Ace Hotel Downtown Los Angeles, originally built as the United Artists Building and later known as the Texaco Building, is a 243ft, 13-story highrise hotel and theater building located at 937 South Broadway in downtown Los Angeles, California. It was the tallest building in the city for one year after its completion in 1927, and was the tallest privately owned structure in Los Angeles until 1956. Its style is Spanish Gothic, patterned after Segovia Cathedral in Segovia, Spain.The building contains the historic United Artists Theater, the flagship theater built for the United Artists motion picture studio. The theater was later used as a church by pastors Gene Scott and his widow Melissa Scott under the name "Los Angeles University Cathedral". In October 2011, Scott's Wescott Christian Center Inc. sold the building to Greenfield Partners, a real estate investment company located in Westport, Connecticut, for $11 million. It was converted to a hotel, and opened in 2014.United Artists TheaterThe United Artists Theater was designed by the architect C. Howard Crane of the firm Walker & Eisen for the United Artists film studio formed by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. The theater, a classic movie palace, was one of many constructed by United Artists and served as a major premier house. The theater occupies three floors of the 13-story building and has a 1,600-seat auditorium. Like many movie theaters, the seat rows sink in toward the front of the orchestra section, so ticket holders there must look up at the stage.
We're sitting right on top of one of the most remarkable gems in the city — a delicately restored, 1,600-seat movie palace from the 1920s with a three-story, 2,300 square foot grand lobby, an ornate open balcony and mezzanine and a vaulted ceiling with thousands of tiny mirrors that glimmer when lit. The Theatre at Ace Hotel is the literal foundation of Ace Hotel Downtown Los Angeles. Our loving reanimation of the former flagship movie house of United Artists, The Theatre serves Los Angeles' burgeoning epicenter for art and modern entertainment with a prime setting for a wide array of events — from large-scale concerts to movie premieres, conferences, seminars, symposiums and other performances. Retrofitted with a state-of-the-art digital projection system and cinema sound, an independent, ultramodern live sound system, plus an elaborate contemporary stage lighting system, the Theatre can take on whatever fits within the confines of its dazzling proscenium — a much-need bridge to the exciting future of Downtown Los Angeles.
You could describe it as “haunting, mysterious, over the top, rococo, distressed, gothic, renaissance deco, cool, other worldly, kitsch, beguiling….” and you still would not quite capture the essence of downtown LA’s own unique and enigmatic Tower Theatre, situated at 800 South Broadway (at 8th Street) in historic downtown Los Angeles. Once dubbed, “The World’s Most Beautiful Theatre,” the Tower was designed by prodigious 28-year-old architect Simeon “S.” Charles Lee, and built by H.L. Gumbiner on a plot of land measuring only 150 feet long and 50 feet wide. It opened to much fanfare on October 12th, 1927 as the first movie theatre in Los Angeles built specifically for ‘talkies” with the premier of “The Gingham Girl,” featuring George Arthur and Lois Wilson, and was fully equipped with both a mighty Style 216 Wurlitzer 2/10 theatre organ, a musical contraption with ten ranks of pipes in two chambers, and a Vitaphone™ (a name derived from both Latin and Greek, respectively, for 'living' and 'sound') the then state of the art, analog sound on disc system that synced the sound of a spinning phonograph recording with a separate projected moving picture. The Tower was also the first theatre in Los Angeles to have refrigerated air conditioning, and patrons were invited to gleefully look through a window built into the balcony stairs to marvel at the mechanics of its inner workings. In modern times, the Tower has hosted artists such as Glass Candy, Doe Eye, Chromatics, Chvrches, Jessie Ware (upcoming) and events by Filter, The Edwardian Ball, Vox Media, and Live Nation. The Tower Theatre is a designated a Historic-Cultural Landmark, and is included in the National Register of Historic Places. For Tower Theatre event inquiries, please contact: Paul Assimacopoulos Programming/Events Director Broadway Theatre Group: Palace, Los Angeles, Tower Theatres ph: 213-488-2009 email: [email protected] Theatre Manager and Location Filming: Edward Baney office: 213-629-2939 Architectural Highlights: Full specs, seating chart, pricing available upon request. Capacity: 800 Stage: 23’5” from center of front edge to back wall. 18’ wide at back wall, widening to 30’ at front stage edge. 20’ height of concrete ceiling over stage. Power: 300amps/3 phase 200 amps for lights 100 amps for sound Interior Highlights: Edwards Spout’s interior auditorium design evokes the French Renaissance, while the almost religiously gorgeous lobby evokes both a Gothic cathedral and The Paris Opera House, with it’s hung, pearl strewn chandelier and arching stained glass window, which depicts a fleur-de-lis pattern draped with a coil of film strip, with the identical purple stripe found on early sound film stock. A spacious waiting room, which doubled as a ballroom, lay beneath the main floor. Exterior Highlights: Above the Tower’s shop windows on 8th street, on each of the window ledges, sits an Indian head-dress sculpture, and, atop each window, recline two nude figures—a discreetly draped masculine director wielding a camera and speaking into a megaphone; and a scantily clad starlet wearing beads and gazing into a mirror. False, decorative windows and Classical period detailing punctuate the highly decorated exterior sidewalls. To view a more extensive history of the Tower Theatre, please see the excellent web archives by Bill Counter: https://sites.google.com/site/downtownlosangelestheatres/tower also on FB: https://www.facebook.com/losangelestheatres And these other great historical resources: Los Angeles Historical Theatre Foundation http://www.lahtf.org LA Conservancy https://www.laconservancy.org Cinema Treasures http://cinematreasures.org
The landmark Fine Arts Building is located at 811 West 7th Street in Downtown Los Angeles, California. Also known as the Global Marine House, it was declared a historic cultural monument in 1974.ArchitectureThe building was designed by the architects Albert Raymond Walker (1881–1958) and Percy Augustus Eisen (1885–1946) 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.FaçadeThe first three storeys 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, central 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 entirely 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.
Clifton's Cafeteria, once part of a chain of eight Clifton's restaurants, is the oldest surviving cafeteria style eatery in Los Angeles. and the largest public cafeteria in the world. Founded in 1931 by Clifford Clinton, the name was created by combining "Clifford" and "Clinton" to produce "Clifton's". The design of the restaurants included exotic decor and facades that were "kitschy and theatrical".The second Clifton's facility opened in 1935 at 648 S Broadway. In 1939 its name was changed to 'Clifton's Brookdale', and as the sole survivor of the multiple branches over 79 years, it is now known as 'Clifton's Cafeteria' or simply as "Clifton's". It has remained in operation for 74 years. The restaurant chain was noted for each facility having its own theme, and for aiding those who could not afford to pay. This approach to business reflected the owner's Christian ethos—he never turned anyone away hungry and maintained a precedent set by the first restaurant on Olive Street, known as "Clifton's Golden Rule". In 1946, Clifford and his wife Nelda sold their cafeteria interests to their three younger Clinton children, and retired to devote their attentions to a Meals for Millions, a non-profit charitable organization he founded in the wake of World War II to distribute food to millions of starving and malnourished people throughout the world.Clifton's Brookdale was sold to nightclub operator Andrew Meieran on September 21, 2010. Meieran intended renovations to preserve its unique atmosphere, as well the restaurant's 1950-style recipes. In February 2012 Meieran said the remodeling was expected to continue for another 18 months. Clifton's Brookdale reopened October 1, 2015.
Weepah Way is a carefully curated vintage clothing selection mixed with reconstructed vintage pieces tailored to fit modern tastes. -WE SHIP WORLDWIDE-