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January 16, 2008
Goodnight History; Good Morning School Children
Built in 1921, famous for its celeb/political/royal visitors and the six academy award shows, the Ambassador Hotel's Coconut Grove nightclub is a Los Angeles landmark officially slated for destruction (most of it at least) on January 22nd, compliments of the Los Angeles Unified School District. The battle was long-fought, even involving Donald Trump at one point, but in the end, a $4-million settlement by LAUSD paved way for a new 4,200-student K-12 campus on the 24-acre site.
"What's left at the Ambassador site is not really historic preservation at this point, and there's a lot of other buildings we can focus on," Los Angeles Conservancy Executive Director Linda Dishman told the LA Times.
The hotel, which was also the scene of Robert Kennedy's assassination in 1968, has already been razed leaving the nightclub as the last standing building on the site. "Gee, not much left to preserve now," an e-mail from almost two years ago noted from a staffer at the Archdiocese of Los Angeles Wilshire Blvd. office who heard a loud crashing at the site that led people running to the windows to see what was happening.
Photo by Clinton Steeds via Flickr
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I was seriously bummed when they tore the hotel down. But you know how LA is with not preserving anything. Sucks really :(
Another Los Angeles landmark being torn down for a school full of little brown faces. Fabulous.
I'm sure those little brown faces, who were here first, were just as excited to see you show up and cut down their trees to build nightclubs in the first place.
Right. "Here first," were they?
Who else was here first? Oh, you mean AFTER the aliens from outer space?
For a neighborhood sorely lacking in green space, this school has the potential to mean so much to the little brown faces.
at least they're building a school and not more condos or a strip mall. it could be worse.
given all the schools in the area are year-round, and overcrowded, tearing down a landmark is probably the lesser of the evils. it wasn't being used for years, and i'm sure the kennedy family didn't need the reminder.