Ethereum

Highrise #124

Collection

Highrises

Description

**Edison Building** **Art by:** Chris Hytha **Story by:** Mark Houser Celebrity handprints and footprints at his Chinese Theater are the lasting impression of Hollywood impresario Sid Grauman. But the showman made his first big splash in L.A. with a movie palace in this highrise, where “silent” films were accompanied by a 30-piece orchestra. Grauman leased the luxe Million Dollar Theater from building owner Homer Laughlin Jr., heir to a West Virginia ceramics fortune, who also owned the city’s first reinforced concrete office block next door. Each of the theater's 2,300 seats had a switch that activated when someone sat down, lighting up a house diagram so usherettes could direct patrons to empty seats and Grauman could keep an eye on attendance. The building was named for major tenant Southern California Edison, though its fantastical exterior exploding with helmeted cherubs and bison is not what one would expect for an electric company. Nor for the water company, yet William Mulholland, overseer of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, had his offices and boardroom on the top floor too. Grauman soon relocated to Hollywood, but his old theater still occasionally screens classic films in its spectacular auditorium. The rest of the building is now converted to residential use.

Traits

Style

Spanish Baroque

City

Los Angeles

Region

West