a huge expanse of lawn and is surrounded by its cottages. In the hotel
are a bank, brokerage office, post office, library, 35 retail shops, and a
motion-picture theatre; on the grounds are a swimming pool with arti-
ficial beaches of white sand and an i8-hole miniature golf course.
98. The WILSHIRE BOULEVARD CHRISTIAN CHURCH
(adm. by application at office) NE. corner Wilshire Blvd., and S. Nor-
mandie Ave., is recognized by its tall red-tile-roofed campanile. In the
THE WILSHIRE AND WEST SECTIONS 183
west wall of the basilica-type auditorium is a rose window copied from
that in the Rheims cathedral.
99. Dominating the WILSHIRE BOULEVARD TEMPLE OF
B'NAI B'RITH (Children of the Covenant), NE. corner Wilshire
and Hobart Blvds. (open during services, Fri. 7:30 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m.} ,
largest temple of the Jewish faith in Los Angeles, is a low, immense,
mosaic-inlaid dome 135 feet in diameter, surrounded by a base capped
with small tapering spires. Broad Kasota stone steps lead to a mag-
nificent triple entrance of Italian marble under a huge rose window.
Beyond the massive East Indian teakwood doors is a gold-and-black
foyer of Italian marble. Within, Byzantine columns of black Belgian
marble rise to the base of the domed ceiling which is finished in dull
gold and from which hang eight cast-bronze chandeliers designed in
the manner of the ancient prayer spice boxes. The altar, ark, and choir
screen are of carved, inlaid mahogany and walnut, framed in black
marble and mosaic. Hugo Ballin's Warner Memorial paintings, de-
picting biblical and post-biblical themes, enrich with glowing color the
three lunettes and broad frieze above the mahogany wainscoting. In
the rear of the main building is a three-story extension, flanking an open
court and housing schoolrooms, halls, and offices.
100. The WILSHIRE METHODIST CHURCH (adm. daily ex-
cept Tues. by application at office), SW. corner Wilshire and Plymouth
Blvds., has a very tall clock tower at one corner inspired by the Tor-
racio of Cremona, Italy. The design of the facade is based upon that
of the church of St. Francis at Brescia, Italy. The building is an out-
standing example of poured concrete construction.
In the ceiling of the nave the dark, profusely-patterned structural
members are emphasized, intensifying the beauty of the rose window.
The pulpit and lectern are copied from notable Italian pieces.
101. COULTER'S BUILDING, Wilshire Blvd. between Ridgeley
Dr. and Hauser Blvd., a four-story commercial structure designed in
1938 by Stiles O. Clements and Irving L. Osgood, is one of the few
large buildings of a very modern type in Los Angeles. In the heavy
white concrete walls, rounded at the corners, continuous horizontal
bands of glass brick serve as windows. A vertical panel of black glass
cuts a recess of 32 feet wide into the front face of the building from
doorway to roof.
R. from Wilshire Blvd. on Cur son Ave.
Thirty-two acre HANCOCK PARK, on the north side of Wilshire
Blvd. between W. 6th St., Curson Ave., and Ogden Dr., is notable for
La Brea Pits. The park, given to the county in 1916 by Major G.
Allan Hancock, an oil magnate, was once part of Rancho La Brea
(Tar Ranch), whose square league of territory covered most of the
Wilshire district and part of Hollywood.
102. LA BREA PITS, in the eastern end of the park, are ugly black
bogs where oil and tar bubble slowly to the surface from subterranean
pools. In the rainy season a film of water camouflages the sticky quag-
184 LOS ANGELES
mire, forming a trap for the unwary, as it did long ago when prehis-
toric animals, gathering here to drink, were caught and preserved for
the enlightenment of modern science. About one quarter of the asphalt
pockets or pits, of which there were formerly more than 100, have
yielded specimens that make them the richest source of Pleistocene or
Glacial Epoch remains in the world. The pits are the remnants of
small craters formed by the explosion of gas in the oil-bearing strata
below. Asphalt oozed into the basins, creating viscid black lakes.
