Broadway Arcade Building (a.k.a. Broadway-Spring Arcade Building or just Arcade Building) in downtown Los Angeles taking place early in 1924 as the Angel City experienced yet another of its many major development booms, coverage in newspapers included multi-page sections featuring articles on the structure, ads from contractors who worked on the project and much else.
Part two included some of this content from the Los Angeles Express and we turn now to what was published by a pair of its contemporaries. The Los Angeles Record. Notably, one of the photographs published in the paper is the same as was featured here in the first part of the post. While many of the articles printed by the Record were almost verbatim with those that appeared in the Express, there are some others that are specific to the sheet.
An image of the interior of the three-story arcade section, at either end (the Broadway and Spring Street sides) of which are twelve-story office tours, has a caption that stated that it replaced what, for about twenty years, was the open-air Mercantile Place, denoted as “the sunny, dusty home of the city’s curio and animal shops.
The accompanying article began with the observation that, “the completed Arcade building, built through the efforts of A.C. [Arthur Cleveland], Blumenthal, represents the realization of a dream for the development of old Mercantile place.” Moreover, the piece went on, “the idea for developing that street,” which opened on the site of the Spring Street School in 1904, “occurred at intervals to group of enterprising citizens of Los Angeles during the past eight or ten years,” corresponding to the original lease period that the school district had with the developer of Mercantile Place.
Credit was given to architect Kenneth MacDonald, Jr., whose “exceedingly interesting” approach solved a problem that was “in designing a street under the buildings [office towers] that would offer a more attractive means of communication between Spring street and Broadway than is offered by the crowded sidewalks of Fifth and Sixth streets,” which are north and south of the complex. The architect was quoted as stating,
We believe the great width of available working space that has been provided in the new Arcade will be found a relief from the congested sidewalks and that large crowds of people will make use of this thoroughfare.
Likewise, we believe our tenants will benefit in proportion to the size of the crowd [using the Arcade as a shortcut from Spring to Broadway].
MacDonald went on to observe that “an attempt has been made to find tenants representing the various branches of merchandising, with as little repetition as possible.” Moreover, the upper levels of the Arcade “will be beautifully lighted and decorated and should present the most attractive and centrally located premises available in the city.” The architect chose colors that would harmonize in background or as complementary “to the various articles that will be on display in the show windows.”
Another piece gave some interesting details about the basement-level Leighton Cafeteria, the largest in the system or chain, with the wrought-iron arch over the Broadway entrance featuring the name. Descending to the lobby, a visitor found the restrooms as well as “a battery of four service counters, each 90 feet long” and which led to the dining area. This “well appointed” space was separated from the service area so that the patron could eat “in quiet, free from the noise and confusion of service.”
The dining room was said, unlike other coverage which gave the figure of 1,000, to have a capacity of 850 persons and was “in English architecture, with solid oak paneling and high ceiling.” A partitioned section allowed for “cozy nooks” where guests could “find the semi-seclusion which is always enjoyed, especially by groups or parties of diners.” Indirect lighting, as well as chandeliers and fixtures featured “a striking and artistic design” and the ventilation system, with fresh air changed every three minutes, was said to be “one of the finest in the west.”
The second part noted an entertainment tidbit with respect to the evening program for the opening, in which, in addition to the appearances of major film stars like Charles Chaplin and Pola Negri, there was a vaudeville act, adapted from Sid Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, and featuring “Professor Frawley,” this being a then-unknown William Frawley, later famed as Fred Mertz in the television classic, I Love Lucy. The Record also highlighted that a vice-president of the Jennings Corporation, which handled investments, was the popular actor Francis X. Bushman, who was best know as the chiseled villain Messala in 1925’s Ben-Hur.
Typically, the Los Angeles Times was more expansive in its coverage than its contemporaries and the paper’s Edward G. Leaf opened his feature by noting that “as the opening of the Biltmore Hotel, last October, marked the completion of the largest building project of 1923,” the Arcade Building “will in probability” be the corollary for 1924, early as it was in that year. The writer added that the final cost of the project was some $6 million and the arcade and exterior and interior décor was such that “the structure is believed to be without peer.”
Leaf recorded that the principals of the Mercantile Arcade Realty Company, which was formed to carry out the project included Blumenthal; Marshal Hale, prominent store owner of San Francisco; lawyer Laz Lansburgh, also a director of the Orpheum Theatre circuit and brother of architect G. Albert Lansburgh, who entered the design competition for the structure; and the building’s contractors Felix Kahn and Alan McDonald. Other details included that 400 men worked on the construction and that the prominent bond firm, S.W. Straus Company, issued $4 million worth for the project.
A separate short piece on the financing stated that Straus sold bonds to investors in fifty cities across the country and it was stated that “the building is meeting with a far greater appreciation from the public than was originally anticipated” because of the demand generated. This was buttressed by the investment company’s analysis that annual earnings were expected to be around $850,000 and which rental structure was such that issuing $4 million in bonds was easily justified by the firm. Leases were 60% filled, so the earnings were projected to rise to about $1.1 million or 30% more than that estimate for the bond issue.
