Quote:
Originally Posted by ethereal_reality
Welcome to noirish Los Angeles sportbiker! When you lived at 5th and Spring did you by chance take any photographs? (fingers crossed)
I'm curious to know if the once opulent lobby has retained any of it's earlier grandeur.
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The interior is all but unrecognizable, the only exceptions being the original elevator cabs (very cool! they even have the original brass "Otis" medallion in the center of the floor) and portions of the stairwells. The banking lobby was divided in half height-wise, creating a new floor. The ground floor has been divided into a restaurant (now closed) and the Onxy lounge; the new second-floor is apartments and building amenities including the fitness center and a couple of resident lounges. The building/apartment lobby on the first floor has all new wall surfaces and the marble columns have been entombed within wallboard box columns. The basement is 100% original, but there's no resident access.
From the third-floor up, the hallways retain most of their original marble flooring and marble wall veneers up to about the 6' level, but false ceilings drop the apparent height (I suspect the utilities and apartment infrastructure run within that space); the stairwells retain some marble as well as the original ornate brass railings, but the railings have all been painted a color I call "state hospital green."
The windows were the best part: original, oversized, hugely drafty, but wonderful for air and light.
Short answer: There wasn't enough left to be worth taking pics.
Funny you should show two postcards: I own originals of those, and three others:
And the untouched basement (I tried to get in there but the building mgmt wouldn't let me):
Lastly, I talked about the wonderful windows. I took this snap when I was moving in. The place was still a mess, but you can see how much light streamed in. One of the best parts of the whole experience: