Government & Politics

#272: Hotel Hoover (Whittier)

#272: Hotel Hoover (Whittier)

November 19, 2025

For 95 years now, the old Hotel Hoover has housed travelers, permanent residents and low-income elderly folks. The building itself is a fine (if loose) interpretation of Spanish colonial architecture. Also worthy of your attention is the story of the Oak Room, the steakhouse downstairs that gave Whittier its first cocktail lounge, helping to lubricate this formerly dry town.

#261: National Bank of Whittier Building (Whittier)

#261: National Bank of Whittier Building (Whittier)

July 3, 2025

The National Bank of Whittier building (aka the Bank of America Building) is a handsome beaux arts office tower by the great father-son duo John & Donald Parkinson. It housed four important Whittier financial institutions, plus the first law office of future POTUS Richard Nixon!

#207-208: Historic Downtown LA Fire Stations

#207-208: Historic Downtown LA Fire Stations

May 4, 2024

Government & Politics

Fire Station No. 23 & 28 are two historic downtown LA firehouses built around the same time that have ended up in very different places.

#201: Beverly Hills Post Office (Beverly Hills)

#201: Beverly Hills Post Office (Beverly Hills)

April 7, 2024

For a Depression-era federal building, the Beverly Hills Post Office is an unusually opulent one, clad in Italianate masonry and terracotta with a lobby awash in marble. After serving Beverly Hillers for over 60 years it was transformed into the beloved Wallis Center for the Performing Arts in 2013.

#193: Azusa Civic Center (Azusa)

#193: Azusa Civic Center (Azusa)

March 18, 2024

Government & Politics

The Azusa Civic Center is a trio of Spanish colonial buildings, built in 1928 with an update in 1975. As it’s grown and evolved, the Civic Center has stayed at the center of the city’s civic life, but also helped Azusa remember its past.

#184: Fireboat Ralph J. Scott (San Pedro)

#184: Fireboat Ralph J. Scott (San Pedro)

December 14, 2023

Government & Politics

The fireboat Ralph J. Scott served the Port of LA from 1925-2003, making it the longest-serving apparatus in LA Fire Department history.

#179: US Post Office – San Pedro

#179: US Post Office – San Pedro

November 6, 2023

Built in 1936, the San Pedro Post Office merges New Deal-era "starved classical" style with art deco quirks. While the architecture and Fletcher Martin mural are the draw here, the original glass-top writing desks are plenty charming, too. PLUS: a surprise postal museum downstairs!

#165: US Post Office – Hollywood Station (Hollywood)

#165: US Post Office – Hollywood Station (Hollywood)

July 30, 2023

Hollywood Station was the modern post office that Tinseltown always deserved. Built in 1937 and designed by starchitects Claud Beelman, Allison & Allison, it's an archetypal example of the "starved classical" style that typified 1930s New Deal building design.

#161: Wilshire Federal Building (Westwood)

#161: Wilshire Federal Building (Westwood)

July 4, 2023

The 1969 Wilshire Federal Building is a 17-story, late modernist office tower that houses some of the unsexiest branches of the American government. Compositionally, it's a pretty spectacular work by Charles Luckman Associates. It's also been the site of numerous major protests staged here over its 50+ year history.

#119: Chicano Moratorium March, 12/20/1969 (Boyle Heights)

#119: Chicano Moratorium March, 12/20/1969 (Boyle Heights)

October 2, 2022

Government & Politics

On December 20, 1969, some 2000 anti-war protesters took part in the first Chicano Moratorium March, starting at Los Cinco Puntos in Boyle Heights and ending at a rally in Eugene A. Obregon Park. It was a watershed moment in Chicano activism, both in Los Angeles and nationwide.

#116: Fire Station No. 14 (South LA)

#116: Fire Station No. 14 (South LA)

September 12, 2022

Government & Politics

As the home of the LA Fire Department's second all-Black engine company, Fire Station No. 14 was a symbol of both pride and pain for LA's Black community before LAFD was integrated in 1956. The current station was built in 1949, a time of great change as LA reckoned with its segregated past.

#110: Ralph Bunche House (South LA)

#110: Ralph Bunche House (South LA)

August 6, 2022

Government & Politics

This small South LA bungalow was the boyhood home of Ralph Bunche, a revered diplomat who became the first Black man to win the Nobel Peace Prize who negotiated an end to the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

#102: Glendale Main Post Office

#102: Glendale Main Post Office

June 15, 2022

This stately post office has served the city of Glendale since 1934, and survived multiple waves of USPS consolidations. Yes, its Italian Renaissance revival style was old hat by the time it was built – but what a lovely example it is!

#96: Old Fire Station No. 27 (Hollywood)

#96: Old Fire Station No. 27 (Hollywood)

May 4, 2022

Once the largest fire station west of the Mississippi, Old Fire Station No. 27 protected the residents and film studios of Hollywood for six decades. It now preserves LAFD history as a firefighters museum.

#42: Burbank City Hall

#42: Burbank City Hall

November 19, 2021

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 18, 1996 “I can’t wait to visit the seat of Burbank’s municipal government!” is something nobody has said, ever. City[…]