Eastern Columbia Building
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The Eastern Columbia Building is a thirteen-story building located at 849 S. Broadway in the Broadway Theater District of downtown Los Angeles, and is considered by many to be the most beautiful of Los Angeles' historic buildings (one architecture critic called it "Architectural Visine in a district full of eyesores")[citation needed], as well as its finest surviving example of Art Deco following the 1969 destruction of Richfield Tower. It is easily spotted from the Interstate 10 due to its bright turquoise color.
The building sits just across the street from the restored Orpheum Theater.
Developer Kor Group turned the property into condominiums that opened in fall 2006.
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[edit] History
The Eastern Columbia Building was designed by Claud Beelman and opened on September 12, 1930, after just nine short months of construction. It was built as the new headquarters of the Eastern Outfitting Company and the Columbia Outfitting Company, furniture and clothing stores. With the construction of this lavish structure, the companies could also boast one of the largest buildings constructed in downtown until after World War II.
[edit] Building Features
It is built of steel reinforced concrete and clad in glossy turquoise terra cotta trimmed with deep blue and gold terra cotta. The building's vertical emphasis is accentuated by deeply recessed bands of paired windows and spandrels with copper panels separated by vertical columns. The façade is decorated with a wealth of motifs -sunburst patterns, geometric shapes, zigzags, chevrons and stylized animal and plant forms. The building is capped with a four-sided clock tower emblazoned with the name Eastern in neon and crowned with a central smokestack surrounded by four stylized flying buttresses. The sidewalks surrounding the Broadway and Ninth Street sides of the building are of multi-colored terrazzo laid in dynamic pattern of zigzags and chevrons. The central main entrance has a spectacular recessed two-story vestibule adorned with a blue and gold terra cotta sunburst. The vestibule originally led to a pedestrian retail arcade running through the center of the building.
[edit] In Feature Films
- Was the setting for the 1991 action movie The Last Hour
- The final battle in the 2007 film Transformers takes place outside this building.
[edit] In Other Popular Media
- The building was featured prominently on the September 29, 1946 radio broadcast of "The Jack Benny Show." During the show, various cast members were asked were they had gotten specific items. Each answer was: "Eastern Columbia, Broadway at Ninth."