In her article, Olive Gray commented,
Long has commercial Los Angeles cherished the dream of a great arcade and today, in the completion of the Mercantile Arcade, that vision is realized. Those who, in eastern and European cities, have experienced the delight in shopping in arcades know what it is to pass pleasant hours safely shut away from rain or storm, heat or cold. Even in our California there are such days and then also there is that coziness of that shut-within feeling which makes for the confidential, for reliance upon those who offer wares.
Gray also noted that the shops in the Arcade were smaller ones not able to secure quarters elsewhere because of high rents, yet they were still of decent size. As to design, she observed that the stores were “as in a picture” bathed in “soft silvery blues and modulated reds of walls and tilings,” while individual schemes were to harmonize with the general color palette “whose unassertiveness is one of the considerate features.”
As to tenants, the journalist featured Crane’s Arcade Barber Shop, which touted “immaculate cleanliness;” Desmond’s Men’s Arcade Shop, a branch of the haberdashery that was over a half-century old in the Angel City and soon to complement the new main store very close by at Broadway near Sixth; See’s Candy Shop, which “will open here the sixth of its battery” of stores; hatter Jacob Salzman; the Leighton Cafeteria; and a host of others including milliners, jewelers, florists, the Sun Drug Company, a radio firm and a shoe repair store.
Concerning occupiers of office spaces in the two towers, the Straus firm was one, while those in negotiation included Southern California Telephone, Western Union Telegraph and the Where To Go Travel Bureau. The Broadway tower, completed first, housed individual business figures, including doctors, lawyers, the Oregon City Manufacturing Company, and at least one woman, jewelry appraiser Ina Wilson. The Spring Street structure also contained the Blumenthal company offices, those of the contractors, Edward L. Doheny’s Pan-American Petroleum and Hollywood developer Hobart J. Whitley.
While it was previously mentioned that McDonald and Kahn used such subcontractors as Llewellyn Iron Works for the steel structure and Gladding, McBean and Company for the terra cotta cladding, there were, of course, many others. Baker Iron Works; Anderson Ornamental Iron Works; Bruner Marble and Tile Company; California Glass and Paint Company; Hammond Lumber Company; Newberry Electric Corporation; Union Hardware and Metal Company; and the Weber Showcase and Fixture Company were among these.
For all three major newspaper special sections, there were plenty of advertisements by tenants of the new structure, some of those subcontractors and local business congratulating Blumenthal on his achievement, including the Biltmore and Alexandria hotels and dance club owner Fred H. Solomon, who pointed out that the two great events of the day were the Arcade opening and his Valentine’s Day ball.
A letter from Blumenthal to Llewellyn Iron’s president, Reese Llewellyn, and dated the 12th was in appreciation for the firm’s work, with the developer telling the prominent Los Angeles company,
From the time the first girder was placed until the completion of the entire steel skeleton, I have never witnessed in my own experience such efficient service and such speed in erection. This was particularly emphasized by the fact that there were no accidents or mishaps of any kind during the process of this difficult piece of work.
He also praised the elevators, made by Llewellyn, which were “the highest priced and most modern elevator equipment in the market,” but, with the control, safe operation and speed, were “unparalleled within my knowledge” given the “surprising cheapness” in running the system.
In his own ad announcing the opening, Blumenthal enthused that “the Mercantile Arcade is more than a mere building, more than a mass of stone and steel” as he offered that “it is an ideal, a monument to the development of Southern California” and “an integral part of the community itself.” The complex was denoted as “a Three-story Street with Twelve-story Gateways” and, he claimed, “is to Los Angeles what the Woolworth Building is to New York” and what “the great Strauss and Wrigley Buildings to Chicago.” It had the added element of “the broad scope of its usefulness.”
With its dozens of shops and hundreds of professional offices, as well as the massive cafeteria, the Arcade was deemed “an edifice in which practically every personal and household need can be supplied.” The ad ended with the note that the structure “was conceived the fulfill a definite mission—to serve the people of Southern California and is dedicated to the progress of this great community.” The realty, insurance and financial figure added that “full credit is given to those who contributed their services to the consummation of this splendid ideal.”
The conception, construction and completion and grand opening of the Arcade Building exemplified the attitude of so many powerful real estate and development interests, along with politicians, media figures, the Chamber of Commerce and other boosters, about what seemed like limitless growth potential for Los Angeles. The Roaring Twenties in America was largely reflective of these sentiments, though that spirit was definitely deflated by the stunning, stark realities of the Great Depression. In his modest way, compared to the likes of Blumenthal, Walter P. Temple was very much in line with this thinking and suffered the financial consequences.
Blumenthal, who went into theatrical production after his 1927 marriage to theater actor Peggy Fears and had a large real estate management contract with the Fox Film Corporation before it went bankrupt, went through his own severe economic challenges. In the World War II years, he ran a hotel and nightclub in México City after heading over the border to evade a federal subpoena over a business issue. When he died in July 1957 at the age 70 of a cerebral blood clot suffered in his suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel, it was stated that he was still a wealthy man, yet it was soon found that his estate was comprised of just about $2,100 in cash and debts north of $50,000.
Yet, the Broadway-Spring Arcade Building, as it is generally known, is still with us a century after its opening and retains the retail shops with the office towers, as is the case with so many downtown commercial edifices, converted to residential lofts.