Thousands perhaps millions of years ago the region of these craters
was an open, well-watered plain, bathed in more fog and rain than
descends on southern California today. Forests of pine, juniper, and
spruce shaded the now barren flatlands. Foraging among the thick
grasses and trees were great animals, whose forebears had come to this
continent from Asia by way of Bering Straits: the imperial mammoth,
12 to 15 feet high at the shoulder; the mastodon; the giant ground
sloth; the flesh-eating short-faced bear, larger than the present-day
Kodiak bear; the great lion and saber-toothed tiger; and the Teratornis,
a bird that had a wing spread of at least 12 feet. Sometimes one of
these creatures, coming to a pool to drink, tumbled or was pushed in
by a thirsty neighbor. The frantic screams of the animal, trapped in
the tar beneath the shallow surface of rainwater, attracted the huge
flesh-eaters, who jumped in to enjoy an easy meal, only to meet the
same fate as the intended victim. Through the ages the carcasses
sank deeper and deeper into the sticky mass, and the flesh disintegrated,
but the bones were preserved by the tar.
The Indians used the tar for waterproofing roofs of huts, as did
early Spanish settlers. In refining the asphalt for commercial use
Major Hancock is said to have removed and burned great piles of the
prehistoric bones, not realizing their value to science until he found
a nine and a half-inch tooth. This he gave to William Denton, an
amateur paleontologist, who identified it as belonging to a saber-toothed
cat. Although Denton published an account of the find the remaining
fossils were undisturbed Hancock's asphalt-refining venture having
been a commercial failure until 1905, when W. W. Orcutt, an oil
geologist, sent specimens to the University of California at Berkley.
The result was a scramble of paleontological expeditions by the uni-
versity, Occidental College, the Los Angeles High School, the Southern
California Academy of Sciences, the Los Angeles Museum of History,
Science, and Art, and by individuals. In 1915, when excavation ended,
the museum alone had collected some 600,000 specimens.
At Hancock Park the Los Angeles County Park Department has
attempted to recreate as nearly as possible the scene as it was in the
Pleistocene Age; flora resembling that of the period has been planted,
and life-sized groups of representative animals of the time, executed
in stone by Herman T. Beck, have been placed among the pits. To
prevent cats, dogs, and even humans from tumbling into the sticky bogs
and starting a record of this age for future scientists, stone parapets
have been constructed around most of the pits. Plans have been adopted
THE WILSHIRE AND WEST SECTIOXS 185
for the erection of a museum building over one of the pits, a feature
of which will be a passageway cut down into the tar where the visitor
may view, through plate glass, the interior of the pit as it existed when
the animals were trapped.
Retrace Curson Ave.; R. from Curson on Wilshire Blvd.; L. from
W "ih hire on McCarthy Vista.
103. CARTHAY CENTER PARKWAY, in the middle of Mc-
Carthy Vista between Wilshire Blvd. and San Vicente Blvd., is strewn
with various memorials boulders, trees, and statuary. Southwest of
San Vicente Boulevard it continues as White Esplanade, a path for
pedestrians only.
The JEDEDIAH STRONG SMITH BOULDER is at the corner of Wil-
shire Blvd. and McCarthy Vista. Smith (1798-1831), that rare crea-
ture, a fur trapper who was a praying Methodist, was the first Ameri-
can to reach California by a cross-continental route; he arrived in 1826.
At the San Vicente Blvd. intersection is a MEMORIAL SUNDIAL mounted
on brick from Mission San Juan Capistrano (see Tour 4)-
In the trianguler island at McCarthy Vista and San Vicente Blvd.
is the FORTY-NINER STATUE, slightly larger than life-size. The figure
is booted and long-haired; a small stream of water pours from his gold-
pan onto a boulder. The statue, designed by Henry Lion, is dedicated
to the men of the first gold rush and to Daniel O. McCarthy (1830-
1919), a forty-niner who became a publisher. Carthay Center, a real
estate subdivision of the 1920*5, was named for him, "Carthay" being
a deliberate euphonious corruption of "Carthy."
