The lady vanishes

In the short 2 weeks of my absence from Hollywood, the former KFWB radio building at 6226-6230 Yucca Street was demolished, leaving a dirt lot and an improved view from the northeast of the Capitol Records building.

Gone without a trace.

The building, although it had a few perfunctory Art Déco touches, especially in the tower (its best only feature), was an unlovable bunker in its most recent incarnation. I was in the former KFWB studios on several occasions on business and it was as unglamorous within as without. I'm afraid it will be very little missed.

Unlovable and unmissed.

A former grocery store (one assumes it had windows at that time, a feature which would have vastly improved its appearance), the 1934 building was later home to Sound Recorders Studio, scene of the controversial remastering of The Beatles' White Album at the insistence of George Harrison, as reported here by Beatles maven Bruce Spizer.

The White Album, remastered at this location.

Surely its connection with the Fab Four would have qualified this stucco-sheathed masterpiece for historic preservation status, no? Where oh where was the L.A. Conservancy in our hour of need? Alas, too late.





Followers of the ongoing reality soap opera called Hollywood Development will remember this parcel as the site of Second Street Ventures' proposed (and not unattractive) "6230" project, which, after some legal tussles with Capitol Records owner EMI, fell into the black hole of the Great Recession, along with several other ambitious projects in the immediate neighborhood.

The "6230" mixed use project as proposed in 2007.

The prognosis for a turnaround of the economy is, I'm afraid, not optimistic. But a dirt lot is a start.