Here is a puzzle, perhaps you can solve it. (Apologies if this building has already been discussed - I could not find it using the search function or Google.)
Yesterday I did some work in the central library and then took a bus to Little Tokyo for dinner. As I was waiting for the #30 at Broadway and 6th, I noticed a gem of a building on the west side of the street. Although the street level was hidden by scaffolding, the upper floors were gleaming with art deco accents.
I took a picture:
When I got home, I googled the address and found a better view:
http://www.loopnet.com/Listing/17671...os-Angeles-CA/
The county assessor's map site indicates that 537-539-541 South Broadway was built in 1931. So I found the 1906 Sanborn map:
LAPL
This showed a 3 story hotel above street level shops, with a 5 story building next door at 535, which dated from 1903 according to the assessor.
On February 22, 1931 we learn from the LA Times the following:
The F&W Grand-Silver company was a lesser competitor of Woolworth's Five & Dime. It is surprising that they would build a big store in the midst of the Depression. It didn't last too long, because on September 8, 1934 the Times tells us there is to be a new tenant:
The Times did not mention that the National Dollar Store company, which had stores from Salt Lake City to Honolulu, was founded by Joe Shoong, a Chinese-American businessman from the Bay Area. Mr. Shoong, proud of his ethnicity, hired college-educated Chinese-Americans to manage each of his stores, as you can learn here:
• Video Link.
The 537 building became a Richman Brothers clothes outlet in 1950, and later was a Hartfield's department store (corporate parent of Zody's).
So where is the mystery?
The ghost sign here:
...is on the north side of the 537 building. But this building had a 5 story neighbor at 535 since the former's construction in 1931, which must have hidden any sign. Obviously 535 was leveled off some time later. How much later? Well it had to have been after 1950, because on the Sanborn map of that year, we see 535 is still 5 stories high:
LAPL
Looking at street directories, we find 535 was a Gallenkamp's Shoe Store until 1965:
LA Times
The directory notes Gallenkamp's occupied "four floors" of this building. But by 1967, no more Gallenkamp's. Evidently they decamped, as it were, for greener suburban pastures far from downtown. In that year, 535 is occupied only by something called "Broadway Sundries" - I wonder if this is indirect evidence 535 was lowered around then.
So my guess is that, for it to have been visible, the ghost sign has to date from
after 1965-ish. BUT, the font used in the lettering looks much older. Does it say "[m]antels and [gr]ates"? And who is this J.W.? The only J.W. that comes to mind is J.W. Robinson which was at 7th and Grand, not 5th and Broadway.
Any thoughts?
