The Bradbury Building

Bradbury

The skylight was inspired by science fiction literature

By Erik Jay

Downtown's 120 Year Old Actor

It seems somehow appropriate that the design of L.A.'s historic Bradbury Building – familiar to moviegoers worldwide from its co-starring role in scores of films, including science-fiction classic Blade Runner – was itself influenced by a futuristic novel published in 1887, Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy. Looking backward about 120 years or so will illuminate the birth and life of this magnificent structure.

The mining millionaire Lewis Bradbury became something of a real estate developer in his later years, and wanted his building – his monument to himself, essentially – to be located near the Bunker Hill neighborhood at Third Street and Broadway (340 South Broadway). Well-known Los Angeles architect Sumner Hunt did the original building design, but Bradbury rejected it and subsequently hired George Wyman, a $5-a-week draftsman at Hunt's firm, to design something "truly grand."

The story goes that Wyman refused at first, but a Ouija board-powered visit with his deceased brother soon persuaded him to take the job. In addition to this supernatural influence, Bellamy's Looking Backward had an enabling, even ennobling, effect on Wyman. In the book, which describes a utopian country in the year 2000, the standard office building was like 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 shapes, colors and textures in the interior were deliberately "calculated to soften without absorbing the light which flooded the interior." That's the Bradbury, all right.


From the outside in


Depending on the architect, historian, or other expert you ask, the Bradbury Building's exterior façade might be described as Italian Renaissance Revival, Romanesque, or (no kidding) Eclectic Victorian Pre-Modern. The sandstone, terra cotta panels, and brown brick of the exterior broke no new ground, and gave no hint of how Wyman would suffuse the building interior with natural light from all directions. One particularly dramatic example is the transition from the low ceiling and low light of the entrance to the open, bright center court.

The court is a five-story commercial cathedral of sorts, with ornamental cast iron, rare marble, glazed brick, polished wood, and imported tile rising majestically to a towering skylight. Throughout the day the sunlight creates continuously changing shapes of light and dark, while the ornate wrought iron railings – crafted in France for display at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 – offer an illusion of Babylon's hanging gardens. The walls are pale glazed brick, the staircase marble was brought from Belgium, and the floors are made of tiles from Mexico.


The Bradbury in pop culture


Many Angelenos know nothing of the Bradbury Building, a classic L.A. gem that truly is "Downtown royalty." But after seeing a few photos or film clips, many people will recognize the place from one of its many TV and movie roles, most of which are in science fiction or noir tales. As previously mentioned, the Bradbury Building was the setting for the climactic rooftop scene in Blade Runner, as well as for the apartment of protagonist J. F. Sebastian, but the building's film career started about 50 years before that. Director Billy Wilder used the Bradbury in his 1944 classic, Double Indemnity, and the final shootout in the 1950 noir classic D.O.A. took place there, too. In director Joseph Losey's remake of the German film, M – I, The Jury (1953) – a long, involved search was filmed "up, down, and all around" the labyrinthine Bradbury, including an incredible "money shot" through the skylight.

The storied atrium of the Bradbury was also cast as the interior of a skid-row flophouse at the end of the Jack Lemmon comedy, Good Neighbor Sam (1964). Jack Nicholson must have liked the place, too, as he starred in two films that featured it, Chinatown (1974) and Wolf (1994). Other films that used the Bradbury include Murphy's Law (1986) with Charles Bronson, Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), Marlowe (1969), Avenging Angel (1985), and Disclosure (1994) with Michael Douglas and Demi Moore. More recently, the teen flick 500 Days of Summer (2009) used the building for the location, interestingly enough, of an architectural firm.

Listing all the other films, not to mention the numerous TV credits for the Bradbury, would take another entire article. A little searching on the Web – say, the Internet Movie DataBase at imdb.com, for starters – will get you going, but be forewarned. The building's credits run into the hundreds.


Landmark status


The Bradbury Building has been a functioning office building for most of its life. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977, a restoration and seismic retrofitting was undertaken in 1991. As part of the project, a storage room at the back was converted into a new rear entrance, which more directly connects the building to Biddy Mason Park and nearby parking at the Broadway Spring Center garage. The lighting system for the entire building was also revamped, with many common areas making use of alabaster wall sconces imported from Spain.

The building is a popular tourist attraction as part of various Downtown tours (walking or riding). Since there is not that much to do at the Bradbury, L.A. tourist sites advise against fighting traffic and paying premium parking prices to visit just that one destination. However, the Bradbury is close to three other Downtown L.A. landmarks – the Million Dollar Theater, the Grand Central Market (across the street), and Angels Flight (several blocks away) – so you can easily design your own Downtown tour.

Visitors are always welcome at the Bradbury Building, and are provided plenty of historical facts, figures, and information about it, with brochures available and scheduled tours possible. Visitors can go up only as far as the first landing, not past it, as the building still houses the Los Angeles Police Department's Internal Affairs division and various other government agencies. Some offices and ground-floor spaces are occupied by commercial operations, including Red Line Tours, a cell phone store, and food vendors.

It is a worthwhile trek to make, whether you're a tourist or a local, but don't fret if you can't get to the Bradbury Building soon. It is a survivor, a hardy one, and will be there waiting for you when you get the time. If you just want a quick peek, you can always check your cable listings for one of the TV shows or movies featuring the Bradbury, search the Internet for photos of it, or keep this issue of BUNKER HILL handy. Time will tell, but Angelenos could be looking backward at the history of this historic building for decades, perhaps centuries, to come.

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