#globe lobby

Downtown Los Angeles, 1950: ‘Underworld Story,’ Part 4

Here’s another sequence from “The Underworld Story,” an especially interesting one that features the Globe Lobby in the old Los Angeles Times Building. Leading man Dan Duryea walks through the lobby. That’s the bust of Harry Chandler in a space that was later occupied by a bust of Otis Chandler.

As I pointed out previously, the Times Eagle wasn’t installed in the niche next to the pay phones…

Mailboxes are eye-catching features of the two main lobbies of the Los Angeles Times building in downtown L.A. And I’ve always been fascinated by what must be custom lettering on their facades.

The top image is of the Globe Lobby mailbox. That part of the building was built in the 1930s. I love how there is no negative space in the P and how the A’s have similar (but not identical) shapes. The second image is from the Spring Street lobby, part of a 1948 building. The lettering is similar -- notice the A shapes and the E’s. But the U’s on the Spring Street mailbox are squarer than those in the Globe Lobby.

And the Times Eagle is on both, but in strikingly different representations.

Also in both lobbies are building directories with beautiful type. Can you guess which is which?

-- Matt Ballinger

“The newspaper is a greater treasure to the people than uncounted millions of gold. There is no dimming, no effacement here. Each new pulsation keeps the record clear.”

That text rings the Los Angeles Times’ Globe Lobby, and I thought the word “newspaper” -- specifically the style of writing in which it is displayed -- would be a good place to launch an exploration of typography around The Times’ building in downtown L.A.

The first sentence is from an 1887 book of Henry Ward Beecher sayings, “Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit.” (Here is an 1887 Times article on Beecher’s death: “Beecher Dead.”) The next two lines are from a poem, “The Memory of the Heart,” by Daniel Webster, a famous U.S. congressman who lived from 1782 to 1852. 

Let’s look a bit more closely at that type. The S stands out immediately.

But more interesting to me is the R. 

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen the vertical and diagonal straight lines of an R connected like that.

So as we kick off this week of interesting Times typography, let me note that I am in no way an expert on the subject. I can tell you the difference between serif and sans-serif type, of course, but my knowledge runs out soon after that. So if there are experts (and I have a couple of colleagues in mind who I’ll try to talk with this week) who want to weigh in, please get in touch. And if you have examples of interesting typography at The Times building or elsewhere, post it on your Tumblr or tweet it @latimespast; I’ll try to reblog it.

Coming tomorrow: Some Art Deco type from an elevator lobby.

-- Matt Ballinger

Prose does not get much purpler than this 1897 report on the news that San Pedro had been selected over Santa Monica as the site for Los Angeles' harbor (which is in the news this week after the City Council approved a controversial rail yard project):

Yesterday morning this telegram was received at the Times office:

"WASHINGTON, D.C., March 2, 1897.

"L.E. Mosher — Times, Los Angeles: Let the Eagle scream some more and louder, and yet more loud. San Pedro has won. Official report is public.

"HARRISON GRAY OTIS"

Whereupon the bird that perches upon the Times Building flapped his wings and his voice was heard in the land. The joyous shriek of the victorious bird filled all the circumjacence even to Cahuenga, and the populace gathered to assist him in making noise. ...

Even the few proponents of the Santa Monica scheme knew without asking what had happened, and they seemed to find some consolation in telephoning to The Times that the Eagle was a nuisance and demanding that the jubilant voice of that estimable bird be choked off because it scared their horses. But it was the Eagle's day to scream, and he whooped it up in great shape for several hours.

Click to read the rest:

And, you guessed it, the "victorious" and "estimable bird" mentioned in this breathless article is pictured at the top of this post. It was installed, Times copy editor Larry Harnisch informs me, in 1891 at the second Times building, which was destroyed in the 1910 bombing (don't miss Harnisch's history of that event). After that, it perched on the replacement building, and it used to be on top of our current headquarters. Now it resides in the Globe Lobby.

— Matt Ballinger