University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

The film industry and urban development in metropolitan Los Angeles, 1920-1975

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The film industry and urban development in metropolitan Los Angeles, 1920-1975

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Content THE FILM INDUSTRY AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN METROPOLITAN LOS ANGELES, 1920-1975 by Stephanie Barbara Frank A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (POLICY, PLANNING, AND DEVELOPMENT) May 2013 Copyright 2013 Stephanie Barbara Frank ii Table of Contents Acknowledgements iii List of Figures iv Abstract vi Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: Comprehensive Development: Twentieth Century Fox & Century City in West Los Angeles 47 Chapter 3: Piecemeal Development: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Culver City 108 Chapter 4: Incremental Development: Paramount in Hollywood 146 Chapter 5: Conclusion: Three Typologies of Urban Development 178 Bibliography 192 iii Acknowledgements Portions of Chapter 1 and Chapter 3 were first published in “Claiming Hollywood: Boosters, the Film Industry, and Metropolitan Los Angeles” in the Journal of Urban History, vol. 38, no. 1 (January 2012) by SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. © 2012 SAGE Publications. This dissertation received funding from the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation through a Historical Society of Southern California Summer Research Stipend (2010), a Fellowship in Los Angeles History at the Huntington Library (2010), and a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (2011-2012). Additionally, the project was awarded funding through the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate Dissertation Fellowship (2010-2011) and the USC Graduate School Dissertation Completion Fellowship (2011-2012). Finally, I would like to thank my committee, friends, and family for their tireless support of this project. You know who you are, and you will get your due in the book. iv List of Figures Figure 1.1: Map of Film Studio Locations 4 Figure 1.2: This is Hollywood 17 Figure 1.3: Map Locating Culver City 19 Figure 1.4: Table of Film Industry Employment Statistics, 1929-1939 28 Figure 1.5: Plan of MGM Lot 1 35 Figure 2.1: Map of Century City in Context 48 Figure 2.2: Map of Century City in Local Context 50 Figure 2.3: Map of Fox Studio’s Neighbors 57 Figure 2.4: 1928 View of the Studio 60 Figure 2.5: 1956 View of the Studio and Surrounding Area 63 Figure 2.6: Century City Site Plan 70 Figure 2.7: 1958 Model of Century City Superimposed on the Landscape 72 Figure 2.8: Gathering to Sell the Land 79 Figure 2.9: Le Corbusier’s Zoning Plan for La Ville Radieuse 83 Figure 2.10: La Ville Radieuse & Century City Streetscapes 84 Figure 2.11: 1963 View of Century City Under Construction 91 Figure 2.12: 1965 View of Century City 92 Figure 2.13: The Century Plaza Hotel 93 Figure 2.14: 1971 View of Century City 96 Figure 3.1: The Administration Building 114 Figure 3.2: Map of MGM’s Landholdings 116 Figure 3.3: Table of MGM’s Seven Lots 117 v List of Figures (continued) Figure 3.4: Raintree Housing Development Site Plan 132 Figure 4.1: The Bronson Gate 147 Figure 4.2: Map of Paramount Studios 153 Figure 4.3: The Administration Building 157 Figure 4.4: Map of Paramount’s Eastern Expansion in 1942 164 Figure 4.5: 1955 Sanborn Map Showing Paramount’s Eastward Expansion 166 Figure 5.1: Typologies of Urban Development Matrix 180 vi Abstract This dissertation documents the role of film studios, as large landowners, in the shaping of the urban development of metropolitan Los Angeles through two dramatic shifts in the business model of the film industry that defined film companies’ locational and land-use decisions. First, the vertical integration of the film industry in the 1920s created the studio system, which organized production around manufacturing plants that expanded to meet the growing needs of product for company-owned theaters. Second, after a 1948 Supreme Court ruling declared such vertical integration an illegal trust and ordered the sell-off of the theater chains, film companies transformed their physical plants for a post-studio system era. All the while, the studios’ financial dependence on New York constrained the film industry’s influence on Los Angeles. Even as film production migrated to Los Angeles by the third decade of the twentieth century, film companies’ headquarters remained in New York, where all business decisions, including those about land use, were made until the 1970s. I selected three of the five vertically-integrated studios for analysis: Twentieth Century Fox (Fox) in West Los Angeles, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in Culver City, and Paramount in Hollywood (RKO Pictures and Warner Bros. were the other two). Analyzing these case studies allowed me to develop three typologies of urban development that distinguish among the companies’ reactions to the two shifts in the film industry and their location in different sections of the Los Angeles metropolis. First, Fox relocated its studio from Hollywood to an undeveloped suburban section of Los Angeles in 1928. After the collapse of the studio system, the company hired Los Angeles-based architect-planner Welton Becket’s firm to master plan modernist-styled Century City, vii which transformed the studio backlot into a node of economic activity surrounded by more conventional low-density suburban residential districts. Second, in contrast, MGM’s once sprawling film plant of seven noncontiguous lots in Culver City was sold and developed piecemeal in single-use redevelopments in the 1970s. Third, while Fox and MGM shrank, Paramount incrementally expanded its smaller, older studio in the urban core of Los Angeles in the 1940s, consuming the urban fabric that had previously contained its growth. Paramount expanded again in the 1960s when it acquired the adjoining lot that had once been RKO. By tracing the land-use decisions of three private firms, the study illuminates the interface between public and private planning efforts in shaping cities, mirroring the evolution of industries in other American cities. Specifically, a comparison of Los Angeles and its film industry to Pittsburgh’s steel and Detroit’s automobile industries reveals a similar relationship between industrialization and urban development. In each case, the firm’s vision of what to do with its large landholdings interacted with the city’s aspirations for the development of the areas it possessed. Such collaboration indicates a reciprocal role between private industry and urban planning in the urban development of metropolitan America. 1 Chapter 1 Introduction “It is because the movies make use of so many industries within an industry that a major film studio…is found more fascinating than any other type of industrial plant in America. . . .[I]t must be recognized as one of the most important factors in sustaining the various channels of trade which give life blood to the financial structure of the entire Los Angeles metropolitan area.” -- William LaBaron, Managing Director of Production, Paramount Studio, 1939 1 “To this island community of the West, motion pictures have attracted perhaps more people than they have ever employed and more capital than they have ever invested. They provided the community with precisely what it needed, payrolls, purchasing power—a simulated industrial base. Like the region itself, this key industry is premised upon improvisation, a matter of make-believe, a synthesis of air and wind and water.” -- Carey McWilliams, Southern California Country: An Island on the Land, 1946 2 Although the film industry may seem highly scrutinized, relatively few scholars in Los Angeles or urban history have documented its impact on the metropolis. Most of academic work has been devoted to the films, the moguls, the auteurs, and the role of American cinema in the cultural imaginary and globalization, while almost nothing has been written about the industrial, placed-based aspects of the film industry. Canonical tomes of Los Angeles history only marginally, if at all, address the presence of the film industry. Carey McWilliams’s relatively nuanced description of the film industry’s influence on Los Angeles is a rare example to the contrary. Although, as the excerpt above suggests, his mocking tone at times belies the depth of his insights. 3 For years, McWilliams’s account remained the definitive text on Los Angeles and his representation of the film industry the most complete. Twenty-one years later, when Robert M. Fogelson published The Fragmented Metropolis in 1967, he was the first academic to document Los Angeles’s urbanization and simultaneous decentralization up 2 to 1930. However, Fogelson ignored the film industry in the city’s development. 4 Meanwhile, Reyner Banham in Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, published in 1971, was an early champion of Los Angeles’s architecture, both its collection of midcentury modernism and the older pastiche influenced by Hollywood fantasies. Following McWilliams’s lead, Banham was more interested in the cultural and iconic status of the film studios and their influence on the city’s image than its physical development. 5 Similarly, Mike Davis in City of Quartz, the seminal 1990 work, examines the mostly noir side of the film industry, but again, confines it to cultural representations of Los Angeles. 6 Davis’s examination of the city’s past sparked a more than two-decade scholastic inquiry of Los Angeles, what geographer Michael Dear describes as “the least studied major city in the United States.” 7 But what if we consider the film industry in Los Angeles from William LaBaron’s perspective? Peeling away the glamour and gloss reveals film production as an industrial endeavor. Its smokeless factories belie its manufacturing reality. Along these lines, economic geographers have authored the most extensive scholarship on the film industry in Los Angeles. In a series of articles published from a mid-1980s study of the vertical disintegration of the film industry during the post-studio era, Michael Storper and Susan Christopherson described the then-current effects of the industrial reorganization into the reagglomeration of motion picture employment and the continued concentration in Los Angeles, despite the rise of shooting on location outside the region. 8 Expanding upon that work in time and scope, Allen J. Scott, in 2005, examined the origins, growth, and global dominance of the Hollywood motion picture industry as an organized ecology of specialized and complementary production activities and labor tasks. 9 3 While these studies analyze the industry’s impact on Los Angeles, they do not do so at the ground level. My project, beginning at the scale of the studio lot, documents the role of film studios, as large landowners, in the shaping of the urban development of metropolitan Los Angeles as defined by two dramatic shifts in the business model of the film industry. First, the vertical integration of the film industry in the 1920s created the studio system, which organized production around manufacturing plants that expanded to meet the growing needs of product for company-owned theaters. Second, after a 1948 Supreme Court ruling declared such vertical integration an illegal trust and ordered the sell-off of the theater chains, film companies transformed their physical plants for a post- studio system era. All the while, the studios’ financial dependence on New York constrained the film industry’s influence on Los Angeles. Even as film production migrated to Los Angeles by the third decade of the twentieth century, film companies’ headquarters remained in New York, where all business decisions, including those about land use, were made until the 1970s. I selected three of the five vertically-integrated studios for analysis: Twentieth Century Fox (Fox) in West Los Angeles, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in Culver City, and Paramount in Hollywood (RKO Pictures and Warner Bros. were the other two). Paramount bought RKO’s former landholdings in the 1960s, which is detailed in the study. In selecting a studio outside the City of Los Angeles’s boundaries, MGM presented a more dynamic example of urban development than Warner Bros. did (see Figure 1.1 for a map of the studios in context). Analyzing these case studies allowed me to develop three typologies of urban development that distinguish among the companies’ reactions to the two shifts in the film industry and their location in different sections of 4 FIGURE 1.1 MAP OF FILM STUDIO LOCATIONS. This map, reproduced from the 1930 Motion Picture Almanac, shows the location and statistics of Los Angeles’s film studios circa 1930. On the map, Fox’s West Los Angeles studio is marked 3 (the Hollywood studio is 10), MGM is 8, and Paramount is 11. Source: Thomas Schatz, The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988), 10. 