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Bradbury Building
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
L.A. Historic-Cultural Monument #6
Exterior of Bradbury Building
Location:	304 South Broadway, Los Angeles, California
Coordinates:	34°3′1.93″N 118°14′52.30″W / 34.0505361°N 118.2478611°W / 34.0505361; -118.2478611
Built/Founded:	1893
Architect:	George H. Wyman
Architectural style(s):	Other
Governing body:	Private
Added to NRHP:	July 14, 1971[1]
Designated NHL:	May 5, 1977[2]
Designated LAHCM:	September 21, 1962[3]
NRHP Reference#:	71000144
LAHCM #:	6

The Bradbury Building is an architectural landmark in Los Angeles, California, in the United States. The building was built in 1893 and is located at 304 South Broadway (3rd and Broadway) in downtown Los Angeles.

Contents 1 History 2 Architecture 3 Construction 4 Building today 5 Appearance in Popular Media 6 Tourism 7 See also 8 References 9 External links

[edit] History

The building was commissioned by its namesake Lewis Bradbury, a mining millionaire who had become a real estate developer in the later part of his life. His plan (in 1892) was to have a five story building constructed at Third Street and Broadway in Los Angeles, close to the Bunker Hill neighborhood.

A local architect, Sumner Hunt, was first hired to complete a design for the building but Bradbury ruled against constructing his plans which he did not view as adequately matching the grandeur of his vision.

Bradbury then hired George Wyman, one of Hunt's draftsmen, to design the building.

Wyman at first refused the offer to design the building. However Wyman supposedly had a ghostly talk with his dead brother Mark Wyman (who had been dead for six years) while using a planchette board with his wife. The ghostly message that came through supposedly said "Mark Wyman / take the / Bradbury building / and you will be / successful" with the word "successful" written upside down. After the episode, Wyman took the job and is now regarded as the architect of the Bradbury Building. Wyman's grandson, the science fiction publisher Forrest J. Ackerman, owned the original of this document until his death. Coincidentally, Ackerman was a close friend of science fiction author Ray Bradbury.

Wyman was especially influenced in the construction of the building by Edward Bellamy's book Looking Backward (published in 1887) which described a utopian society in the year 2000. In the book, the average commercial building was described as a "vast hall full of light, received not alone from the windows on all sides, but from the dome, the point of which was a hundred feet above ... The walls and ceiling were frescoed in mellow tints, calculated to soften without absorbing the light which flooded the interior." This description greatly influenced the Bradbury Building.

A restoration and seismic retrofitting by developer Ira Yellin and project architect Brenda Levin Associates was undertaken in 1991. As part of the restoration, a storage area at the south end of the building was converted to a new rear entrance portico, connecting the building more directly to Biddy Mason Park and the adjacent Broadway Spring Center parking garage. The building's lighting system was also redesigned, bringing in alabaster wall sconces from Spain.

[edit] Architecture

The building itself features an Italian Renaissance-style exterior facade of brown brick, sandstone and panels of terra cotta details, in the "commercial Romanesque" that was the current idiom in East Coast American cities. But the magnificence of the building is the interior that is reached through the entrance, with its low ceiling and minimal light, that opens into a bright naturally lit great center court.

Robert Forster, star of the TV series Banyon that used the building for his office, described it as "one of the great interiors of L.A. Outside it doesn't look like much, but when you walk inside, suddenly you're back a hundred and twenty years."^[4]

The five-story central court features glazed brick, ornamental cast iron, tiling, rich marble, and polished wood, capped by a skylight that allows the court to be flooded with natural rather than artificial light creating ever changing shadows and accents during the day. The elevators in the building are also famous for their being cage elevators surrounded by wrought-iron grillwork rather than masonry. They go up to the fifth floor.

The entire main building features geometric patterned staircases at all ends. The building is known for its large use of ornately designed wrought-iron railings which are supposed to give the illusion of hanging vegetation and are found throughout the building. This wrought-iron was executed in France and displayed at the Chicago World's Fair before being installed in the building. Freestanding mail-chutes are also made out of ironwork.

The walls are made of pale glazed brick, the marble used in the staircase was imported from Belgium, and the floors are composed of Mexican tile.

[edit] Construction

During construction, an active spring was found beneath the work-site, which threatened to shut down work on the building by weakening the foundation. However, Mr. Bradbury was very committed to the project, believing it to be the greatest monument possible to his memory; he spared no expense and imported massive steel rails from Europe in order to bolster the building and allow its construction.

