Angels Walk Figueroa - Stanchions · ANGELS WALK FIGUEROA CITY NATIONAL PLAZA PHOTOS COURTESY OF SECURITY PACIFIC COLLECTION / LOS ANGELES PUBLIC LIBRARY Bottom Photo: Aerial view
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AN
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ACITY NATIONAL PLAZA
PHOT
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of
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24.
Project Team:Deanna Molloy, Executive Director Angels Walk LADiego Nunez, Director of Operations Angels Walk LARogerio Carvalheiro, Stanchion DesignerCecilia Rasmussen, WriterPatt Morrison, WriterJohn Molloy, Planning ConsultantGraphics: Lane+Lane Design OfficeMap: Cartifact
Acknowledgements:Nick Patsaouras, Polis Builders, LTDBill Robertson, Director, Bureau of Street Services
For more information about Angels Walk or for a copy of the Map/Guidebook, please contact the MTA Public Information Office at (213) 922-6000.
Special Thanks to:Mayor Antonio R. VillaraigosaCity Council of the City of Los Angeles Eric Garcetti, PresidentCouncilmember Jan PerryCouncilmember Bernard Parks
Supported by:City of Los Angeles Bureau of Street ServicesLos Angeles Department of TransportationLos Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation AuthorityDowntown Los Angeles Neighborhood CouncilFigueroa Corridor PartnershipSouth Park Stakeholders GroupSouth Park Business Improvement District
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12TH ST
HOPE ST
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OLYMPIC BLVD
9TH ST
8TH ST
6TH ST
5TH ST
7TH ST
WILSHIRE BLVDWILSHIRE BLVD
ST PAUL AVE
FREMONT AVE
FRANCISCO ST
8TH PL
GEORGIA ST
RRYST
FIGUEROA STFLOW
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6TH ST
17TH ST
MARCO ST
15TH ST
FIGUEROA DR
LEBANON ST
HOPE PL
WASHINGTON BLVD
NORWOOD ST
PARK GROVE
BONSALLO AVE
LOVELACE AVE
GRAND AVE
FLOWER ST
CAMERON LN
LEBANON ST
PEMBROKE LN
GEORGIA ST
18TH ST
12TH DR
GILBERT LINDSAY DR
CONVENTION CENTERDR
STPAUL PL
ADAMS BLVD
23RD ST
21ST ST
BIXEL ST
ESTRELLA AVE
SCARFF ST
20TH ST
21ST ST
22ND ST
FIGUEROA ST
VENICE BLVD
PICO BLVD
27TH ST
HOPE ST
ST JAMES PL
ST JAMES PK
ST JAMES PK
CHICK HEARN WAY
CHESTER PL
8TH ST
FIGUEROA ST
HOPE ST
FLOWER ST
GRAN D AV E
OLIVE ST
JAMES M WOOD BLVD
OLYMPIC BLVD
PICO BLVD
S A N T A M O N I C A F W Y
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SOUTHPARK
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TRADE TECH
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PICO / CHICK HEARN
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ANGELS WALK FIGUEROA
SECTION 1 – METRO FIGUEROA
1 Wilshire Boulevard
2 City National Plaza
3 6th & Figueroa Streets
4 Engine Co. No. 28
5 Ernst & Young Plaza/7+Fig Retail Center
6 The Original Pantry Café
7 Variety Arts Center
8 STAPLES Center
9 Los Angeles Convention Center
10 Bob Hope Patriotic Hall
SECTION 2 – WEST ADAMS
11 Stimson House
12 Historic West Adams
13 Automobile Club of Southern California
14 Orthopaedic Hospital
15 Amat Residence
16 Mount St. Mary’s College, Doheny Campus
17 John Tracy Clinic
18 St. James Park
19 Sunshine Mission
20 Forthmann House
SECTION 3 – USC/EXPOSITION PARK
21 Felix Chevrolet
22 Shrine Auditorium & Expo Center
23 University of Southern California
24 Exposition Park Rose Garden
25 Natural History Museum
26 EPICC
27 Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
28 California African American Museum
29 California Science Center
30 USC Widney Alumni House
YOU ARE HERE
HNECT TO ANGELS WALK BUNCONNN NKER HILLNLK BNECT T LK BECT TO ANGELS WAO ANGELS WANGELS NGELS NALK BUNS WLS WANGANGNGELS NGELSNGELSGELGEL H
SECTION 2SESES CTION 2CTION 2222
Tall, Dark And ProsperousCity National Plaza’s sleek, gleam-ing, granite-sheathed, 52-story twin towers are monuments to Los Angeles’ long history and oil capital, and to the banking money that followed the black gold.
