I have been lurking for about a month...not in a weird way...I think. I am laid up with a back injury and unable to work so I have been surfing the web looking for images from the 1920s to do my own "then and now" comparisons. I stumbled upon this site and this thread in particular.
I'm not from LA or even California. I have visited LA when my mother lived there and have always been fascinated with it's history.
This thread is fantastic and I've probably gone through every page...more than once.
I was intrigued by a post by GaylordWilshire from well over a year ago...
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=2937
...so I did a little investigating. I found the wall at the top of the "mysterious stairs" is at the corner of Hope Plaza and Hope ST.
It's just my opinion, but it looks like it was at one time a modern open stairway and they decided to block it off because too many people thought it was an entrance to the parking garage.
I hope y'all don't mind me jumping in and you can tell me to get lost if I become too much of a bother.