On White Esplanade, at San Vicente Blvd., is a BUST OF JUAN
BAUTISTA DE ANZA, Spanish commander who led colonists across the
deserts of Sonora, Arizona, and California in 1775-76 to settle the
coast. The bust, by Henry Lion, was placed in 1927. Directly south-
west along the esplanade is a small CHINESE PEACH TREE, presented
by the Chinese consul in Los Angeles to commemorate the premiere
of The Good Earth at the Carthay Circle Theatre. On White Espla-
nade at Commodore Sloat Drive is the "Snowshoe" Thompson Boulder,
with a bronze plaque showing the bewhiskered face of Thompson, a
Norwegian who from 1855 to 1876 carried mail over the Sierras to
isolated camps on his homemade skis, rescued the lost, and rendered
aid to the needy during the snowbound months. To the rear of the
boulder are two young Sequoia sempervirens (redwood trees), native
to the northern California coast.
104. Renowned as the scene of motion-picture "world premieres," the
CARTHAY CIRCLE THEATRE (open only during perform-
ances] 6316 San Vicente Blvd., is a white concrete building trimmed
in bright blue and dominated by a high tower ornamented with multi-
colored tiles and equipped with searchlights.
The theatre is something of a repository for Californiana. In the
first floor lobby is a painting, California's First Theatre, by Frank
Tenney Johnson, depicting the Eagle Theatre built in Sacramento in
1 86 LOS ANGELES
1849. Jedediah Smith at San Gabriel, by Alson Clark, in the main
lobby mezzanine, shows the scout's arrival at San Gabriel Mission on
November 27, 1826. Painted on the drop curtain is An Emigrant
Train at Donner Lake, by Frank Tenney Johnson, a tribute to the ill-
fated Donner Party.
XK3&&&&^^
The Southwest Section
The route of this tour, through the mixed commercial and older
residential section of the city, passes the buildings of two large metro-
politan newspapers, a hospital devoted exclusively to the treatment of
crippled children, and two magnificent churches; and cutting across the
campus of the University of Southern California, it ends at Exposition
Park, in which are the Los Angeles Coliseum, municipal swimming
pools, and the Los Angeles County Museum of History, Science, and
Art.
TOUR
S. from City Hall on Main St.; R. from Main on Olympic Blvd.; L.
from Olympic on Broadway.
105. The LOS ANGELES EXAMINER BUILDING (open by ar-
rangement}, 1 1 ii S. Broadway, is a two-story tile-roofed building of
buff concrete topped by a large, low tower with a squat, tile-covered
dome supporting a slender lantern. This is a reproduction of the Cali-
fornia Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
The structure is the plant of the Los Angeles Examiner, a morning
Hearst-chain newspaper. Visible from the street on the Broadway side
are (L) five giant presses, each with a capacity of 32,000 forty-eight-
page papers an hour.
R. from Broadway on I2th St.; L. from I2th on Trenton St.
106. The LOS ANGELES EVENING HERALD AND EXPRESS
BUILDING (open weekdays 8:30-5; guides}, 1243 Trenton St., is a
three-story cast-cement structure with modified Spanish Renaissance de-
tails. Much natural limestone decoration in profusely intricate Churri-
guerresque (Mexican baroque) design is a remarkable feature of the
building, which was designed by Morgan, Walls, and Clements and
completed in 1925. It is the plant of the Los Angeles Evening Herald
and Express, a unit of the Hearst newspaper chain. It has more than
three and one-quarter acres of floor space and the 24 press units, set
on vibration-proof foundations, have a capacity of 216,000 thirty-two-
page papers an hour each.
L. from Trenton St. on Pico St.; R. from Pico on Flower St.
107. The LOS ANGELES ORTHOPAEDIC HOSPITAL (visited
by arrangement 2-4 weekdays, 10-4 Sun.), 2424 S. Flower St., is a
187
l88 LOS ANGELES
group of two- and three-story buildings of miscellaneous designs dom-
inated by a buff-concrete Administration Building with a domed cupola.
