Reverting the Roosevelt Entryway

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — I don’t know if you’ve been by the Roosevelt Building at 7th/Flower recently, but work is going ahead full-bore on its conversion to condos. Much of that work happens inside where you can’t see it, bt within the last week a cool external change has taken place on the building.

Late last week workers took sledgehammers to the brown metal and tinted glass that had framed the three arches on the building’s front and tore them out, exposing the recessed entryway. Instantly a fairly anonymous ground level became much more intersting and stately.

Old photos of the building show these open arches, obviously covered up sometime later to “modernize” the structure. It’s very cool to see them returning to their intended state. This isn’t quite as bad as skins like the one on Clifton’s, but looking back it’s hard to see what people were thinking when they did this sort of work.