Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Missing Building Alert!

Is the superb old black and gold art deco/moderne bank building (that closely resembled the old Richfield Building downtown) on Western still there? It was/is at Beverly or Third on the NW corner of Western. I had not heard that it was torn down, but the below LAOBSERVED post makes it sound as it if is no longer with us...

CityBeat and its parent company, Southland Publishing, are moving on up. Southland closed escrow on the gorgeous former Security-First National Bank of Los Angeles branch at 5209 Wilshire Boulevard, just east of the landmark Wilson tower at La Brea. The art deco bank recently joined the elite group of local buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Built in 1929, it was designed by the architecture firm of Morgan, Walls and Clements, which did the Wiltern Theatre tower, the El Capitan and a hundred or so other notable Los Angeles buildings. The old bank vault is still inside 5209 Wilshire, which is the last surviving example of Stiles O. Clements' black-and-gold terra cotta design that delighted downtown architecture buffs on the long-gone Atlantic Richfield building....

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