The institution, maintained by the Los Angeles Orthopaedic Founda-
tion, is the only hospital in southern California exclusively for the treat-
ment of crippled children. Some 4,000 children are treated annually,
most of them without charge. Occupational therapy and the usual
education under teachers provided by the board of education supple-
ment orthopaedic care.
R. from Flower St. on W. Adams Blvd.
108. ST. JOHN'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH (open 7-5 daily), 514
W. Adams Blvd., is designed in the manner of an eleventh-century
Florentine church. Above the entrance, in the light-gray Tufa-stone
facade, is a large rose window set in a carre of bas-reliefs by S. Car-
taino Scarpitta. The ceiling in the main auditorium is a copy of that
in the Church of San Minato in Florence. The Corpus on the rood
beam and the Christus above the altar were carved from oak by a
protege of Anton Lang of Oberammergau.
io8a. The headquarters of the AUTOMOBILE CLUB OF
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (open 9-5 daily), 2601 S. Figueroa
St., consists of 2 buildings each 3 stories in height, surmounted by a
loo-ft. tower. Designed by Hunt & Hunt and Roland E. Coats, archi-
tects, it was completed in 1923 at a total cost of $2,052,000. The
buildings are of reinforced concrete construction of Spanish design,
80 ft. wide, 267 ft. long on Figueroa St., and 208 ft. on Adams. The
membership numbers 126,000, and maintains 34 district and 13 sub-
offices, and is the largest independent club of its character in the United
States.
109. ST. VINCENT DE PAUL ROMAN CATHOLIC
CHURCH (always open), 621 W. Adams Blvd., designed by Albert
C. Martin, is a buff-colored reinforced concrete edifice in the Spanish
baroque style with a tile-inlaid dome at a height of ninety feet over the
transept crossing and a tall bell tower with a spire at the left front cor-
ner. The building, erected in 1925 as a gift from Edward L. Doheny,
oil multimillionaire, is decorated on the outside with statuary and
friezes of Indiana limestone.
The interior is embellished with murals, polychromed carving,
marble, and bronze. The high marble altar is against a retable of red
marble with a high-relief carving of The Last Supper. The pulpit is
carved from a single block of red marble. Above the altar is a taber-
nacle of gilded bronze; behind it is a great gilded and polychromed
reredos, flanked by elaborately carved French walnut parclose screens.
R. from W. Adams Blvd. on Chester PL
Majestically staunch against the general decay of the West Adams
residential district are the 10 palatial homes on CHESTER PLACE
(speed limit 10 m. an hour), a street two blocks long in a twenty-acre
residential park, owned (except for one acre) and developed into
THE SOUTHWEST SECTION 1 89
estates by Edward L. Doheny, oil magnate, whose widow occupies
(1939) the grand brick-red plaster house, at No. 8, built about 1898.
Arched iron gateways, brick walls surmounted by ornamental iron work,
great old trees festooned with bougainvillea and honeysuckle, formal
gardens and spacious lawns remain little changed in appearance from
the days when much of West Adams district was no less splendid than
the estates of Chester Place.
Retrace Chester PL; L. from Chester on St. James Park Dr.
West of the mansions of Chester Place are the old-fashioned dwell-
ings of ST. JAMES PARK, another once fine residential section.
Although a few of the houses preserve much of the dignity of their
past, most of them are ending their years as low-priced boarding and
rooming houses.
L. from St. James Park Dr. on Scarff St.; R. from Scarf} on W. Adams
Blvd.
no. The SECOND CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST (open
by arrangement}, 948 W. Adams Blvd., is faced with white glazed
brick and has a lofty Corinthian portico. Above the dull-green tile
roof is a large dome sheathed in greenish copper.