5 the Los Angeles metropolis. First, Fox relocated its studio from Hollywood to an undeveloped suburban section of Los Angeles in 1928. After the collapse of the studio system, the company hired Los Angeles-based architect-planner Welton Becket’s firm to master plan modernist-styled Century City, which transformed the studio backlot into a node of economic activity surrounded by more conventional low-density suburban residential districts. Second, in contrast, MGM’s once sprawling film plant of seven noncontiguous lots in Culver City was sold and developed piecemeal in single-use redevelopments in the 1970s. Third, while Fox and MGM shrank, Paramount incrementally expanded its smaller, older studio in the urban core of Los Angeles in the 1940s, consuming the urban fabric that had previously contained its growth. Paramount expanded again in the 1960s when it acquired the adjoining lot that had once been RKO. By tracing the land-use decisions of three private firms, the study illuminates the interface between public and private planning efforts in shaping cities. In each case, the firm’s vision of what to do with its large landholdings interacted with the city’s aspirations for the development of the areas it possessed. Such collaboration indicates a reciprocal role between private industry and urban planning in the urban development of metropolitan America. Examining the film industry in Los Angeles reveals that it mirrors the evolution of industries in other American cities. Specifically, a comparison of Los Angeles and its film industry to Pittsburgh’s steel and Detroit’s automobile industries reveals a similar relationship between industrialization and urban development. While Pittsburgh and Detroit are typically touted as classic industrial cities, Los Angeles is not typically categorized as such or compared with the two cities. However, the cities are more similar 6 than previously recognized. Each began as colonial outposts on the frontier in the eighteenth century, remained small settlements, and only urbanized as their industrial bases developed and populations boomed. 10 Pittsburgh industrialized a generation earlier than Detroit, which was a few years ahead of Los Angeles. Los Angeles’s industry, including film, took off around the time the other two peaked, but there remain similarities among the three in the urban development effects of industrialization. In Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place, John R. Logan and Harvey L. Molotch explain urban development as the result of the tension between exchange value and use value. Influenced by Marxist writers, especially David Harvey, Logan and Molotch adapted such terminology to urban phenomena. They write, “For us, the fundamental attributes of all commodities, but particularly of land and buildings, are the social contexts through which they are used and exchanged. Any given piece of real estate has both a use value and an exchange value.” 11 Logan and Molotch argue that there are conflicting “forces pushing for ‘exchange value,’ to make money off the patterns of development” and “those struggling for ‘use value,’ ways to utilize land, buildings, and communities as part of their daily lives.” 12 Urban development, then, is the character of urban growth—that is, the shapes, patterns, densities, and land uses that make up the built environment—that results from the tension between exchange and use values as determined by the actions of many agents. The focus on the tension between exchange and use values aptly describes the land-use decisions of film executives in response to changing economic circumstances in the film industry. All three case-study studios planned redevelopment of their film manufacturing plants, viewing their land assets as sources of income when the changed 7 structure of box-office revenues resulted in lower profits. In other words, the film companies favored the exchange value of the studio land rather than the use value of the production sites. At the same time, the municipalities that zoned the studios and their redevelopments responded favorably to these requests because they too gave preference to exchange value rather than use value. As Logan and Molotch explain, “In zoning, planning, environmental protection, and, more broadly, national urban policies, the overall thrust of urban programs has been to bolster development and rents, and rarely to enhance use values.” 13 The cities of Los Angeles and Culver City were pleased to accommodate industrial zoning for film manufacturing plants within their borders beginning in the 1910s, because the production sites boosted the exchange values for the locations and their surroundings, which had mainly been in the service of agriculture. When Fox and MGM requested zoning changes for redevelopment, the cities also obliged, because their developed locales would receive another boost in exchange value for residential and commercial uses over the existing use value of the manufacturing plants. This aspect played out differently in the case of Fox and MGM with Culver City exerting more control and oversight of MGM’s redevelopment plans than Los Angeles did for Fox. This should be no surprise, according to Logan and Molotch who argue that suburban local governments, such as Culver City, were created in the very interest of increasing exchange values. 14 While all localities desire to increase exchange values due to the extra revenue such a practice generates, Logan and Molotch and Mike Davis, a few years later, observed the particularly exclusive agenda behind suburban incorporation that empowered communities with tools to more tightly control their land values. 15 8 By focusing analysis at the scale of the film studio and at the pressure points of the business model of the film industry, this study is similar to Louise A. Mozingo’s Pastoral Capitalism: A History of Suburban Corporate Landscapes, where she explains that postwar changes in society and corporate management created distinct types of suburban headquarters. 16 According to Mozingo, it was corporations’ responses to new scales of manufacturing that reinvented production facilities in the suburbs in the first half of the twentieth century, which later led to reinvention of management facilities in the suburbs in the second half in response to a new scale and scope of management. 17 Meanwhile, this project documents the era from 1920 to 1975 in which the studios built their manufacturing plants to their greatest expanses, driven by the business model of the industry, in decentralized locales in the Los Angeles metropolis before World War II and then the three diverging paths each case study studio took in the postwar and post-studio era. As part of this transformation of landscapes of work, Mozingo explains that until the 1940s, corporate management offices were in two places, either in central business districts close to bankers and insurance companies who financed them or in their manufacturing works in order to be close to production. In part to emphasize the class distinctions between managers and laborers, factory-based management suburbanized first. 18 On one hand, film companies were like other corporations with offices in New York City, where they remained close to financiers on Wall Street while expanding their Los Angeles production facilities. On the other hand, they diverged from the norm by first keeping their headquarters in Times Square, often in buildings they built with flagship theaters at street level, until the 1970s (when others went the way of pastoral 9 capitalism) and then moving those headquarters to their manufacturing plants in Los Angeles when other industries had long made the spatial distinction between corporate management and production workers. Both Mozingo’s and my studies, investigating the urban developments created by private corporations that shaped metropolitan landscapes, underscore the private contributions to American metropolitan urban planning and development. While the domains and actions of publicly-sanctioned municipal, state, and federal planning activities remain the focus of planning and planning history literature, in the end all agree that public and private planning efforts are interdependent. For example, in challenging the received wisdom that housing rather than employment led and continues to lead urban expansion, Greg Hise in Magnetic Los Angeles: Planning the Twentieth-Century Metropolis, uses case studies of community builders’ developments around aircraft manufacturing plants and other industry to demonstrate public-private planning interdependence. 19 My project, by focusing on the private actors, enriches our understanding of this interdependence and the private sector’s role in planning innovation. In Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century, Peter Hall places “The City of Enterprise” in the last quarter of the century when “the city-planning movement began to turn upside down and inside out.” 20 He explains, “planning turned from regulating urban growth, to encouraging it by any and every possible means. Cities, the new message rang loud and clear, were machines for wealth creation; the first and chief aim of planning must be to oil the machinery.” 21 Hall situates the rise of private-sector interests driving public planning 10 agendas during the height of the postwar urban crisis spawned by mass decentralization but seemingly ignores that wealth creation had long been part of planning’s externalities when not its direct aims. For instance, regulation of lot sizes, platting streets, and zoning them for use stabilize real estate markets, make wealth creation possible, and protect property values with their predictability. Meanwhile, the postwar attempt to revive cities was more complicated than Hall’s assertions of well-oiled machinery enabling private development suggests. My project documents enterprise’s long participation in planning and urban development and illustrates the complicated relationship of municipal oversight of such activities. For example, the City of Los Angeles was not that interested in regulating Century City’s development in the 1960s and 1970s, and city officials were slow to allow Paramount to expand into the residential neighborhood in the 1940s. Culver City, in contrast, more in line with the deindustrializing places of Hall’s focus, was much more active in regulating and shaping the development that occurred on MGM’s former backlots. Culver City, a small fraction of the size of Los Angeles, relied more heavily on the film industry and MGM in particular for its economic survival. Redevelopment of one film studio proportionally had a much greater impact in Culver City than Los Angeles, and thus, Culver City had more at stake in ensuring a project would satisfy its interests while boosting exchange values. At the same time, it was Culver City, through founder Harry Culver’s efforts, who actively courted the film industry in the 1910s while Los Angeles was agnostic toward the industry’s growth within its bounds. Private developers have long been recognized as driving planning innovations and standards. In 1987, Marc Weiss studied the role of private developers in planning and 11 development innovation, describing their role as “private innovation preceding public action.” 22 More recently, Ann Forsyth has explored the role of private developers in planning innovation in her study of three planned communities from the 1960s and 1970s in Reforming Suburbia. 23 Forsyth is interested in the private-planning innovations that resulted from the three new town developments in her study, primarily related to combating suburban sprawl. This study illuminates the private sector’s innovation in planning in both form and economic structure. Fox’s foresight to hire Welton Becket and Associates to design its development spawned Century City, an innovation in modernist planning on a blank slate, similar to Forsyth’s new towns or Brazil’s new capital, Brasilia. 24 Meanwhile, MGM’s piecemeal sale and development of its backlots resulted in high concentrations of multifamily housing in Culver City, much of which was soon after converted to condominiums. The developers intended to introduce condominiums to Culver City, then a new innovation in private home ownership, but Culver City planning officials denied the plans based on their uncertainty about the new form. Nearly forty-five years ago, Sam Bass Warner, Jr. declared privatism “the most important element of our culture for understanding the development of cities.” 25 While this is not to say that these film firms ultimately saw no benefit for anyone beyond their shareholders, the companies’ bottom lines were usually the driving force in the decisions that resulted in the transformation of urban development. More recently, urban economist Raphael W. Bostic has noted that a central tenet of land use is that “the specifics of the urban form depend on the decisions of individual landowners. Although this fact is obvious to some extent, there is a relatively small literature focusing on the details and 12 processes underlying landowners’ development choices.” 