Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Sic transit

The Garden Court Apartments, at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard, designed by Frank Meline, opened in 1919 as Hollywood's grandest apartment building. It was home to Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Mac Sennett, and Louis B. Mayer, among others.


The building was demolished in the early 1980s (despite being on the National Register of Histioric Places, no. #82004981) and replaced with the voguishly "high tech" Galaxy Theater complex.

According to this 1982 Time magazine story, there was a valiant attempt to save the building from the wrecker's ball, but as the developer interested in demolishing the building put it: "She was a grand lady, but now she's gone. Someone has to pull the plug."

Here's a graphic look at the building's heydey, degeneration, and humiliation:

1924: Home to stars and czars.

1976: Motor Hotel.

1981: Abandoned haven of junkies and squatters.

The replacement: Hollywood Galaxy complex.

7021 Hollywood Boulevard today.

With 72 suites (with, originally, a grand piano in each one), the Garden Court could have been a plum condo building in the very heart of a revitalized Hollywood.
at 11:38 PM

4 comments:

  1. Love this post. It's always so enlightening to see these lost buildings at the end of their lives. It helps explain the arguments used for demolition at the time. There are a few scenes in "Cheech and Chong's Next Movie" that show the apartments-turned-hotel as a flophouse in 1980. Paul Reubens does a Pee-Wee like-bit in this movie as a desk clerk that shows off the lobby.

    http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4045/4277660162_43b91e3448_o.png
    http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4070/4277660096_2501bdd32c_o.png
    http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4044/4276913469_f50921545f_o.png

    Hollywood Heritage salvaged an enormous female decorative figure from the facade of this building and it's on display at their museum opposite the Hollywood Bowl.

    http://www.hollywoodheritage.org/
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  2. My first home when I moved to Hollywood (all the way from Brentwood, LOL) as a teenager in 1978 was an apartment at the Garden Court. $200 a month bought me a four room studio (Main Room, Dressing Room, Bath and Kitchen, all with 10 foot cielings) on the 4th floor front, right under the "SALE/LEASE" sign in the 3rd photo.

    I remember watching the Santa Claus Lane Parade from the window one night. By then, as you say, the building had clearly faded and wasn't long for this world. But for a moment in time, I felt like I was living in the guest room of a mansion straight out of the Great Gatsby...even though I worked every day selling china at the Broadway Hollywood that first year...and danced every night at the Paradise Ballroom on Highland or the Odyssey on Beverly!

    Thanks for the expetional scholarship and great trip down Memory Lane! Many people I tell about this place don't believe it ever really existed!
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  3. A good post about a fine apartment building, which housed some of the top movie people. How ironic that on today’s Hollywood Boulevard a restored Garden court would bring in over a $1,000,000 a month in rents!

    CB.
    Liverpool
    England.
    ReplyDelete
  4. I think it's important to note that the preservation of the Garden Court Apartments went all the way to the Supreme Court to no avail. The destruction of this magnificent Beaux Arts structure galvanized the preservation community in Hollywood to submit a preservation plan to the National Trust for all major buildings from La Brea on the West to Argyle Street on the East as a National Register Historic District, which WAS accepted and designated. The problem is getting owners, developers and city departments to adhere to the Secretary of the Interiors guidelines for historic structures. The designation was accomplished by Hollywood Heritage, Inc., the same preservation organization that saved the hat-shaped Brown Derby, the Lasky DeMille barn, the Pilgrimage Cross and the Wattles Mansion in Hollywood.
    ReplyDelete

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