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The end of the Ambassador
As the Ambassador Hotel has been ignominiously knocked down, we've been following its last days on Ambassador's Last Stand. Well, it's over, kids. Yesterday, as we were overtaken by Golden Globe Fever, ALS announced that the rest of the hotel was gone. Only the Cocoanut Grove remains: the LAUSD has plans for it — it's going to be an atrium or a library. (We can't find the current plan online, but we admit, our hearts aren't in it.)
That photo, taken this afternoon, was of the machines hauling away the debris. See the teeny little men in hard hats on the right? That's still one big pile of destroyed hotel.
We wish that the people who think they know what's right for the city, who clamored to pull the hotel down, had some respect for its history. For the quality of the buidling materials, for the originality of the architecture — the bungalows were designed by Angeleno Paul R. Williams, the first African-American admitted to the American Institute of Architects. We wish that the LA Conservancy had won its exhausting, expensive battle to save the hotel.
But now all we can do is mourn. Goodbye, Ambassador.
UPDATE: We can attend the wake! At the HMS Bounty on Tue Jan 24.
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