For more than three decades, the complex, which occupies a city
block, was known by its original name, Arco Plaza, and was also home to the Bank of America in Los Angeles, and the Atlantic Richfield Co. The towers’
significance on the city skyline has been impressive, but Ange-lenos have never forgotten its prede-cessor, the striking and beloved Rich-field Building, or the “Black and Gold,” now torn down.
In 1929, the year of the stock market crash, the master-piece Art Deco Richfield Building arose on this site. Its black terra cotta walls and vertical gold stripes, symbol-izing the black gold of the oil industry, soared skyward for 13 stories to a steel tower blazing the company’s name vertically R-I-C-H-F-I-E-L-D.
The building, which also featured the city’s first underground garage, became an architectural style unto itself. It was designed by Los Angeles architect Stiles O. Clements, whose unforgettable work included the Wiltern, El Capitan and Mayan theatres.
Not quite four decades later, a merger and a fire spelled doom for the landmark. Richfield Oil Corporation merged with Atlantic Refining in 1966 to become Atlantic Richfield, and the following year, on Dec. 10, 1967, an electrical fire in the tower damaged parts of the building.
In 1969, the entire square block of graceful old buildings, including Dawson’s bookstore, Douglas Oil Company, IBM and an apartment house, along with the Richfield building, were demolished to make way for the twin towers.
Opened in 1972 as the tallest buildings in Los Angeles, the towers were designed by A. C. Martin Partners, both architects and structural engineers, in the modernist International Style.
Bauhaus architect and artist Herbert Bayer’s fountain sculpture “Double Ascension” was created for the site in 1973.
Years before, during routine soil testing for an annex to the building, Richfield’s petro-leum geologist Manley Natland had seen a
curious rock. It showed the remains of life in a wetter age — shells,
coral and snails. When the bulldozers began level-
ing the block for the new Arco Plaza, he saw an entire bed of the five-to-seven-million-year-old fossil stone.
Natland had 500 tons hauled away and cut
and polished into stat-ues and tables, which sold
for as much as $40,000 each. Even better, the rock he called
Natlandite became the official rock of the City of Los Angeles.
A Club For The Exclusive Fittingly, across the street from a symbol of oil and banking wealth is an exclusive club whose members include bankers and oil men — and yet it began life above a livery stable several blocks away. The California Club, Los Angeles’ first elite private club, quickly became a bastion of cor-porate and civic power.
In 1887, a few pioneers decided they needed a place to entertain friends with good cigars and hard liquor, and to court would-be investors in the booming real estate market. The founders numbered about two dozen prominent members,
among them mil-lionaire socialist developer H. Gaylord Wilshire and banker Isaias Wolf Hellman, one of the few early Jewish members.
The California Club opened in May 1888 on the second floor of a building at 1st Street and Broadway, above the Tally-Ho Livery Stable. Founding members ponied up $100 to join and $5 a month thereafter.
But as that neighborhood declined and the club’s cof-fers filled, the club moved a few blocks away. The well-known and well-heeled streamed to join. In two years, membership rose from 143 to 236. The bar’s
revenue tripled.