26 In that respect, this project seeks to enrich that literature. Understanding the cumulative effects of individual landowners pushes us toward examining large landowners as an understudied force in urban development. Weiss opens his 1987 book on real estate and urban planning declaring, “The history of the last century in American real estate is one of increasing growth in the average scale of development and the size of the land parcel, increasing sophistication in the scope and quality of the structural improvements to land and buildings, and increasing economic coordination and integration in the phases of the development process by the entrepreneurs.” 27 In other words, urban development has been moving toward larger parcels, larger development projects, and larger landholders at the helm. Bostic builds on Weiss’s history, explaining that large landowners are central to land supply, economics, planning, and land use, and large landowners are “highly sensitive to these forces and their interaction.” 28 In her study, Forsyth found that “ownership of very large tracts of land gave the developers some legitimacy in dealing with governments and initiating planning and development activity, but it often forced a strained relationship between the private and public actors.” 29 The film companies in this study did gain legitimacy in their redevelopment prospects by controlling so much land. The only strong evidence of any strain between a film company and its public regulator was between MGM and Culver City, again likely due to its dominating presence in the city. In crafting a qualitative, ground-level examination of historical urban development patterns, I became acutely aware that the contemporary literature on urban 13 development is focused on quantitative studies of urban growth in metropolitan areas, largely confirming cities are growing polycentrically. 30 While this conclusion may reverse the longstanding dominance of the classical urban growth model of centrality, it does not reference the swell of qualitative work that has, in parallel to the quantitative work, been challenging that assumption. The current paradigm that cities are growing in a polycentric or polynuclear fashion is a recent revision to the longstanding dominance of the classical urban growth model, also known as the concentric ring theory, devised by Ernest W. Burgess. As part of the Chicago School of Urbanism, dubbed such for the influence of University of Chicago’s sociologists on our understanding of cities, Burgess, using Chicago as his laboratory and two memorable graphics, argued that cities grew concentrically from the central business district, creating five distinct zones of land use with the highest land values at the center. 31 One of Burgess’s contemporary critics of his neat, tidy model of urban development was University of Chicago trained land economist, real estate consultant, and planning scholar Homer Hoyt, who coincidentally later worked as a consultant on the Century City plan. Hoyt devised a sector theory of urban development based on radial development along streetcar lines. 32 As planning historian Robert Beauregard explains, Hoyt “agreed with Burgess that cities developed by pushing outward, but where Burgess saw ripples Hoyt saw spokes. Ring-like growth simply contradicted his experience.” 33 These central-focused urban development theories, which dominated planning history until the very end of the twentieth century, made the distinction between central cities and surrounding suburbs the defining element of urban growth. 14 Central to the transformation of urban historians’ understanding of the growth of cities, pushing us away from a city/suburb dichotomy and toward metropolitan history is Hise’s Magnetic Los Angeles. In the book, Hise proposes “suburbanization as urbanization,” studying cities as metropolitan regions rather than opposing, inexact “city” and “suburb.” 34 Following Hise’s lead, historical geographers Richard Harris and Robert Lewis, in “The Geography of North American Cities and Suburbs, 1900-1950,” provide a new interpretation of the changing geography of cities and suburbs in the United States and Canada in the first half of the twentieth century based on a synthesis of new scholarship that challenges the accepted wisdom of city growth as well as scholarship from the time period that challenged the dominant models of the Chicago School but were largely ignored. Evaluating the literature through the broad categories of the urban economy (manufacturing, office, retail), social geographic patterns (residential, jobs, transportation, journey to work, home as work site), land development and house building, and political fragmentation, Harris and Lewis conclude the distinction between city and suburb is moot and we should instead consider “metropolitan, urbanized areas.” 35 Similarly, models of urban growth directed from a central point and the city/suburb dichotomy have been an ill fit for Los Angeles since its founding. As Michael Dear, who has advocated for an L.A. School of Urbanism to counter Chicago’s, observes, “To outsiders, Southern California has long been viewed as an exception to the rules governing American urban development. But to insiders, Los Angeles has simply confirmed what contemporaries have known throughout this century: that the city posited a different set of rules for understanding urban growth.” 36 Those rules included a 15 polycentric growth pattern, whereby different nodes within the metropolis serve as centers of economic activity while pushing and pulling surrounding development. Mounting evidence suggests that Los Angeles, long thought an innovator in this type of urban growth, was typical of urban development in the twentieth century. Furthermore, Harris and Lewis assert that most cities had a polynuclear manufacturing geography by 1900, when 32 percent of all manufacturing jobs in U.S. metropolitan centers were located beyond the city limits. 37 Hise, the foremost historian of industrial Los Angeles, has argued that Los Angeles’s industrial nature, including its dispersal, was highly planned. 38 He has also noted that scholars and pundits have overlooked production in Los Angeles in favor of consumption, and offered a specific case study of the Cudahy Packing Company’s operations in Los Angeles to illuminate the industrial, political, and regulatory processes that create places of manufacture. 39 Following Hise, my work on the film industry in Los Angeles considers the studios as production engines rather than the generators of consumption for which they are most frequently analyzed. At the same time, the film studios, as manufacturing plants, conformed to Bostic’s assessment of large landowners as “the locus of economic activity for a neighborhood, a city, or even a region,” such as metropolitan Los Angeles. 40 HOLLYWOOD AND THE ECONOMIC FORCE OF THE FILM INDUSTRY IN LOS ANGELES Nine white letters fifty feet tall perched atop a mountain spell out “Hollywood.” This familiar landmark conjures hopes and dreams of stardom, an industry that produces these fantasies, and the city in which all of it is possible. Originally constructed in 1923 to advertise a new residential subdivision called Hollywoodland, over time the sign lost 16 four letters and gained mythic status. But Hollywood is a real place. It was subdivided in the 1880s, incorporated as a city in 1903, and consolidated with the City of Los Angeles in 1910 for access to water. “Hollywood” may be found in indices but often only as a superficial qualifier. The term is often evoked in what I describe as a mythical nesting of concepts to represent the neighborhood, the American film industry, the Los Angeles metropolis, or even the entirety of Southern California. “Hollywood” is a synecdoche, and most authors take for granted what the term implies. Hollywood is also the only neighborhood in Los Angeles with officially designated boundaries (see Figure 1.2 for a map of Hollywood’s boundaries). In a vast city, such as Los Angeles, most residents are keenly aware of neighborhood and community boundaries, real or imagined. Such boundaries do not lie uncontested, but the city government does not intervene in these disputes. Instead, each municipal agency is free to use its own boundaries for communities. However, Hollywood stands apart with an ordinance passed into law in September 1937 that established its boundaries. Why? Numerous local histories and one scholarly study have observed these distinct boundaries, but none have understood their origin. 41 The academic study is a cultural geography dissertation that contemplates the usefulness of standardized district boundaries for cities, utilizing Hollywood as an example. Joseph Beaton, the author, reports that he could not find a reason for Hollywood’s curious establishment of district boundaries in 1937, but he infers from the ordinance language that it may have had something to do with protecting the “Hollywood” name. 42 17 FIGURE 1.2 THIS IS HOLLYWOOD. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce prepared this map, which illustrates Hollywood’s boundaries and the locations of film studios in Los Angeles. The chamber submitted the map to the Los Angeles City Council along with its petition to the council to declare official district boundaries for Hollywood to thwart Culver City’s attempt to usurp its name. Source: Los Angeles City Council Petition File 2565 (1937), box A-651, Los Angeles City Archives. 18 That assumption was correct. In 1937, Culver City, a four-square-mile municipality of then eight thousand people southwest of Hollywood, attempted to change its name to Hollywood (see Figure 1.3 for a map locating Culver City). The solution of the City of Los Angeles and concerned Hollywood boosters to securing the name and thwarting Culver City’s actions was the ordinance establishing Hollywood’s boundaries. Central to this conflict and the delineation of Hollywood’s official boundaries are boosters and boosterism’s role in shaping places and what people think of them. Boosters are place promoters; their professions vary from real estate entrepreneurs to local business owners to anyone involved in chambers of commerce or other local organizations that address community or economic concerns. In the grand narrative of American history, boosters are fundamental to the understanding of urban history. 43 Traditionally, histories may have dismissed the significance of boosterism in shaping the American West, but recent studies have placed boosters and their efforts at the center of both historical and our contemporary understanding of the region and specific places within it. 44 Boosters have long been understood as key players in the history and development of Los Angeles. In The Fragmented Metropolis, Fogelson describes late- nineteenth-century boosters, desperate for migrants to make their way to Los Angeles, as selling the town on its abundant agricultural land, pleasant climate, and “hospitable society.” 45 Other facets of boosterism in Los Angeles focused on its shifting racial demographics as both the city of the future and the heir to a romantic, Spanish past, especially through the remaking of the built environment. 46 During the 1920s, boosters’ imaginative industrial geographies shaped Los Angeles’s growth in manufacturing capacity and in spatial terms, determining land use patterns for the metropolis to the 19 FIGURE 1.3 MAP LOCATING CULVER CITY. This map shows the location of Culver City within Los Angeles County’s urbanized area. Source: City of Culver City, <http://www.culvercity.org>. 20 present. 47 Furthermore, cultural products—such as language and visual arts, music, fashion, and certainly film and television—produced in Los Angeles or about the metropolis have historically and continually served as some of the most effective boosterism. 48 Boosters often played a critical role in the local economy’s frequent cycles of boom and bust. Fogelson details the emergence of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce following the boom and bust of the 1880s, which served as a promotion machine for the next thirty years. 49 The Culver City Chamber of Commerce, attempting to transform the city’s fortunes from depression to prosperity, engineered a name change campaign—which many at the time dismissed as a clever publicity stunt—for this purpose. Meanwhile, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce fought its counterpart in Culver City in its attempts to usurp its name. While the dispute was over a name, it was also an intrametropolitan conflict over each locale’s role in the film industry. Even though film production has long been decentralized, since the early twentieth century through the present, Hollywood the place has been synonymous with the American film industry. Migrating from film production’s strongest concentrations in New York and New Jersey, film companies arrived in Los Angeles in the first decade of the twentieth century. Early film migrants scouted locations and established production facilities everywhere across the large area—then sparsely populated—we understand as its metropolis today. In the 1910s, a concentration of such companies emerged in Hollywood, a former orange grove and residential suburb seven miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. 