The initial estimate for building the building was $175,000. When it was completed it had cost over $500,000, a ridiculously large amount for those times.

In a sad twist of fate, Lewis Bradbury died months before the building opened in 1893 although it stands as a testament to his and George Wyman's vision. With all its international fame it most surely lives up to his dream. It is Wyman's most acclaimed building.

Oblique view of central court from balcony.

Front entrance.

Isometric view of courtyard.

Bradbury Building Interior Detail, 2002.

[edit] Building today

The building has operated as an office building for most of its history. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977.^[2][5]

Today the building serves as headquarters for the Los Angeles Police Department's Internal Affairs division and other government agencies. Several of the offices are rented out to private concerns including Red Line Tours. The retail spaces on the first floor currently house Ross Cutlery, a Subway sandwich restaurant, a Sprint cell phone store, and a real estate sales office for loft conversions in other nearby historic buildings.

The building was prominently used in the film Blade Runner. It has also been featured in the 1944 Billy Wilder film classic Double Indemnity, the 1950 film noir classic D.O.A., the 1951 Joseph Losey remake of M, the film Wolf starring Jack Nicholson, the "Demon with a Glass Hand" episode of the TV series The Outer Limits, the Season Six episodes (1963-64) of the TV series "77 Sunset Strip" where Stuart ("Stu") Bailey (Efrem Zimbalist Jr. the only remaining recurring cast member had his office, the TV series Banyon, the Charles Bronson movie Murphy's Law, the Michael Douglas and Demi Moore vehicle Disclosure, music videos from the 1980s by Heart, Janet Jackson, Earth Wind and Fire and Genesis, and a Pontiac Pursuit commercial. The Bradbury has recently been seen in the show Pushing Daisies, which debuted in fall 2007. The building also serves as the headquarters for the Marvel Comics team The Order.

The building is also seen with the name "Gotham Towers" in the TV series Quantum Leap in the last episode of the first season, "Play it again, Seymour."

The building was featured in the photography on the Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 box.

[edit] Appearance in Popular Media

The Bradbury Building has been prominently featured as the setting in a wide range of films and television programs, particularly in the science fiction genre.^[6] Most notably, the film is the setting of the climactic rooftop scene of the 1982 cult classic Blade Runner, as well as the set of the character J.F. Sebastien's apartment^[7], in which much of the film's story unfolds. In addition to Blade Runner, the Bradbury was featured in Chinatown, D.O.A., Double Indemnity, Lethal Weapon 4, Marlowe, and Wolf^[8], as well as The Indestructible Man and The Night Strangler^[6].

The building can also be seen in at least one episode of each of the following television series: Banyon, City of Angels, Mission: Impossible, and The Outer Limits ("Demon with a Glass Hand")^[8], as well Pushing Daisies (Ned and Chuck's Apartment) and Quantum Leap (TV series) ("Play It Again, Seymour").^[6]

The Bradbury has frequently been alluded to in popular literature, including: Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, in which the protagonist makes reference to Philip Marlowe, who will "feel homesick for the lacework balconies of the Bradbury Building," the Star Trek novel The Case of the Colonist's Corpse: A Sam Cogley Mystery, in which the novel's main character works out of the Bradbury Building four hundred years into the future, The Man With The Golden Torc by Simon R. Green, and The World Of Tiers by Philip Jose Farmer.^[6]

Finally, both DC Comics and Marvel Comic (which maintains offices in the real Bradbury Building) have both published series based on characters that work out of the historic land mark. In the Marvel Universe, the superhero team The Order is headquartered there. In the DC universe, the Human Target runs his private investigation agency out of the building.^[6]

[edit] Tourism

The building is a popular tourist attraction. Visitors are welcome daily and greeted by a government worker who provides historical facts and information about the building. Visitors are allowed up to the first landing but not past it. Brochures and tours are also available. It is close to three other downtown Los Angeles Landmarks: the Grand Central Market and the Million Dollar Theater (across the street) and Angels Flight (two blocks away). The building is accessible from the Los Angeles MTA Red Line via the Civic Center exit, which is three blocks away.

[edit] See also

• List of Registered Historic Places in Los Angeles

[edit] References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bradbury Building

[edit] External links

• Public Art in LA – Bradbury Building, A History
• Los Angeles Conservancy
• BRMovie.com – Blade Runner Film Locations
• Bradbury Building photos – interior photos from 2007, showing the restored interior
• University of Southern California's LA Walking Tour

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