In the late 1920s, the club bought its present
site on Flower Street for $1.1 million. The eight-story brick club, designed by archi-tect Robert D. Farquhar, opened in 1930.
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Arco Towers (now City National Plaza) under construction, 1970.
Richfield Building entry sculpture, 1963. The Art Deco black and gold building was built in 1929. Figures are at UC Santa Barbara campus.
Richfield Building, c. 1930.
Oil wells in the city at Figueroa and College streets, 1926.
View of Los Angeles looking southwest toward 6th and Figueroa streets, c. 1900.
California Club main lounge and exterior view.
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Corner of 1st and Broadway, 1886.
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Ad for Tally-Ho Stables and Carriage Co.
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ANGELS WALK® LA
Angels Walk FigueroaSelect StanchionsSECTION 1 – METRO FIGUEROA 1 Wilshire Boulevard
2 City National Plaza
3 6th & Figueroa Streets
4 Engine Co. No. 28
5 Ernst & Young Plaza/7+Fig Retail Center
6 The Original Pantry Café
7 Variety Arts Center
8 STAPLES Center
9 Los Angeles Convention Center
10 Bob Hope Patriotic Hall
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Project Team:Deanna Molloy, Executive Director Angels Walk LADiego Nunez, Director of Operations Angels Walk LARogerio Carvalheiro, Stanchion DesignerCecilia Rasmussen, WriterPatt Morrison, WriterJohn Molloy, Planning ConsultantGraphics: Lane+Lane Design OfficeMap: Cartifact
Acknowledgements:Nick Patsaouras, Polis Builders, LTDBill Robertson, Director, Bureau of Street Services
For more information about Angels Walk or for a copy of the Map/Guidebook, please contact the MTA Public Information Office at (213) 922-6000.
Special Thanks to:Mayor Antonio R. VillaraigosaCity Council of the City of Los Angeles Eric Garcetti, PresidentCouncilmember Jan PerryCouncilmember Bernard Parks
Supported by:City of Los Angeles Bureau of Street ServicesLos Angeles Department of TransportationLos Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation AuthorityDowntown Los Angeles Neighborhood CouncilFigueroa Corridor PartnershipSouth Park Stakeholders GroupSouth Park Business Improvement District
Command Post For Southern California’s Car CultureThe headquarters of the Automobile Club of Southern California has sometimes been
mistaken for the ornate Roman Catho-lic St. Vincent de Paul church. The two, along with the imposing Romanesque-
style St. John’s Episcopal Church, were all built at the same intersection during the Roaring Twenties.
But the Auto Club’s 1923 Spanish Colonial Revival towers
are not adorned with the images of saints — just the red, white and blue AAA logo which has come to mean roadside assistance to millions of motorists.
For over a century, the Auto Club has guided drivers and shaped the region’s automobile culture. Easterners who heeded New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley’s popularizing of an Indiana jour-
nalist’s advice to “go west” could thank the Auto Club for ensuring that
they didn’t get lost en route.
The Automobile Club of Southern California began in 1900, when a group of ten Ange-lenos revved up the club to help stage auto races and tours, and to lobby the legislature for better roads. It was one of the first motor clubs in the nation.
In 1914, the Club began placing 4,000 signs on the patchwork road system between Kansas City and Los Angeles that helped motorists to navigate their way to the Golden State.
The First Of Millions Of Horseless CarriagesWith its broad avenues and car-friendly routes, Los Angeles became widely rec-ognized as the heart of the “car culture.” The first man to drive a gasoline-powered car along its streets is believed to be a wealthy New York engineer and inventor
named J. Philip Erie.
His chariot, billed as the first car west of the Mississippi River, made its maiden trip gasping and sput-tering down a Los Angeles street at about 2 a.m. on Sunday, May 30, 1897.
At that hour, Erie rolled his auto out of the downtown garage where it had been built. He cranked it up and set sail from 5th Street down Broadway. As the machine wheezed along, about a half-dozen of his friends hopped aboard to make history.
