Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyingwedge
Here's the area on the 1921 Baist Map:
Historic Mapworks -- http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/19409/Plate+003/
1931:
LAPL -- http://www.lapl.org/sites/default/fi...ps/map0002.jpg
As previously mentioned, it's easy to see how the garage mirrors the shape of the old Times Building, except for the long angle below the odd NE corner:
Los Angeles Times, October 16, 1938
The death knell of the 1912 Times Building is described here:
Los Angeles Times, August 18, 1937
BTW, looking at old Sanborn maps, it appears that 1st Street was widened from 68 to 110 feet, so perhaps some portion of the south wall of the 1912 Times Building basement still exists under the widened roadway. Broadway is 80 feet wide before 1910 and after 1950.
Contemporary news articles describe demolishing the old Times Building substructure and designing and constructing the new State Building garage; it doesn't sound like much of the old Times Building basements were used, other than the hole in the ground they made. But if the 1938 garage plan is to be believed, it would seem that at the very least the northeast corner 1912 Times Building basement walls were incorporated into the State Building garage structure; why tear out the walls in the NE corner and then rebuild them in that odd shape?:
Los Angeles Times, November 9, 1939
Los Angeles Times, June 19, 1939
If it was such a job to rip out the old Times Building basement at 1st and Broadway, why wasn't the State Building garage built at 1st and Spring instead? |
Answer: because they didn't really rip out the old basement. I have noticed in these type of articles, from roughly the 1930s-1950s especially, they tend to gloss over the old in favor of the new. They're very big on telling how much money is spent, how many hours worked, how wonderful the brand new thing is, and anything that might previously have been there is usually described as dilapidated, worn out, an eyesore, etc. Never fix when you can demolish and build something new and modern! They use "old" as a pejorative. It simply would not do to advertise that you're using something old in your shiny new construction. There is a clue in the article, however:
Quote:
|
The roof area, reconstructed with reinforced concrete and steel beams, ...
|
You don't
re-construct a roof on a brand new structure.
There isn't a whole lot to a garage anyway - floor, walls, roof and supporting pillars at its most basic. They could have left the outer walls and that's half the construction. Maybe they left the floor/ceiling between the two levels, and maybe not. Would the sub-basement ceiling be able to bear the load of parked cars at the basement level? It was apparently already made to bear the load of heavy newspaper press equipment. But at the least, the article indicates that the whole thing got a new roof. They may or may not have redone the entire inside as well.