On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Good Morning All,
This weekday feature is for Juicers who are are on the road, traveling, or just want to share a little bit of their world via stories and pictures. So many of us rise each morning, eager for something beautiful, inspiring, amazing, subtle, of note, and our community delivers – a view into their world, whether they’re far away or close to home – pictures with a story, with context, with meaning, sometimes just beauty. By concentrating travel updates and tips here, it’s easier for all of us to keep up or find them later.
So please, speak up and share some of your adventures and travel news here, and submit your pictures using our speedy, secure form. You can submit up to 7 pictures at a time, with an overall description and one for each picture.
You can, of course, send an email with pictures if the form gives you trouble, or if you are trying to submit something special, like a zipped archive or a movie. If your pictures are already hosted online, then please email the links with your descriptions.
For each picture, it’s best to provide your commenter screenname, description, where it was taken, and date. It’s tough to keep everyone’s email address and screenname straight, so don’t assume that I remember it “from last time”. More and more, the first photo before the fold will be from a commenter, so making it easy to locate the screenname when I’ve found a compelling photo is crucial.
Have a wonderful day, and enjoy the pictures!
Today, pictures from valued commenter ?BillinGlendaleCA.
The Bradbury Building
The Bradbury Building is at Third Street and Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles. It’s a block for the original location of Angels Flight at 3rd and Hill Streets. It was built by Lewis Bradbury, who made his fortune initially in the gold mining business and later as a real estate developer, as a monument to his memory. Planing and construction of the building began in 1892 and was completed in 1894(over a year after Bradbuy’s death) at a cost of $500,000.
The building is open to the public during regular business hours, but access is limited to the first floor and the first landing on the stairs since the building’s current primary tenant is LAPD’s Internal Affairs Division.
Some pictures were taken with my fisheye lens which is probably the best way to capture the entire building, but does lead to some distortion such as walls that bend.
Exterior from the opposite corner of 3rd and Broadway
Taken on 2017-09-07
Downtown Los Angeles, CA
The exterior of the Bradbury is rather nondescript example of a turn of the century office building.
Main Entrance
Taken on 2016-11-03
Downtown Los Angeles, CA
Here’s the main entrance to the Bradbury on Broadway, let’s walk on in and see what’s inside…
First view of the Bradbury Atrium.
Taken on 2016-11-03
Downtown Los Angeles, CA
Once though the doors you begin to see what’s special about this building, it’s central atrium with it’s glass ceiling. I last visited the Bradbury in March with Madame and the kid and their reaction upon getting to this point in the the building was “Wow!”
Look Up!
Taken on 2016-11-03
Downtown Los Angeles, CA
Looking straight up from the center of the atrium you can get a good view of the glass ceiling and the delicate iron work and polished wood railings. The cage elevators hang to the side of the atrium courtyard.
The staircase.
Taken on 2018-03-12
Downtown Los Angeles, CA
The east and west ends of the atrium have iron work staircases with polished wood railings. The staircases(and cage elevators) serve all 5 floors.
View from the landing.
Taken on 2018-03-12
Downtown Los Angeles, CA
This is the view from the first landing on the east staircase. You can see the two cage elevators as well as the staircase on the west side of the atrium.
Thank you so much ?BillinGlendaleCA, do send us more when you can.
Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.
One again, to submit pictures: Use the Form or Send an Email
satby
Lovely old building! Thanks Billin!
It doesn’t really look the same at all, but the natural light atrium and the stairs remind me of my favorite building in my hometown, the Monadnock Building.
Lapassionara
Thanks for showing us these gems in LA.
MagdaInBlack
@satby:
Also The Rookery…..dont we love Chicago architecture ?
Amir Khalid
When I see a building with an atrium like that I can’t help but be reminded of the building where Harrison Ford confronts Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner.
debbie
What an entrance!
(Trick lenses on those interior shots, right?)
OzarkHillbilly
Saw this this morn California Crazy: pop architecture from the past – in pictures and I thought of you Bill, wondering if any of these architectural “gems” were still in existence. (nice shots above)
JPL
The pictures of the atrium are magnificent, thanks.
delk
@satby: Always reminded me of The Brewster Building
We looked at two units last year. Very cool spaces, but the area was just too crowded for us.
Frank McCormick
@Amir Khalid: It IS the same building!
Steeplejack
@MagdaInBlack:
Gotta close your link or it eats the Reply button.