It wouldn’t be long, the Los Angeles Times predicted, “before a factory is established in Los Angeles for the manufacture of motor wagons.” It also noted that Erie’s vehicle had “about 25 miles an hour concealed in its vitals’’ — a remarkable speed for the time, but one which became an irritatingly slow rush-hour speed to drivers a century later.
Within a very few years, eager motorists began crowding
the same streets in their own new gas carriages.
The first speed limitswere imposed —eight miles an hour in residential districts, six in busi-ness districts.
Traffic slowed down, but auto sales didn’t.
“Count them as they go by — 24 sold last week!”
crowed an Oldsmobile deal-er’s 1903 newspaper ad.
Auto Club Becomes A Driving Force In MotoringBy 1905, gas-powered cars were whizzing over the landscape, and the Club slashed its monthly dues from $5 to $1 to bring in more members, and offer more services.
Several years before the California High-way Patrol began monitoring the state’s roads in 1929, the Auto Club had already formed its own safety patrol, rescuing driv-ers in broken-down vehicles. When auto theft became rampant, the Club started its own theft bureau to track down the thieves. The Club helped to write the state’s Uni-form Vehicle Code and collaborated with public officials in the design of traffic signs and signals.
Its vigilance extended to corrupt offi-cials. In the 1920s, Automo-bile Club signs on Washington Boulevard at the edge of Culver City warned motor-ists to “take an alternate route.” Many tourists who ventured into Culver City via Washington were being fined for such petty offenses as driving in a swimsuit. The signs were removed only after a local judge — who had been pocketing some of the fines himself — was sent to prison.
In 1924, Los Angeles installed its first automated traffic signals right outside the Auto Club. The first was described as “a cross between a railroad semaphore and an alarm clock,’’ and the second was the forerunner of familiar modern signals with red and green lights. Since then, the Auto Club has continued to uphold the rights of
motorists on the roadways and in the halls of the legislature.
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Automobile Club of Southern California headquarters prior to 1930.
Auto Club courtyard featuring an antique car show, 1950s.
The Auto Club’s headquarters located on Olive Street (1911–1914).
Miniature golf course at Adams and Figueroa, 1930.
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Car stopped in traffic at Hoover and Adams, 1947.
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Emergency Service Patrol trikes exiting courtyard, late 1930s.
AUTOMOBILE CLUB OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
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Angels Walk FigueroaSelect StanchionsSECTION 2 – WEST ADAMS 11 Stimson House
12 Historic West Adams
13 Automobile Club of Southern California
14 Orthopaedic Hospital
15 Amat Residence
16 Mount St. Mary’s College, Doheny Campus
17 John Tracy Clinic
18 St. James Park
19 Sunshine Mission
20 Forthmann House
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Project Team:Deanna Molloy, Executive Director Angels Walk LADiego Nunez, Director of Operations Angels Walk LARogerio Carvalheiro, Stanchion DesignerCecilia Rasmussen, WriterPatt Morrison, WriterJohn Molloy, Planning ConsultantGraphics: Lane+Lane Design OfficeMap: Cartifact
Acknowledgements:Nick Patsaouras, Polis Builders, LTDBill Robertson, Director, Bureau of Street Services
For more information about Angels Walk or for a copy of the Map/Guidebook, please contact the MTA Public Information Office at (213) 922-6000.