21 Why was Hollywood the center of the film industry? Joseph Beaton explains that the “movies chose Hollywood” for geographic, economic, and political reasons. While filming occurred all over the Los Angeles landscape, firms chose to locate in Hollywood for the following reasons: First, proximity to the Los Angeles central business district (CBD) where one could find film-processing facilities, goods and services, rentals, and active and high-quality legitimate theater. Second, Hollywood was centrally located between the CBD and varied landscape locales such as the desert, mountains, and ocean compared to other places. Third, the local scenery was varied and of high quality for filming, including nearby Griffith Park, while the skies were generally clearer than costal locations. Fourth, there was more land and space for lower prices in Hollywood than the CBD. Fifth, as part of the city of Los Angeles, Hollywood offered firms access to municipal services not available in other locales, to which East Coast businessmen were accustomed. Sixth, there was a “colorful array of fine residences” and inns for lodging and entertainment, despite the prohibition of alcohol sales. Finally, and most importantly, once there was a plurality there were benefits of economies of scale. 50 By 1924, “Hollywood” was the generic reference for American film production, signaled by the publication of the bizarre blend of racism, religion, and film in Hollywood as a World Center by Perley Poore Sheehan, who was better known as a screenwriter, director, and novelist. 51 Film studios employed the term “Hollywood”—stamping all films credits during the studio era “Made in Hollywood”—to build a brand and serve as an umbrella for motion pictures created anywhere in Los Angeles. The rise of the term coincided with the decentralization of film production, suggesting a deep concern about industrial and 22 metropolitan fragmentation. In this way, film’s supposed concentration but actual dispersion made a greater Los Angeles through a greater Hollywood. Scholars have described the Los Angeles metropolis as both “fragmented” and “magnetic,” and the film industry contributed to both those qualities. Meanwhile, Los Angeles, a “metropolis in the making” in the 1920s, solidified its stature as a film production center. 52 While much of the production elements of “Hollywood,” or its production economy, spread outward seeking more abundant and cheaper land on which to expand, the cultural economy, or the promotion machine for the film industry, remained in Hollywood. The star system, which evolved as a key component of the studio era, beginning with the industry-wide changes in the 1920s, necessitated that film stars enjoy the vibrant nightlife at supper and night clubs along Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards in Hollywood and along the Sunset Strip in adjoining unincorporated territory of Los Angeles County known as West Hollywood. 53 The press reported on these activities as an important part of the promotional machine for the film industry. The cultural economy also consisted of other networking events such as “doing lunch” and, most notably, glitzy movie premieres. Historian David Karnes observes, “The glamour which nourished movie culture depended upon the ways in which Hollywood’s worldly realities and fantastic appeals so irresistibly reinforced one another, and it was around this linkage that early movie premieres developed.” 54 While the production economy manufactured the films that were seen by nearly all Americans and many others around the globe, it was the cultural economy’s activities that promoted the fantasy and glamour of the movies to the world. As sociologist Harvey Molotch observes, “The image of places comes from the sense people have—local people and those far away—of the cultural-material 23 interactions within them. And this reputation of place becomes another aspect of local economic structure, a part of its geographic capital.” 55 This may, at least in part, explain the evolution of the mythical nesting of concepts bound in the term “Hollywood.” Anchored in Hollywood, the cultural economy generated images of the place for mass consumption. These images attracted tourists to Hollywood rather than the dispersed locations that undertook film production. As such, this tension was a source of intrametropolitan conflict, especially between Culver City and Hollywood. Today, Los Angeles is widely regarded as a leading global hub of arts and culture. 56 As part of the thriving literature on the creative economy, scholars have compared Los Angeles and New York. Several studies find that Los Angeles has advantages over its East Coast rival in multiple industries and sectors, leading to a soon- likely assessment that Los Angeles has supplanted New York as the arts and cultural capital of the United States. 57 This was far from inevitable when the film industry began operations in Los Angeles in the first decade of the twentieth century. For starters, film was not considered an art at the time and its cultural merits were debatable by society’s tastemakers’ standards. Historian Sarah Schrank details how, in the 1930s, powerful individuals in the film industry supported civic arts in Los Angeles to validate filmmaking as art and legitimate the film industry “as a mainstream economic force rather than a marginalized immigrant craft.” 58 In the decades that followed, film anchored the arts culture in Los Angeles, attracting agglomerations of other artistic industries and artists of all mediums to the metropolis. Over time, due to changes in the industry, film and other sectors merged to form the broader category of entertainment. 24 With it, the “Hollywood” moniker transferred from motion pictures to the larger entertainment field. In 2010, the most recent year for which data is available, the motion picture and video industries employed 112,143 people in Los Angeles County with an average annual wage of $100,473, nearly twice the average wage ($53,143) for the County’s workforce of 3,856,800. The motion picture and video industries made up 70 percent of Los Angeles County’s largest trade cluster, the entertainment industry, with a total employment of 159,900 people who earned an annual wage of $110,777 in 2010. Los Angeles County represented 63 percent of California’s and 15 percent of the nation’s entertainment employment. 59 That same year, the direct sales of the entertainment industry in Los Angeles County totaled $48.4 billion, most of which resulted from film production. The estimated total output was more than $71.1 billion. Meanwhile, state and local sales taxes directly and indirectly attributed to the entertainment industry totaled $1.3 billion. 60 Film studios are notoriously cagey about revealing information regarding their productions and operations. The industry as a whole did not track employment or economic contributions historically. Although the Motion Picture Association of America (the industry’s lobbying group frequently referred to as the MPAA and most known for its ratings board) now tracks these figures for promotional purposes, it does so only at the state and national levels. One studio, not part of this study, just announced it has been keeping track of its economic contributions to the local economy for more than a decade. Warner Bros., a major film studio that has been located in Burbank for more than seventy years since leaving Hollywood, revealed it contributed more than $4 billion to the Los 25 Angeles County economy in 2010. An increase of nearly 30 percent from 1999 (when the studio expended $3.16 billion), Warner Bros. spent $1.58 billion on products and services in the county and paid $2.5 billion in wages and residuals to county residents in 2010. 61 Historically, through the present, the film industry has been a significant economic contributor to the Los Angeles County economy. According to data tracked by the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce (LAACC), the film industry quickly grew as such. In 1920, the first year for which data are available, the LAACC claimed approximately 80 percent of film production studios were located in Los Angeles County and conservatively estimated the value of productions at $150 million (more than $1.7 billion in 2012 dollars) with many millions in capital invested. That year the industry employed about 10,000 people with a weekly payroll of $500,000. The LAACC was so optimistic about the surge in the film industry in Los Angeles it reported that “large distributing companies are contemplating the distribution of their pictures from Los Angeles, thus placing this city not only as the great producing center but distributing center of motion pictures as well.” 62 That did not happen for more than fifty years, however. The LAACC proved more accurate with its 1924 prediction: “Every producer of motion pictures will eventually locate in Los Angeles because of the fact that it is here and here only that the producers can find at their hand every type of material necessary in their industry, as well as the most highly skilled mechanics and artisans vitally necessary for their successful production.” For decades, Los Angeles dominated in part for these reasons. Where the Chamber proved to be too optimistic, it continued, “It is this latter point, in the opinion of many of the big producers, that has forced the development of the 26 art here, as these highly skilled persons refuse to leave Los Angeles for location elsewhere.” 63 Runaway production, or the flight of film and television production from Los Angeles to locales offering greater tax incentives, has become an increasing threat in the post-studio era. 64 By 1925, film was one of the top industries in Los Angeles. According to LAACC estimates, output from the film industry totaled $175 million, which was only second to petroleum’s $225 million. Thirty-eight other industries combined to output $850 million. At the time, there were 250 film production companies and fifty-eight film studios in Los Angeles County producing 84 percent of the country’s films. 65 Throughout the 1920s, the film industry solidified its position in Los Angeles, even as the number of production companies and film studios decreased. By 1929, the number of production companies and studios in Los Angeles County shrank to seventy-three and twenty-five, respectively. 66 Those numbers reflect the changes in the industry that occurred during the decade, discussed in depth in the next section of the chapter, as a result of the vertical integration of the industry and the creation of an oligopoly that forced many independents into extinction. Placing film in perspective, consider the larger economic and industrial picture of Los Angeles in the 1920s. The 1920s was the formidable decade for Los Angeles during which the city’s population more than doubled to 1.24 million residents, the city annexed an additional eighty square miles, and an economy based on tourism and real estate speculation gained significant grounds in manufacturing. 67 The City of Los Angeles increased its industrial output nearly 500 percent between 1914 and 1927, from $103 million to more than $610 million. Meanwhile, Los Angeles County, between 1919 and 27 1927, increased its output from $400 million to almost $1 billion. By the end of the decade, Los Angeles was the ninth leading manufacturing center in the United States, up from twentieth-eighth in 1920. It was also first in film production and second in the manufacture of automobile tires and tubes. The LAACC boasted that Los Angeles led all cities west of Chicago in the production of a long list of varied items, including bakery products, canned fish, machine shop products, furniture, ice cream, and printing and publishing. 68 The 1920s, with help from the film industry, was the decade in which Los Angeles’s cycle of boom and bust transitioned into a period of sustained growth— physically, economically, and culturally—that transformed it into a metropolis of the first order. The film industry remained robust, firmly establishing Los Angeles as the American film production capital. In the ten years between 1929 and 1939, the number of film production companies and employment figures fluctuated in Los Angeles and the rest of the country, but at no point did Los Angeles claim less than 77 percent of the film industry’s employment. The period ended with its highest share at 89.8 percent of American film industry employment (30,250 workers) and $130,960,561 in total salaries and wages in Los Angeles County in 1939; the rest of the nation’s wages totaled only another $8 million more for about 3,400 more people. 