L. from W . Adams Blvd. on Hoover St.; L.'from Hoover St. on W .
Jefferson Blvd.
in. The SHRINE CIVIC AUDITORIUM (open 9-5 workdays,
9-12 m. Sat.), 665 W. Jefferson Blvd., a very large ochre-colored con-
crete building with Moorish architectural motifs, has a domed cupola
at each end. The meeting place and headquarters of the Al Malaikah
Temple, a division of the Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the
Mystic Shrine, it is also used for grand opera, concerts, conventions,
and the like. The cupolas and the loggia along the western facade give
it a mosque-like appearance in keeping with the Arabian-Egyptian cos-
tumes, symbols, and ceremonies affected by the order. The auditorium,
built in 1925-26 at a cost of $2,690,000, seats more than 6,400. Its
stage is unusually large. Adjoining the auditorium on the north is the
pavilion-ballroom, with floor space for 7,500 dancers, or 5,200 diners;
a mezzanine balcony has space for 3,200 more.
R. frojn Jefferson Blvd. on Figueroa St.
112. Standing well back from the street in a copse is the FIGUEROA
ADOBE (adm. on application}, 3404 S. Figueroa St., built in 1847 by
Ramon Figueroa, brother of the Mexican governor (1830) of Califor-
nia whose name was given by the American conquerors to the street on
which the house stands. The gabled roof, dormers, and other addi-
tions, some of which have been built in later years, are departures from
the typical adobe simplicity.
I9O LOS ANGELES
R. from Figueroa St. on 34th St.; L. from 34th on University Ave_.
113. The UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, Uni-
versity Ave. between 34th St. and Exposition Blvd., is a nonsectarian,
co-educational institution spreading over a 45-acre campus. Founded
in 1879 by the Southern California Conference of the Methodist Epis-
copal Church, the university remains under its general control. With a
faculty of more than 700, a winter-session student enrollment of 9,000,
and with 24 schools and colleges housed in 18 buildings, 10 of which
have been erected since 1921, it is the largest and oldest university of
continuous existence in southern California.
Named in honor of the university's fourth president, the GEORGE
FINLEY BOVARD ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, University Ave. at 36th
St. is a red-brick, red-tile-roofed structure with early Italian Renais-
sance details. The massive central tower, strengthened by eight brick
buttresses, bears heroic statues by Caspar Gruenfeld of great educators,
statesmen, and philosophers.
At the left front corner, mounted on a lO-foot pedestal, is an eight-
foot statue of an armed Trojan warrior, the symbol adopted by the
university in 1924; it was designed by Roger Noble Burnham.
Opposite the Administration Building is ALUMNI MEMORIAL
PARK, an open lawn planted with sycamores and traversed by walks.
Beyond it is the EDWARD L. DOHENY, JR. MEMORIAL LIBRARY, a
large, double-winged four-story building of a modified Italian Roman-
esque style with walls of light-red brick, trimmed with limestone. It
was built in 1932 at a cost of $1,105,000 by Edward L. Doheny.
The ALLAN HANCOCK FOUNDATION BUILDING, SE. corner Uni-
versity Ave. and 36th St., is a four-story structure containing more
than 100 laboratories furnished with the latest equipment for natural
sciences, research, two auditoriums, special stages for scientific demon-
strations and equipment for the projection of colored motion pictures,
and four drawing rooms for musicales, receptions, and exhibits.
The STUDENT UNION BUILDING, SW. corner University Ave. and
36th St., an ornate three and a half story red-brick and terra cotta
structure designed in the manner of an Italian Renaissance palazzo, is
the social and recreational headquarters for students and faculty.
SCIENCE HALL, SW. corner University Ave. and 36th PL, houses
the College of Pharmacy and the departments of natural and chemical
sciences. The LAW BUILDING, SE. corner 36th PL and University
Ave., has a two-story-high lobby that serves as a student common
room. The library has 47,673 volumes, 3,000 pamphlets, and many
current periodicals. Adjoining the Law Building is BRIDGE HALL,
in which are the departments of geology, engineering, political science,
comparative literature, and languages.