Rookery Building.
David Evans
Lovely pictures. Now you’ve got me thinking I need a fisheye lens, damn it.
Amir Khalid
@Frank McCormick:
That would explain the resemblance.
Mr. Prosser
@Amir Khalid: @Frank McCormick: This is so cool, I thought the building in Blade Runner was a set and the name a tribute to Ray Bradbury.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@satby: Your welcome, the metal work on the stairs looks similar.
@Lapassionara: Thanks, there are a few more but it may be time to head out to space next week.
@debbie: Yup, a couple of the interior shots used the fisheye.
MomSense
I love these photos.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid:
@Amir Khalid:
@Frank McCormick: I’ve not seen ‘Blade Runner’ but Wikipedia says it was used as a location in the film as well as many other movies, TV, and music videos. This is LA and local buildings are often used as locations for the entertainment industry.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: Looking though those pics, most are gone. The oversized doughnut is still with us and the Chinese Theater is as well. The Brown Derby is sort of still with us, it was put on the second floor of the building that replaced it sans brim.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@JPL: The pictures probably don’t do it justice, it’s really quite amazing when you first walk in.
@delk: I think atriums were pretty popular at the turn of the century for cooling the building and providing light.@David Evans: Do It! I love the fisheye.
satby
@MagdaInBlack: @delk: @Steeplejack: ?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mr. Prosser: Hollywood often uses local buildings for their product, LA streets sometimes stand-in for turn of the century NYC because we’ve got blocks of buildings that date from the early 20th century in the Historic Core area.
@MomSense: Thanks.
MagdaInBlack
@Steeplejack:
Thank You
I’m still learning.
ETA: The Rookery: in one of the years shortly after 9/11, I dragged a friend in to The Rookery to show him the beauty…..security politely asked us to leave .
Elizabelle
Michael Connelly uses the Bradbury Building a lot in his police procedural novels. Cuz Internal Affairs is there. But mostly cuz it’s beautiful, I suspect, and he wants readers to know about it.
There was a kinda nondescript building in DC that had a good lobby, with goldfish swimming in channels on each side.
That atrium is gorgeous, though. They should use it for a laser show some nights!
Anonymous At Work
Am I the only one who’s gonna comment on the LAPD inhabiting a building made famous, among others, for a movie with some really corrupt and violent police (and their hired mercenaries)?
Elizabelle
@Anonymous At Work: In that case, maybe it’s perfect that it now houses Internal Affairs investigators.
bluefoot
@MagdaInBlack: An architect friend of mine used to say that one could build a wall around Chicago and charge admission as the world’s best architecture installation. :)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Anonymous At Work: Well, it is LAPD Internal Affairs and they’re not exactly popular with the ‘Blue Line’, Wikipedia says the police officers call it “The Oven” cause they get burnt there. I’m not sure if they will be long term tenants, they’re redeveloping the Civic Center to move city operations out of the various locations in downtown and consolidating everything by City Hall.
@Elizabelle: It’s also across the street from Grand Central Market, so there’s good eats close by.
eclare
Gorgeous building, I’m glad it’s still around (and I’m glad you shared photos!)
?BillinGlendaleCA
Here’s a bonus shot for y’all. Pasadena City Hall in IR, it was taken just before a Balloon Juice Meetup in Old Town Pasadena a few years ago.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@eclare: You’re welcome, even in the push to ‘modernize’ in the post war period it managed to survive. Quite a few of the older buildings ended up as parking lots.
J R in WV
Hey, Bill, nice job and the pics came out great. Architectural photography is less obvious than it looks, more difficult to get it right.
Cool old building, I bet the elevators are brass works of art!
eclare
Great pictures! What a gem.
Mnemosyne
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
The Huntington shows up all. the. time. It’s kind of amazing how many things it represents to location scouts.
rikyrah
Bill,
Thank you for your pictures. I learn something new about California with every series of pics you show us.
Ragbatz
@Amir Khalid: This is the building in Blade Runner.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Elizabelle:
I wonder if you’re thinking of the old aquarium in the Commerce Department building? I vaguely remember visiting it back in the 80s, when I was poor in DC and always looking for free stuff to do. The fish moved to the National Aquarium in Baltimore in 2013.
An article linked within that WaPo article discusses the vanished fisheries of DC:
As Charlie Pierce says, history is so cool.