69 (See Figure 1.4 for a table that compares Los Angeles employment, wages, and production costs to the entire country.) On the eve of the dissolution of the studio system, when Los Angeles County ranked as the sixth largest industrial area in the country, post-1939 (and pre-post-studio era) employment in the film industry in Los Angeles peaked in 1946 at 24,000. 70 By the 28 FIGURE 1.4 TABLE OF FILM INDUSTRY EMPLOYMENT STATISTICS, 1929-1939. Source: U.S. Census Bureau; Adapted from Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, Factual Data Showing the Economic Strength of Los Angeles (1924 to 1940) (Los Angeles: Industrial Department, 1940), USC Special Collections, LAACC Collection Box 53. Los Angeles County Year Establishments No. of Employees Share of Employment Salaries & Wages Cost of Production 1929 52 15,153 77.3% $ 72,074,457 $129,274,246 1933 39 16,417 86.2% $ 65,944,283 $ 97,748,377 1935 75 23,179 84.5% $ 95,725,167 $165,064,504 1937 35 28,179 87% $132,914,402 $171,943,349 1939 88 30,250 89.8% $130,960,561 $186,768,701 United States Year Establishments No. of Employees Salaries & Wages Cost of Production 1929 142 19,602 $ 85,027,612 $184,102,419 1933 92 19,037 $ 71,343,941 $119,342,866 1935 129 27,417 $101,754,426 $188,469,660 1937 83 32,398 $139,551,080 $197,741,358 1939 178 33,687 $139,077,063 $215,664,929 29 end of the studio era, the film industry was one of the ten leading industries in the United States with capital investment and financial worth over $2.6 billion. 71 THE STUDIO SYSTEM AND THE STUDIO PLANT The studio era or the classical studio system refers to the period in which five fully-integrated and three semi-integrated film companies controlled the film industry. Two chief innovations in the industry created the studio system that took hold around 1920. The first involved the business structure and the second the production process. First, Paramount founder Adolph Zukor pioneered the vertical integration of a film company, in control of production, postproduction, distribution, and exhibition in 1914. Zukor created the business model that others followed. The five vertically integrated companies, known as the Big Five, that came to control the industry were Paramount, Fox, Loew’s (MGM’s parent company), Warner Bros., and RKO. The Little Three, which were not fully integrated since they owned few or no theaters, were Universal, Columbia, and United Artists. Second, Thomas Ince’s introduction of the continuity script or shooting script streamlined the production process by filming for continuity (such as on the same set or at same location) rather than in sequential order as had been done previously. In her illuminating study of the film industry in the early 1940s, Mae D. Huettig explained, “The outstanding economic fact about the motion picture industry is this: that by means of ownership of a relatively small number of theatres, five firms have achieved within less than twenty years apparently stable control over an industry consisting originally of thousands of independent units, operating as three fairly distinct branches of the industry, scattered geographically, and quite unorganized.” 72 The Big Five dictated 30 the terms of distribution and exhibition (through company-owned theater chains), which was the lynchpin in the system and the greatest source of profits for the companies. The Little Three cooperated with the Big Five to ensure their films were shown in theaters across the country. These changes also occurred as the craft matured in other areas, both creatively and technologically. Genres and their conventions, still in place today, evolved as well at this time. Consequently, according to film and labor historian Steven J. Ross, these shifts altered filmmaking in the 1920s from small independent productions—often with socialist or politically varied themes—to a multimillion-dollar manufacturing industry financed by Wall Street. 73 Zukor’s business acumen and Ince’s filmmaking efficiency transformed the film industry from a loose operation with many small, independent companies to a planned enterprise undertaken by corporations. For instance, Los Angeles reached its peak of film production companies in 1923 with 250 firms and fifty-eight studios when these changes were occurring. The numbers held for a couple of years, but by 1929, when the studio system was firmly in place and Los Angeles was securely number one in the country in film production, there were seventy-three production companies and twenty-five studios. 74 Independent exhibitors continually challenged the oligopoly but had no success until the Justice Department filed antitrust action against the major studios. In United States v. Paramount et al., filed in July 1938, the Justice Department charged the major film companies with conspiring to unreasonably restrain trade and monopolization of the production, distribution, and exhibition of motion pictures. In the suit, the government 31 demanded the separation of production from exhibition, the elimination of block booking (selling multiple films as a single unit), and the end of many other producer-distributor trade practices. Originally scheduled to go to trial in New York in June 1940, negotiations resulted in a consent decree that governed industry practices for three years. The case was adjudicated in 1945 and appealed all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which ruled against the film companies in 1948. 75 While the decision did little to help the independent exhibitors as intended, it fundamentally changed the business of filmmaking. Companies divested their lucrative theater chains, shifted production to fewer but grander films, and made their land-use decisions accordingly. Allen J. Scott notes of this transition that after a brief period of mass production, while fordism dominated industry across the country, “the entire Hollywood motion picture industry restructured in ways that made it vastly less concentrated in functional terms than it had been before the war,” prefiguring an era of flexible specialization or postfordism. 76 In other words, the film industry restructured before other industries. The film industry was fortunate to forcibly restructure earlier than industries, such as steel, which suffered devastating collapse from which the industries and many of their places of production have not recovered. Film was able to innovate its business model under less duress—executive memos, which often read as if the sky was falling, notwithstanding. Returning to the creation of the studio system, the film industry’s transformation from proprietary capitalism to corporate manufacturing (although still often run by family members) is similar to urban historian Edward K. Muller’s findings in Pittsburgh a generation earlier. 77 Muller writes, “By the early twentieth century, capital-intensive 32 mass-production plants, often under corporately organized firms, replaced smaller traditional partnerships and craft factories as the dominant manufacturing form in the Pittsburgh area.” 78 Similarly, technological advancements in steel production like the film industry’s innovations “led to an enormous growth of manufacturing, and heightened the demand for large industrial sites.” 79 Film companies required more land as they developed increasingly sophisticated business models and industrial practices. The studios built new movie factories created under the vertically-integrated studio system and often did so outside the concentration of film production in Hollywood. This was similar to steel’s dispersion throughout the Pittsburgh metropolis as well as Henry Ford’s move from Detroit to build the River Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan, in 1917, which spawned other automakers in the Detroit suburbs as well. 80 Motor City’s decentralization was about contemporaneous with film’s decentralization from Hollywood. Like the steel industry in Pittsburgh and the automobile industry in Detroit, the film industry in Los Angeles was metropolitan in scope. None of these industries concentrated production in central business districts, largely due to space constraints. Instead, they established facilities on the periphery and decentralized from there. What do film manufacturing plants look like? Carey McWilliams remarked, “No one has ever precisely defined a motion-picture lot. It is neither a factory nor a business establishment nor yet a company town. Rather it is more in the nature of a community, a beehive, or, as [film and music critic] Otis Ferguson said, ‘fairy-land on the production line.’” 81 McWilliams tended toward the flippant and overly dramatic when describing Hollywood and the film industry. Contrary to what McWilliams may have thought, studio 33 lots were and still are factories. Film studios were and remain zoned for manufacturing purposes; the City of Los Angeles established film manufacturing districts in 1919. 82 However, McWilliams’s characterization of studios as beehives, with pronounced hierarchies and strict division of labor, is fitting. As such, some studios proposed company towns and dubbed them cities. For example, Universal Film Manufacturing Company, ahead of filmmaking trends, was the first major studio to leave Hollywood for the undeveloped metropolitan fringe. Universal City, announced in 1914 and opened in 1915, was a complete manufacturing plant in the San Fernando Valley, on the north side of the Cahuenga Pass from Hollywood. Film historian Mark Garrett Cooper notes that Universal was not the first to envision a film studio that resembled a town, including living quarters within its boundaries, but it was the first to propose a city, complete with an elected government. Universal City was originally planned along the lines of a traditional company town, due in part to the location’s isolation from developed Los Angeles, but that plan did not materialize. Meanwhile, the elections were more of a promotional tool than a legal reality. 83 More typically, film manufacturing plants in the studio era took on a regular form within an existing street grid, whether or not, at their inception, development surrounded them. 84 From their earliest incarnations, film plants adopted ordered street patterns, often in step with the surrounding street grid, most likely to make efficient use of tight spaces. The backlot areas, which housed temporary sets, storage, and outdoor filming areas, tended to be less regular, except when designed as streetscape facades for filming. Backlot areas were more cramped than the core production facilities on the lot, likely due to their less rigid plan. The studio era also introduced the practice of walling the film- 34 manufacturing compound in order to keep out unwelcome visitors and industry spies. The film plant evolved to include all necessary spaces to complete a film—from start to finish—without leaving the studio. In new studio plants, the administration building was often the first constructed along with stages. Stages were first set in all-glass buildings similar to greenhouses to allow as much light as possible. When sound emerged in the late 1920s, technologically transforming the industry and its production content, innovations in sound-proof technology and ancillary facilities for sound recording followed. Movie stars were housed in bungalows, as temporary residences or more commonly dressing rooms. Dressing room buildings also supported stars, other members of the cast, and extras. The writers, producers, publicists, and other behind the scenes players also had office buildings. Film vaults secured and protected explosive nitrite film, and editing and screening rooms provided space for the important tasks in the postproduction process. Scene dock buildings warehoused hand-painted backdrops for filming. Prop buildings, wardrobe buildings, and other storage areas kept materials safe for reuse. A host of industrial facilities, including powerhouses, mills, carpentry, and other shops supported stage, set, and prop construction. In addition to buildings directly related to film production, studio lots included supporting services, including fire departments, medical facilities, schools, and recreational facilities, including gyms and pools. (See Figure 1.5 for a plan of MGM’s Lot 1 as an example of a studio plant layout.) What kind of manufacturing occurred in these film plants? Business historian Philip Scranton briefly considers the film industry in Endless Novelty: Specialty Production and American Industrialization, 1865-1925, where he declares film to be 35 FIGURE 1.5 PLAN OF MGM LOT 1. This undated plan for MGM’s Lot 1 shows a typical studio plant layout. The numbered buildings are sound stages. Source: Roger G. Hatheway and Associates, An Architectural/Historical Survey of “The Studios” (Los Angeles: UCLA Extension, 1983), 52. 