The COLONEL SEELEY WINTERSMITH MUDD MEMORIAL HALL
OF PHILOSOPHY (R), University Ave. and 37th St., with a square
slender clock tower, was designed in Lombardic Romanesque tradition.
It contains the Mudd Collection of I3th, I4th, and I5th century manu-
THE SOUTHWEST SECTION IQI
scripts, and the incunabula of ancient philosophers. It has adminis-
tration offices, classrooms, incunabula room, and collateral and main
library halls.
L. from University Ave. on Exposition Blvd.
EXPOSITION PARK (grounds always open; free), bounded by
Exposition Blvd., Figueroa St., S. Park Dr., and Menlo Ave., is a large
public park operated jointly by the state, county, and city. The park
lands were once part of a tract used by the Southern District Agricul-
tural Society as a fair grounds and race course. Their venture ended
in failure in 1892 and the tract lay unused until the present park
was opened with public funds in 1910.
114. The MEMORIAL GATEWAY, at the central entrance to
Exposition Park from Exposition Boulevard, is flanked by two large
concrete monoliths commemorating the Tenth International Olympiad
whose opening and closing ceremonies were held in the park's coliseum
in 1932.
115. The SUNKEN ROSE GARDEN, beyond the gateway, is a
seven-acre plot planted with 15,000 rose bushes of 118 varieties. The
blooming season begins in March or April and lasts nine months. Four
white stone pergolas and four large sculptures are in a balanced arrange-
ment near the corners of the rectangular plot. A fountain with a lily
pool is in the center.
116. The STATE ARMORY (open Mon. eve.; free), east of the
Sunken Rose Garden, a two-story red-brick building, is the headquarters
and training barracks of the i6oth Infantry and other detachments of
the National Guard.
117. South of the Sunken Rose Garden is the STATE EXPOSI-
TION BUILDING (open 10-4 weekdays except Wed. afternoon,
Sun. and holidays 2-5), an E-shaped two-story structure with walls of
dark-red tapestry brick ornamented with terra cotta, designed by Na-
than Elery. It contains a permanent exhibition showing state re-
sources, industries, and recreational features. A wide hallway lined
with exhibit cases leads from the main entrance to the two-story main
hall, which receives light from the ceiling through four stained-glass
panels showing historical California structures; in the hall is an enor-
mous relief map of the state. In the west wing, decorated with murals
of California fruits and flowers, are the horticultural exhibits, and
models of vineyards and orchards. In the southwest wing is the Hall
of Animal Industries, with model ranches and natural habitat groups
of fish and game found in each county. In the East Hall is the mining
division, with models of oil fields, coal and gold mines, and lumber
camps; on the wall is a large map showing the Bret Harte trail, the
counties mentioned in his stories, and the places incident to Mark
Twain's life in the gold country. In the basement are exhibits of state
park facilities and a model section of a redwood forest with living trees.
1 1 8. The LOS ANGELES COUNTY MUSEUM OF HISTORY,
SCIENCE, AND ART (open weekdays 10-4, Sun. and holidays 2-5),
IQ2 LOS ANGELES
originally housed in the tridomed red-brick structure west of the Sunken
Rose Gardens, now occupies the concrete addition adjoining the old
building in the rear.
In Anthropology Hall is a very large and well-preserved collection
of mammal remains, dug from La Brea Pits in Hancock Park (see the
Wilshire and West section). Grouped about the skeleton of a great-
tusked Imperial Elephant, four times the height of a man, are skeletons
of the sabre-toothed cat, short-faced bear, dire wolf, giant ground
sloth, western horse and camel, and of extinct species of ox and lion.
In the collection of bird fossils is that of a giant vulture, the largest
bird that ever flew, and a true peacock (Pavo calif ornicus) , found only
in La Brea deposits.
In the Natural History Wing, groups of stuffed animals stand in
softly lighted cases against backgrounds reproducing the flora, topog-
raphy, and sky-tints of their native regions. The bison group, and the
water hole group with zebras, giraffes, and many kinds of antelope, are