[austlar1]

Originally Posted by Martin Pal

Thanks for that info GW (and Godzilla).

If I have time to go by there sometime soon, I want to read what that "plaque" info says, for want of a better word.

I don't know if it was originally conceived that way, but the upper floor of the building contained several apartments until some point. In fact, there was a woman who was allowed to stay in her apartment well into her 90's as a sort of building caretaker/manager. I talked to her once, she had worked as a masseuse at the Beverly Hills Hotel and once told me how mean she thought Joan Crawford was. She remembered the rail yard across the street and said that a lot of the red car operators lived around there.

Most of the other apartments were converted to offices, one was a hair salon, but they retained their apartment look.

I know that at one time the Larrabee Street side of the building toward the north side was a post office. (I'm assuming it was until 1969 when they built the current West Hollywood Post office just north of this building, with it's address on San Vicente.) From 1983 that original post office space has been a video store (Video West) and still is open. Thirty years!

I also know that the building may not have survived the 1994 earthquake except for the mandated earthquake retrofitting that had been done a year before that. The building next to this one had some major structural damage after the quake and was closed for several months, but it was repaired. Then there was a fire there in 2007 that closed it for about a year, though the buildings on either side were saved from that. All this and they're still there!

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P.S.: I had to laugh at the bottom of that newspaper clipping about building permits setting a new record. Appears that's a tradition started from the earliest beginnings of the city that has not abated. In fact, didn't an earlier post I wrote quote that the city name itself (West Hollywood) had been promoted by a real estate group? In addition to the milennium project that was eventually approved, and renamed, I've recently read about grandiose plans to build monstrosities at Santa Monica Blvd. and San Vicente and a giant building where the Garden of Allah used to be. (Not that I mind the disappearance of an ugly strip mall, but this bigger is better notion in Hollywood and West Hollywood will probably only stop when one of these things falls down in an earthquake or something.

Around 1973 I lived on Larrabee just up the street from this building. I seem to remember that there was a drug store located on the corner. The drug store closed in the mid 70's and was replaced by a gay bar. I guess that would be Revolver. There were some small offices upstairs converted from apartments. One guy operated a hair removal salon upstairs. He had personalized license plates that read "Wax and Rip"! Ouch!!