Special Thanks to:Mayor Antonio R. VillaraigosaCity Council of the City of Los Angeles Eric Garcetti, PresidentCouncilmember Jan PerryCouncilmember Bernard Parks
Supported by:City of Los Angeles Bureau of Street ServicesLos Angeles Department of TransportationLos Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation AuthorityDowntown Los Angeles Neighborhood CouncilFigueroa Corridor PartnershipSouth Park Stakeholders GroupSouth Park Business Improvement District
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15TH ST
BROADWAYHILL ST
HOPE ST
OLIVE ST
GRAND AVE
16TH ST
17TH ST
FIGUEROA STFLOW
ER ST
17TH ST
18TH ST
15TH ST
FIGUEROA DR
N BLVD
BONSALLO AVE
LOVELACE AVE
BROADWA
HILL ST
OLIVE ST
GRAND AVE
FLOWER ST
LEBANON ST
PEMBROKE LN
GEORGIA ST
18TH ST
CONVENTION CENTERDR
EXPOSIT
ION BLVD
39TH ST
MARTIN LU
THER KING JR BLVD
FIGUEROA ST
GRAND AVE
FLOWER ST
ADAMS BLVD
D ST
ADAMS BLVD
ESTRELLA AVE
20TH ST
21ST ST
22ND ST
FIGUEROA ST
VENICE BLVD
23RD ST
24TH ST
25TH ST
27TH ST
28TH ST
30TH ST
31ST
32
27TH ST
28TH ST
30TH ST
31ST ST
33RD ST
32ND ST
ROYAL ST
UNIVERSITY AVE
H ST
30TH ST
27TH ST
SEVERANCE ST
ROYAL ST
SHRINE PL
37TH ST
38TH ST
FLOWER DR
VERMONT AVE
WATT W
AY
TROUSDALE PKWY
HOPE ST
HOPE ST
JEFFERSON BLVD
HOPE ST
UNIVERSITY AVE
35TH ST
HOOVER AVE
0TH ST
41ST S
T
40TH PL
MENLO AVE
BROWNING BLVD
LEIGHTO
N AVE
39TH AV
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WISCONSIN STWISCONSIN PL
39TH ST
38TH ST
MENLO AVE
HOPE ST
ST JAMES PL
ST JAMES PK
HOOVERST
CHESTER PL
CHILDS WAY
FIGUEROA ST
S A N T A M O N I C A F W Y
(CAMPUS W
ALKWAY)
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SHOPPINGCENTER
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COLISEUM
SPORTS
ARENA
ROSE GARDENS
NATURAL HISTO
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MUSEUM
HA
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SCIENCE
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SCHOOL
CAAM
CALIFORNIA
SCIENCE CENTER
EPICC
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ANGELS WALK FIGUEROA
SECTION 1 – METRO FIGUEROA
1 Wilshire Boulevard
2 City National Plaza
3 6th & Figueroa Streets
4 Engine Co. No. 28
5 Ernst & Young Plaza/7+Fig Retail Center
6 The Original Pantry Café
7 Variety Arts Center
8 STAPLES Center
9 Los Angeles Convention Center
10 Bob Hope Patriotic Hall
SECTION 2 – WEST ADAMS
11 Stimson House
12 Historic West Adams
13 Automobile Club of Southern California
14 Orthopaedic Hospital
15 Amat Residence
16 Mount St. Mary’s College, Doheny Campus
17 John Tracy Clinic
18 St. James Park
19 Sunshine Mission
20 Forthmann House
SECTION 3 – USC/EXPOSITION PARK
21 Felix Chevrolet
22 Shrine Auditorium & Expo Center
23 University of Southern California
24 Exposition Park Rose Garden
25 Natural History Museum
26 EPICC
27 Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
28 California African American Museum
29 California Science Center
30 USC Widney Alumni House
YOU ARE HERE
SECTIONSE NSE N 1
A Coliseum For All Seasons And SportsIt wasn’t the first public build-ing designed to enhance Los Angeles’ image, but like its namesake in Rome, it is one of the most enduring.
The huge concrete and steel oval Los Angeles Memorial Col-iseum is an immense jewel-box of civic memories: college and pro-team touchdowns, professional baseball home runs, rock concerts, presidential speeches,
and the flame-bright
triumphs of two Olympic games.
