LAist: LAistory: The Ugliest Building in Los Angeles

Scaramouche

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 16:28:30 -0800

Actually, Hollywood used to be beautiful. In the 1950s, it started going downhill, and by the 1970s it had become the total craphole of filth and vice seemingly beloved by so many. The same can be said of the downtown L.A. Broadway district. The streets were clean, the buildings were well maintained, the sidewalks weren't covered with old chewing gum, and the people were nicely dressed shoppers, diners, employees, and residents. That was before third-world crime, squalor, and blight set in and enveloped the whole place. Damn to Hell anybody who wants to restore these areas to their original glory, rather than preserving the depressing later years.

saltmine

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 23:13:19 -0800

"Hollywood used to be a dirty town. Like Times Square in New York it had its share of crazy homeless people, thieving junkies, punks and hookers." Used to be? Pretty sure all it takes is a jaunt about 3 blocks east of H&H and you can find what you're missing until you get to Los Feliz.

fredcamino

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 11:19:30 -0800

Thanks for revealing this massive "secret" hidden inside Hollywood and Highland with this very actually at all informative and superbly written history lesson. Great point about Hollywood's fall from grace as place infested with "crazy homeless people, thieving junkies, punks and hookers" to its current Disneyfied mediocrity. I hate gentrification. Who wants to pick up a hooker in front of a Sephora. BUSH!!!

paul

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 09:03:10 -0800

While the final product Hollywood and Highland is pretty terrible, it is better than what was going on there the years before it. I don't mean it was "unsafe" as much as it was "shitty" and not in the picturesque "gritty" way (aside from the Mann Chinese, that one I agree with you 100% on that). And you can't you always see the Hollywood sign from that part of town, regardless of the amount of smog?

Alexcantsee

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 18:08:03 -0800

The Standard Hotel on SUNSET IS THE UGLIEST BUILDING.

CityofDodgers

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 15:52:19 -0800

I'm sorry but the ugliest building in LA is the "Death Star" aka CAA building in Century City.

Jacy Young

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 15:24:56 -0800

Part of it is how the building is dwarfed by Hollywood and Highland. But they expanded the Chinese and stacked all these cement blocks behind it.

BummyDude

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 13:57:56 -0800

How was Mann's Chinese ruined? It's always been a tourist attraction.