36 custom made. 85 He explains that process: “Custom and batch production demanded a capacity to shift outputs constantly. Together they might well be characterized as flexible or specialty formats for manufacturing, a domain where practice had to contend with diverse, fluctuating demands [emphasis in original].” 86 This is true of the film industry after its disintegration, as previously supported by Scott’s characterization of the dissolution of the studio system. However, during the studio era, film companies operated routinized, mass production, where, Scranton explains, “the challenge was to increase output and systematize the processes for making a narrow roster of goods for more stable markets.” 87 Further, Scranton explains that mass production “involved more elaborate technical and capital-intensive deployments for making standardized goods in similarly huge volumes. Here deep investment in dedicated production systems generated immense capacity that had to be profitably used; hence the salience of struggles over market share, efforts at international extensions, and dedication to refining processes and cutting costs. In such domains the basic steel, auto, and oil-refining sectors formed durable oligopolies that became the most visible elements of America’s industrial system.” 88 Like Pittsburgh’s steel and Detroit’s auto industries, the film industry (directed from New York and produced in Los Angeles) created a durable oligopoly with the dominance of the Big Five and cooperation of the Little Three. Film companies also fought over market share, expanded to international markets to increase revenues, and refined their systems to keep costs low. The studio plants also represented a large capital investment in the production process. The costly overhead for the plants was commonly cited as a chief reason for the studios’ redevelopment plans. 37 While each film may technically be unique, the production process closely resembled the mass production Scranton describes rather than the custom process he aligns it with. As Scranton explains, mass and custom production describe approaches rather than firms or industries. “They could be combined within firms, reflecting either techniques and markets for different product lines or elements within a complex parts and assembly system. They were often mixed together in manufacturing sectors, and a particular company could shift from one to another over time.” 89 Film shifted from mass to custom production when the end of the studio system made markets far less reliable. Lastly, consider the New York-Los Angeles management and production arrangement that constrained the film industry’s influence on Los Angeles. Pittsburgh’s steel industry’s transformation, like film’s, relied on capital from New York and separated management from production. Muller explains, “This new form and scale of production frequently separated the location of ownership and management from the production site. Financiers in downtown Pittsburgh and other cities, especially New York, marshaled the huge capital resources necessary to build and operate these large plants at sites through the metropolitan region.” 90 The separation of production and its financiers, according to economic geographers, is a trait of capitalist production. 91 It is an understudied phenomenon in understanding the development of the American West. Greg Hise, in urging scholars to open the context and reinterpret the relationship between East Coast and Midwestern financial interests and urban development in the American West, writes of industrial Los Angeles in the 1920s, “As was the case in the nineteenth century, investments by Chicagoans, New Yorkers, and capitalists in other cities provided the financial 38 wherewithal mandatory for controlling land, creating infrastructure, constructing manufacturing plants, and commanding labor.” 92 This was especially true of the film industry, which was financed by Wall Street and companies remained headquartered in New York City long after Los Angeles had become the film production capital. Similarly, we can learn from the railroads. In Railroaded, historian Richard White traces the failure of the North American transcontinental railroads and how they shaped modern America. 93 Like the men (there were no women in my study 94 ) who sometimes also incompetently led film companies into bankruptcy and receivership (but film companies survived), White informs that railroad companies headquartered in the East determined Western space. Both film and railroads were harbingers of modernity that transformed society in myriad ways, and both developed business practices that were challenged for their monopolistic ways. TOWARD A TYPOLOGY OF URBAN DEVELOPMENT The chapters that follow examine three of the Big Five film companies and their activities as large landowners in managing their Los Angeles studios from New York headquarters. The studios’ activities shaped the urban development of metropolitan Los Angeles through the shifting dynamics of the film industry’s business model and each studio’s differing reaction to those stresses. Each chapter examines the company’s vertical integration and resulting expansion of its film manufacturing plant, the changes occurring in the surrounding environment, and then its business and land-use reactions to the dissolution of the studio system and how that impacted the surrounding city. Each case is taken in turn to produce three typologies—comprehensive development, piecemeal development, and incremental expansion—compared and contrasted in the 39 conclusion. The typology rubric encompasses location (including displacement and changing surrounding development), land acquisition, property strategies (including redevelopment), management (including headquarters-production site relations), and urban politics (mainly the municipal response to the studio’s activities). Beginning with the most dramatic urban development story, Chapter 2 examines Fox in West Los Angeles. Fox relocated its studio, including specific buildings, out of Hollywood to a completely undeveloped portion of the metropolis in the 1920s. After the collapse of the studio system, Fox struggled with profitability and decided to redevelop its studio land to increase revenue. Fox hired Los Angeles architect-planner Welton Becket’s firm to master plan Century City. After Fox struggled to develop the property on its own, the company eventually sold the land to Alcoa, who executed it. The comprehensiveness of Century City completely transformed that portion of the metropolis into a node of economic activity in a uniquely modernist landscape that breaks from its lower-profile surroundings. Century City remains a significant node in Los Angeles’s polycentric structure with continued development pressures. Examining an opposite approach to Fox in land acquisition and development, Chapter 3 details MGM in Culver City, the only case study outside the bounds of the City of Los Angeles. As the most productive and lucrative of the studio-era firms, MGM’s choice to locate outside Hollywood in Culver City signaled intrametropolitan competition for industry. Unlike other studios, MGM built a sprawling film plant of seven noncontiguous lots in Culver City as the city grew around it. Lacking the interest, expertise, or prominent location of Fox, when MGM decided to sell its land for redevelopment in the 1970s, it did so in a piecemeal fashion. Culver City officials, keen 40 to manage the small, moderate-income city’s urban development, oversaw the housing and commercial developments that replaced the studio facilities. Finally, Chapter 4 explores Paramount in Hollywood, which sharply contrasts with the other two case studies. Independent production companies originally developed its current film plant during the 1910s. When Paramount relocated in Hollywood in 1926, its plant was not on the undeveloped urban fringe like Fox and MGM. A residential neighborhood and commercial development pre-existed Paramount and grew along with it, constraining Paramount’s expansion. After Paramount canceled plans to build a new studio in an undeveloped portion of West Los Angeles due to the pending dissolution of the studio system, Paramount incrementally expanded into the surrounding neighborhood and later bought the former RKO studio on its western border and joined the two lots. Paramount gained acreage while the others lost, and in the process, solidified Hollywood as a production center and strengthened the brand name. 41 1 William LaBaron, “Paramount,” circa 17 Feb. 1939, Paramount Studios ( - 1939) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 2 Carey McWilliams, Southern California Country: An Island on the Land (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1946), 340. 3 Ibid., 330-349. 4 Robert M. Fogelson, The Fragmented Metropolis: Los Angeles, 1850-1930 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). 5 Reyner Banham, Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). 6 Mike Davis, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, 2 nd edition (New York: Verso, 2006). 7 Michael J. Dear, “Preface,” in From Chicago to L.A.: Making Sense of Urban Theory, ed. Michael J. Dear (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2002), viii. 8 Susan Christopherson and Michael Storper, “The City as Studio; The World as Back Lot: The impact of Vertical Disintegration on the Location of the Motion Picture Industry,” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 4 (1986): 305-320; Michael Storper and Susan Christopherson, “Flexible Specialization and Regional Industrial Agglomerations: The Case of the U.S. Motion Picture Industry,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 77, no. 1 (1987): 104-117; Susan Christopherson and Michael Storper, “The Effects of Flexible Specialization on Industrial Politics and the Labor Market: The Motion Picture Industry,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review 42, no. 3 (1989): 331-347; Michael Storper, “The Transition to Flexible Specialisation in the US Film Industry: External Economies, the Division of Labour, and the Crossing of Industrial Divides,” Cambridge Journal of Economics 13 (1989): 273-305. 9 Allen J. Scott, On Hollywood: The Place, The Industry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005). 10 For insight on Pittsburgh’s planning, development, and industry, see Roy Lubove, Twentieth-Century Pittsburgh: Volume 1: Government, Business, and Environmental Change (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995 [1969]); Roy Lubove, Twentieth-Century Pittsburgh: Volume 2: The Post-Steel Era (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996); Robert C. Alberts, The Shaping of the Point: Pittsburgh’s Renaissance Park (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1980); and John F. Bauman and Edward K. Muller, Before Renaissance: Planning in Pittsburgh, 1889-1943 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006); For Detroit’s urbanization and the impact of the automobile industry, see Thomas James Ticknor, “Motor City: The Impact of the Automobile Industry Upon Detroit, 1900-1975” (Ph.D. diss. University of Michigan, 1978); Olivier Zunz, The Changing Face of Inequality: Urbanization, Industrial Development, and Immigrants in Detroit, 1880-1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982); and Heather B. Barrow, “The Automobile in the Garden: Henry Ford, Suburbanization, and the Detroit Metropolis, 1919-1941” (Ph.D. diss. University of Chicago, 2005). 11 John R. Logan and Harvey L. Molotch, Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place, 20 th Anniversary Edition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007): 1. 12 Ibid., viii. 13 Ibid., 14. 14 Ibid. 15 Davis, City of Quartz, 165. 16 Louise A. Mozingo, Pastoral Capitalism: A History of Suburban Corporate Landscapes (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2011), 2-3. 42 17 Ibid., 5. 18 Ibid., 19. 19 Greg Hise, Magnetic Los Angeles: Planning the Twentieth-Century Metropolis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997). 20 Peter Hall, Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century, 3 rd ed. (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2002), 381. 21 Ibid. 22 Marc A. Weiss, The Rise of the Community Builders: The American Real Estate Industry and Urban Land Planning (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 3. 23 Ann Forsyth, Reforming Suburbia: The Planned Communities of Irvine, Columbia, and The Woodlands (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005). 24 James Holston, The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Brasilia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989). 25 Sam Bass Warner, Jr., The Private City: Philadelphia in Three Periods of Its Growth (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1968), 4. 26 Raphael W. Bostic, “Introduction,” in The Impact of Large Landowners on Land Markets, ed. Raphael W. Bostic (Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2009), 4. 27 Weiss, The Rise of the Community Builders, 1. 