Bradbury Building
The five-story Bradbury Building in downtown Los Angeles, built for Mexican mining tycoon Lewis L. Bradbury, opened to much acclaim on New Year’s Day 1894. Bradbury had died a year and a half before. The unassuming Romanesque exterior of brick trimmed with Arizona sandstone belies the interior, a light-filled Victorian atrium with open cage elevators, marble stairs, and ornate iron railings. The building has operated as an office building for most of its history and is the oldest standing commercial building in central Los Angeles. It was purchased by developer and champion of downtown restoration Ira Yellin in the early 1980s, who invested $7 million in restoration, preservation and seismic retrofitting between 1989 and 1991. It is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, a National Historic Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Los Angeles, Los Angeles County
Photographers: John Bare, Lonny Ross, Andrew Schmidt