Here is where Jesse Owens ran, where Jack
Dempsey fought and Sonja Henie skated. Nelson Mandela
and John F. Kennedy spoke here to tens of thousands. Sandy Koufax
struck out 18 bat-ters. The Rolling Stones rocked its seats, and here, Billy Graham and
Pope John Paul II preached.
All that history came about because
a group of civic-minded Angelenos transformed
some barren acreage into a
memorial to war veterans and a
landmark that has withstood both time
and Angelenos’ fondness for demolishing their past.
As the 20th century dawned, the site known as Agricultural Park
had deteriorated into a Sodom of saloons and brothels around an auto
race track.
A Sunday school teacher named William M. Bowen cleaned up the park and, with University of Southern California President George Bovard, proposed a stadium for sports and civic events. The new Coliseum became the property of the city, county and state, each represented equally on the commission that still runs the Coliseum.
Olympic Dreams And College TeamsIt opened in 1923, and was named the Olympic Stadium in hopes of attracting the Olympic Games. The peristyle design evoked ancient Greek and Roman arenas. For the 1984 Olympic Games, the entrance was ornamented with “Olympic Gateway,” heroic male and female nude torsos by art-ist Robert Graham.
In 1923, the football game between USC and Pomona College dug the first divots. A year later, the civic booster William May Garland landed the 1932 Olympic summer games.
A fellow Inter-national Olympic Committee mem-ber praised Garland’s sales-manship when he said, “Billy, I voted for Los Angeles
because I like you personally. But where is Los Angeles? Is it anywhere near Holly-wood?” The 1932 Olympics put Los Angeles — not just Hollywood — on the map.
Even without the Olympics, the Coliseum cre-ated excitement. Post-World War I Los Angeles did not have a major league sport team, so the city’s undi-vided attention turned to what it did have: USC football.
During the 1920s and ‘30s, the USC Tro-jans won five Rose Bowls and two national championships, founding one of the richest traditions in college athletics.
Football soon became the Coliseum’s main-stay. The UCLA Bruins arrived in 1929 and stayed for 52 years. The Rams came from Cleveland in 1946, winning the pro champi-onship five years later.
On June 1945, after the Allied victory in Europe, 105,000 people welcomed Gen. George S. Patton Jr. and Lt. Gen. James H. Doolittle. In a mock battle in the Coliseum, searchlights sent pillars of light into the sky, illuminating warplanes flying in for-mation. On the ground, land mines were detonated and tanks rolled through the darkness to simulate Patton’s 3rd Army’s thrust toward Berlin.
Then Came The DodgersIn 1959, more than 92,000 spectators wit-nessed Los Angeles’ first World Series. Fans made such a din that players had to communicate with hand signals.
The Dodgers called the Coliseum home from 1958 until they moved to their own stadium in Chavez Ravine in 1961.
In 1980 and 1981, though, the stadium lost both the Rams and the Bru-ins. The Raiders arrived in 1982 and stayed for 13 years before going back to Oakland, and the Olympics returned to Los Angeles in 1984.
The Coliseum is the only stadium in the world to host two Olympiads, two Super Bowls (I and VII), and a World Series. Today, the Coliseum is both a national and state historic landmark, almost as much a part of Los Angeles’ civic identity as the Hollywood sign.
The day of Billy Graham’s appearance, September 8, 1963. Graham (pictured on the far right) is seen here with (from left) Coliseum General Manager William H. Nicholas, Mr. Graham’s personal assistant Dan Piatt and County Board Supervisor Kenneth Hahn. This event holds the all-time Coliseum attendance record of 134,254.
Opening day for the Los Angeles Dodgers at the Coliseum, April 18, 1958. Comedian Joe E. Brown (center) introduces Dodger skipper Walter Alston (right) to the crowd. Giants manager Bill Rigney looks on. The Dodgers won, 6-5, before a crowd of 78,672.
USC football game, 1940s.
Xth Olympiad opening ceremonies, July 30, 1932.
California vs. USC, 1923.
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LOS ANGELES MEMORIAL COLISEUM
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