28 Bostic, “Introduction,” 7-8. 29 Forsyth, Reforming Suburbia, 278. 30 Genevieve Giuliano and Kenneth A. Small, “Subcenters in the Los Angeles Region,” Regional Science and Urban Economics 21 (1991): 163-182; Peter Gordon and Harry W. Richardson, “Beyond Polycentricity: The Dispersed Metropolis, Los Angeles, 1970-1990,” Journal of the American Planning Association 62, no. 3 (1996): 289-295; Alex Anas, Richard Arnott, and Kenneth A. Small, “Urban Spatial Structure,” Journal of Economic Literature 36, no. 3 (1998): 1426-1464; Gregory K. Ingram, “Patterns of Metropolitan Development: What Have We Learned?” Urban Studies 35 (1998): 1019-1035; Genevieve Giuliano and Kenneth A. Small, “The Determinants of Growth of Employment Subcenters,” Journal of Transport Geography 7 (1999): 189-201; Robert C. Kloosterman and Sako Musterd, “The Polycentric Urban Region: Towards a Research Agenda,” Urban Studies 38 (2001): 623-633; Michael Batty, “Polynucleated Urban Landscapes,” Urban Studies 38 (2001): 635-655; Genevieve Giuliano and Christian Redfearn with Ajay Agarwal, Chen Li, and Duan Zhuang, “Employment Concentrations in Los Angeles, 1980-2000,” Environment and Planning A 39 (2007): 2935-2957. 31 Ernest W. Burgess, “The Growth of the City: An Introduction to a Research Project,” in The City, ed. Robert E. Park, Ernest W. Burgess, and Roderick D. McKenzie (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984 [1925]), 47-62. 32 Homer Hoyt, The Structure and Growth of Residential Areas in American Cities (Washington, DC: Federal Housing Administration, 1939). 33 Robert Beauregard, “More Than Sector Theory: Homer Hoyt’s Contributions to Planning Knowledge,” Journal of Planning History 6, no. 3 (2007): 257. 34 Hise, Magnetic Los Angeles. 43 35 Richard Harris and Robert Lewis, “The Geography of North American Cities and Suburbs, 1900-1950: A New Synthesis,” Journal of Urban History 27, no. 3 (2001): 262-292. 36 Dear, “Preface,” viii. 37 Harris and Lewis, “The Geography of North American Cities,” 265. 38 Greg Hise, “‘Nature’s Workshop’: Industry and Urban Expansion in Southern California, 1900-1950,” in Manufacturing Suburbs: Building Work and Home on the Metropolitan Fringe, ed. Robert Lewis (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004), 178-199. 39 Greg Hise, “Industry, Political Alliances and the Regulation of Urban Space in Los Angeles,” Urban History 36, no. 3 (2009), 473-497. 40 Bostic, “Introduction,” 7. 41 Edwin O. Palmer, History of Hollywood (Hollywood: E.O. Palmer, 1938), 259-261; McWilliams, Southern California Country, 334; Bruce T. Torrence, Hollywood: The First 100 Years (Hollywood: Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, 1979), 49; Joseph P. Beaton, “A Hollywood Case Study of District Issues: The Standardization of Boundaries, an Inventory of Key Functions, and Conflicting Evaluations of District Condition” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1981), 23-24. 42 Beaton, “A Hollywood Case Study,” 23-24. 43 See, e.g., Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877-1920 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967); Daniel J. Boorstin, The Americans: The Democratic Experience (New York: Random House, 1973); Karen Halttunen, Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middle-Class Culture in America, 1830-1870 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982); Michael R. Adamson, “The Makings of a Fine Prosperity: Thomas M. Storke, the Santa Barbara News-Press, and the Campaign to Approve the Cachuma Project,” Journal of Urban History 30, no. 2 (2004): 189-212; Timothy R. Mahoney, “Middle-Class Experience in the United States in the Gilded Age, 1865-1900,” Journal of Urban History 31, no. 3 (2005): 356-366. 44 Hal K. Rothman, Devil’s Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth-Century American West (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998); David M. Wrobel, Promised Lands: Promotion, Memory, and the Creation of the American West (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002). 45 Fogelson, The Fragmented Metropolis, 63. 46 William Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its Mexican Past (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004); Phoebe S. Kropp, California Vieja: Culture and Memory in a Modern American Place (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006). 47 Greg Hise, “Industry and Imaginative Geographies,” in Metropolis in the Making: Los Angeles in the 1920s, ed. Tom Sitton and William Deverell (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 13-44. 48 Davis, City of Quartz; Harvey Molotch, “L.A. as Design Product: How Art Works in a Regional Economy,” in The City: Los Angeles and Urban Theory at the End of the Twentieth Century, ed. Allen J. Scott and Edward W. Soja (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 225-275; William Alexander McClung, Landscapes of Desire: Anglo Mythologies of Los Angeles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000); Sarah Schrank, Art and the City: Civic Imagination and Cultural Authority in Los Angeles (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009). 49 Fogelson, The Fragmented Metropolis, 69. 50 Joseph P. Beaton, “Why the Movies Chose Hollywood,” Journal of Cultural Geography 4, no. 1 (Fall/Winter 1983): 104-107. 44 51 Richard Koszarski, An Evening’s Entertainment: The Age of the Silent Feature Picture, 1915-1928 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 99-100. 52 Fogelson, The Fragmented Metropolis; Hise, Magnetic Los Angeles; Sitton and Deverell, eds., Metropolis in the Making. 53 West Hollywood was originally known as Sherman. I am not aware of any controversy over its name change, which most likely occurred to capitalize on the allure of adjoining Hollywood. 54 David Karnes, “The Glamorous Crowd: Hollywood Movie Premieres Between the Wars,” American Quarterly 38, no. 4 (Autumn 1986): 554. 55 Molotch, “L.A. as Design Product,” 228-229. 56 Adam Nagourney, “Los Angeles Stakes Its Claim as a World Art Center,” New York Times, 13 Oct. 2011, C1; Roberta Smith, “A Los Angeles Museum on Life-Support,” New York Times, 23 July 2012, C1. 57 Elizabeth Currid and Sarah Williams, “The Geography of Buzz: Art, Culture and the Social Milieu in Los Angeles and New York,” Journal of Economic Geography 10 (2010): 423-451; Elizabeth Currid and Sarah Williams, “Two Cities, Five Industries: Similarities and Differences within and between Cultural Industries in New York and Los Angeles,” Journal of Planning Education and Research 29, no. 3 (2010): 322-335; Elizabeth Currid-Halkett and Kevin Stolarick, “Cultural Capital and Metropolitan Distinction: Views of Los Angeles and New York,” City, Culture and Society 1 (2010): 217-223; Sarah Williams and Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, “The Emergence of Los Angeles as a Fashion Hub: A Comparative Spatial Analysis of the New York and Los Angeles Fashion Industries,” Urban Studies 48, no. 14 (2011): 3043- 3066. 58 Schrank, Art and the City, 53. 59 Economic and Policy Analysis Group, Industry Clusters in Los Angeles County (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, c. 2011), 2. 60 Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, 2011 Otis Report on the Creative Economy of the Los Angeles Region (Los Angeles: Otis College of Art and Design, 2011), 26. 61 Richard Verrier, “Warner Touts Its Role as Big Spender,” Los Angeles Times, 31 July 2012, B1. 62 Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, Los Angeles – Nature’s Workshop: The Home of Efficient Labor (Los Angeles: Industrial Department, 1921), USC Special Collections, LAACC Collection Box 53. 63 Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, Facts About Industrial Los Angeles, Nature’s Workshop (Los Angeles: Industrial Department, 1924), USC Special Collections, LAACC Collection Box 53. 64 Michael Storper, “The Dream Machine and Run-Away Production: Location Filming and Its Effect on the Southland Economy,” Architecture and Planning (Summer 1986): 17-21; Camille K. Yale, “Runaway Film Production: A Critical History of Hollywood’s Outsourcing Discourse” (Ph.D. diss. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2010). 65 Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, General Industrial Report of Los Angeles, California (Los Angeles: Industrial Department, 1926), USC Special Collections, LAACC Collection Box 52. 66 Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, General Industrial Report of Los Angeles, California (Los Angeles: Industrial Department, 1930), USC Special Collections, LAACC Collection Box 52. 67 Jules Tygiel, “Introduction: Metropolis in the Making: Los Angeles in the 1920s,” in Metropolis in the Making: Los Angeles in the 1920s, eds. Tom Sitton and William Deverell (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2001), 2. 45 68 Greg Hise, “Industry and the Landscapes of Social Reform,” in From Chicago to L.A.: Making Sense of Urban Theory, ed. Michael J. Dear (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2002), 105. 69 Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, Factual Data Showing the Economic Strength of Los Angeles (1924 to 1940) (Los Angeles: Industrial Department, 1940), USC Special Collections, LAACC Collection Box 53. 70 Security-First National Bank of Los Angeles, Monthly Summary of Business Conditions in Southern California 27, no. 4 (13 April 1948); Security-First National Bank of Los Angeles, Monthly Summary of Business Conditions in Southern California 27, no. 11 (17 Nov. 1948). 71 Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, Los Angeles Area Industries of National Importance (Los Angeles: Industrial Department, circa 1950), 3, USC Special Collections, LAACC Collection Box 53. 72 Mae D. Huettig, Economic Control of the Motion Picture Industry: A Study in Industrial Organization (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1944), 5-6. 73 Steven J. Ross, “How Hollywood Became Hollywood: Money, Politics, and Movies,” in Metropolis in the Making: Los Angeles in the 1920s, ed. Tom Sitton and William Deverell (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 255-256. 74 Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, General Industrial Report of Los Angeles, California (Los Angeles: Industrial Department, 1924), USC Special Collections, LAACC Collection Box 52; Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, General Industrial Report of Los Angeles (1930). 75 Tino Balio, Grand Design: Hollywood as a Modern Business Enterprise, 1930-1939 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1993), 36. 76 Scott, On Hollywood, 4-5. 77 For more on proprietary capitalism versus the accepted wisdom of business history’s march toward corporations, see Philip Scranton, Proprietary Capitalism: The Textile Manufacture at Philadelphia, 1800- 1885 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983). 78 Edward K. Muller, “Industrial Suburbs and the Growth of Metropolitan Pittsburgh, 1870-1920,” in Manufacturing Suburbs: Building Work and Home on the Metropolitan Fringe, ed. Robert Lewis (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004), 128. 79 Ibid. 80 Heather B. Barrow, “‘The American Disease of Growth’: Henry Ford and the Metropolitanization of Detroit, 1920-1940,” in Manufacturing Suburbs: Building Work and Home on the Metropolitan Fringe, ed. Robert Lewis (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004), 206. 81 McWilliams, Southern California Country, 336-337. 82 Ordinance No. 38750 (New Series), box B-1413, Los Angeles City Archives. 83 Mark Garrett Cooper, Universal Women: Filmmaking and Institutional Change in Early Hollywood (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2010), 50, 62-70. 84 For details on studios before the studio era see Brian R. Jacobson, “Studios Before the System: Architecture, Technology, and Early Cinema” (Ph.D. diss. University of Southern California, 2011). 85 Philip Scranton, Endless Novelty: Specialty Production and American Industrialization, 1865-1925 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 352-353. 46 86 Ibid., 11. 87 Ibid. 88 Ibid., 10-11. 89 Ibid., 11. 90 Muller, “Industrial Suburbs,” 130. 91 See, e.g., Michael Storper and Richard Walker, The Capitalist Imperative: Territory, Technology, and Industrial Growth (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1989) and Michael Storper and Allen J. Scott, eds., Pathways to Industrialization and Regional Development (New York: Routledge, 1992). 92 Hise, “Industry and Imaginative Geographies,” 17. 93 Richard White, Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2011). 94 The issue of women in positions of power in the entertainment industry today is a much-debated topic, but during the period of my study women executives did not exist in the film industry. 47 Chapter 2 Comprehensive Development: Twentieth Century Fox & Century City in West Los Angeles Due north of Culver City and southwest of Hollywood, lies Century City, an icon of midcentury modernism and urban planning (see Figure 2.1). Midcentury modernism in Los Angeles is most closely associated with sleek glass houses in the Hollywood Hills, while Los Angeles midcentury planning evokes images of freeways and the urban renewal scheme that leveled downtown’s Bunker Hill. Absent the freeway building or single-family homes associated with postwar Los Angeles, Century City reconceived West Los Angeles as a mostly residential area into a high-rise center of economic and cultural activity. Continuing to puncture the myth of the jobless suburban fringe, the story of Century City highlights the might of international corporations’ privately-funded developments—in the age of federal urban renewal, no less—in reshaping the economic and urban development of a metropolis. Popular wisdom holds that the budget-busting production Cleopatra (1963) forced Twentieth Century Fox (Fox) to sell its studio land, which resulted in Century City. This notion, propagated by the press, serves as Century City’s creation myth. Even an undated press release from the Century City Chamber of Commerce cites the film’s role in bankrupting and thus requiring the sale of the land to rescue it from ruin. 1 However, the timeline and financial facts contradict this story. Fox President Spyrous P. Skouras publicly announced the studio’s intention to develop Century City in 1957. Meanwhile, Cleopatra was on budget and on schedule until mid-1960. 2 Therefore, Century City predated Cleopatra’s disastrous box office results. 48 FIGURE 2.1 MAP OF CENTURY CITY IN CONTEXT. This stylized map from a promotional brochure advertises Century City’s central location. It shows Century City, Hollywood, and Culver City in the Los Angeles Basin. Source: The Gateway Buildings (Undated Promotional Brochure for Century City c. 1965), CPC 17588, box 43309, Los Angeles City Archives. 49 Instead, Fox sought to increase declining revenue by developing its substantial studio acreage, favoring the increase in exchange value over the plant’s use value. On Fox’s former backlot rose Century City, a master-planned Corbusian-inspired node of commercial, residential, and cultural activities in large-tower superblocks. This “city within a city” was a paradigm of 1960s planning that reinforced Los Angeles’s polycentric structure and remains a unique landscape within the city as well as an important economic center today. In the age of federally-funded urban renewal projects that wiped out the inner cores of cities across the country, Century City was the largest privately-financed urban development in the country to that point in time. Urban historian John Findlay describes Century City as a downtown substitute in vogue with his studies of “magic lands,” or large-scale privately-planned developments that transformed the mid-twentieth-century urban West. 3 While all major film companies reassessed and reimagined their land holdings after the collapse of the studio system, Century City remains a unique result from such processes. By hiring Welton Becket & Associates to master plan its site, Fox set in motion a complete transformation of that portion of West Los Angeles. Anticipating exponential growth of that part of the metropolis, Century City reconceived a low-profile industrial plant surrounded by single-family homes, golf courses, and high-income but low-rise Beverly Hills into a high-rise node of high-end economic and cultural activities, significantly boosting the city’s economic development for the long term (see Figure 2.2). In its comprehensive approach—through International Style architecture, master planning, and scale of execution—Century City sharply contrasts with the other studios examined in this study. Although Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) sought Fox’s 50 FIGURE 2.2 MAP OF CENTURY CITY IN LOCAL CONTEXT. This map from a promotional brochure illustrates Century City’s location in West Los Angeles, surrounded by country club golf courses, single- family homes, and Beverly Hills. Source: The Gateway Buildings (Undated Promotional Brochure for Century City c. 1965), CPC 17588, box 43309, Los Angeles City Archives. 51 assistance in redeveloping its own sprawling plant soon after the Century City announcement, when it finally did so more than a decade later, it sold off its land piecemeal over many years, under Culver City’s strong oversight (see Chapter 3). Setting itself apart, Paramount expanded rather than contracted its main studio plant in Hollywood, navigating a complex incremental growth management constrained by its urban surroundings (see Chapter 4). According to one critic, “Century City is one of the more instructive chapters in the annals of urban development.” 4 Unlike most histories of urban development in the middle of the twentieth century, which are analyzed through the lens of urban renewal and narratives of urban decline, this chapter traces the actions of Fox’s film operations and decisions as a large landowner in the creation of a new type of urban development in the Los Angeles metropolis. 5 FROM NEW YORK TO HOLLYWOOD TO THE URBAN FRINGE Similar to fellow film moguls, William Fox was a Jewish European immigrant to New York City that, despite limited education, first found business success in the garment industry. In 1903, at the age of twenty-four, Fox sold his cloth-shrinking business and used some of the profits to purchase a nickelodeon in Brooklyn. The following year, he founded the Greater New York Film Rental Company to distribute films to his growing chain of movie theaters. Following a foray into legitimate theater and stage production, Fox began producing his own films in 1914 and incorporated the Fox Film Corporation in 1915 in New York City. Fox located his first film studio on Staten Island. In 1917, the company rented production space in Los Angeles and established a permanent facility in Hollywood at Sunset and Western a couple years 52 later. 6 Like other major film companies, Fox’s corporate headquarters remained in New York until the 1970s. Thus, all decisions, including those about land use in Los Angeles, emanated from New York City. As the film industry matured, the business model and standard practices of the industry evolved. With the establishment of the studio system, film companies required greater expanses of land to build and maintain their all-encompassing movie factories. As a result, Fox sought greater and cheaper land than available in Hollywood on Los Angeles’s urban fringe. Fox was an early migrant out of Hollywood, following the Universal Film Manufacturing Company’s lead in 1915. Fox Film Corporation purchased the first portion of what became the West Los Angeles plant in 1923. In March and April 1923, real estate agents and property owners notified Fox’s lawyers at the firm of Bauer, Wright & MacDonald of land they had available for sale for Fox’s studio expansion plans. Most of the offers were located in the remote farmland of the San Fernando Valley; those properties were declined as “a little too far removed from the city to be of benefit for their purposes.” 7 The only property offered in the San Fernando Valley they considered was one near Universal City. 8 By April 17, 1923, John C. Eisele, Treasurer of the Fox Film Corporation, based in New York City, had agreed to purchase property from the Janss Investment Company. On May 5, 1923, they executed a contract for $300,000 for just under one hundred acres of land between Santa Monica and Pico Boulevards just west of the Beverly Hills city limit. 9 Maps and photographs indicate that the land was undeveloped when Fox purchased it. The 1921 Baist’s Real Estate Atlas of Los Angeles illustrates the property as 53 part of the vast Rancho San Jose de Buenos Ayres controlled by the heirs of John Wolfskill at the time of survey. The 3,300 acres of the Rancho San Jose de Buenos Ayres were part of the large Westgate annexation to the City of Los Angeles in 1916. Three years later, Arthur Letts, founder of Broadway Department Stores, purchased the land. Letts deeded a portion of it to the federal government for a veteran’s home and sold another portion that was developed as the Los Angeles Country Club, directly northeast of Fox’s property. In 1922, Letts sold the remaining land to the Janss Investment Company. Janss developed the stretch between Santa Monica and Pico boulevards east of Sawtelle first. 10 Janss almost certainly recognized the increase in the exchange value of its property and future development by enticing Fox to locate within its first phase of development. Soon after the purchase, Fox proceeded with plans to zone the property for film manufacturing. In August 1923, Fox’s lawyers wrote Dr. Edwin Janss of the Janss Investment Company for assistance in moving through a petition to the City Planning Commission for the zoning of the site. Janss was tapped for his “contact with the Zoning Commission and the ‘High Priest of the City Beautiful’ department.” 11 The Janss Investment Company was what historian Marc A. Weiss described as a community builder involved in “changes at the moderate end.” 12 Janss and its cohort of builders purchased land, subdivided it, and built single-family homes in the subdivisions along with creating other community amenities, in contrast to earlier community builders who only subdivided the land for sale to wealthy individuals who then commissioned unique homes. Fox’s lawyers likely assumed that such activities brought Janss in frequent contact with planning officials, which may have been the case. However, zoning for 54 residential use was distinctly different than manufacturing, especially film manufacturing, which the Los Angeles City Council had designated in specific districts beginning in 1919. 13 In October 1923, the City Planning Commission recommended the petition be granted and the City Council and City Attorney took the appropriate actions to zone the property via ordinance. 14 Although Santa Monica Boulevard had long served as a streetcar route between downtown Los Angeles and Santa Monica, the road remained unpaved in undeveloped areas. Subsequently, one of the first land-use actions Fox engaged after purchasing the property was the grading and improvement of Santa Monica Boulevard along its northern boundary. With the purchase, Janss Investment Company required Fox to improve Santa Monica Boulevard. In late 1924, Fox received pressure from the Sawtelle and Hollywood Chambers of Commerce and others to commence the improvement. They offered to pay half the cost of paving, sidewalks, and curbs if Fox would pay for the grading and other half. Fox lawyers urged the company to take up the offer since it would be a savings of $6,000; Fox would pay $12,000 rather than $18,000. 15 In April 1925, concerns surfaced that new neighbors of the future Fox film studio would challenge its zoning as a nuisance and force the relocation of the plant. Sol Wurtzel, General Superintendent of the William Fox Vaudeville Co., based in Los Angeles, wrote to lawyer Alfred Wright to inquire about permission to build either temporary or permanent stages on the land to claim its use. William Fox, himself, was concerned that people purchasing new homes in the vicinity would petition to rezone the property. Subsequent correspondence between lawyers indicates that the Regents of the University of California did not favor the location of their new university near film 55 studios. Ultimately, Wright advised Wurtzel that the company should not build anything on the land unless it would aid in film production. California Supreme Court precedent could compel Fox to remove film production facilities from the site—as it had with laundries and brickyards—if the zoning were successfully challenged. 16 The gap in the historical record indicates that Fox heeded the advice and did not build anything on the property for the next three years. In 1928, Fox quickly constructed a new studio plant in order to manufacture sound films. Despite or perhaps due to the early sale of the studio land, the residential subdivisions surrounding it remained unoccupied until years after the studio was operational. Although the area was virtually undeveloped when Fox purchased the land, the Janss Investment Company had subdivided vast acreage in the general vicinity for single-family homes and donated land to the University of California for its Southern Branch (later University of California, Los Angeles or UCLA). Janss developed Westwood, the area near the university, northwest of the studio site, in the 1920s. However, it appears that Fox’s immediate neighbors trickled in until the mid-1930s. The Sanborn Fire Insurance Company did not map the studio until 1932 (four years after Fox built its studio), and did not document the surrounding residential subdivisions until 1936 with additional building evident in 1937 and 1938. 17 It was the early large landholders— Fox, the Los Angeles Country Club to its north, and the public golf course to its south— that set the development patterns for this portion of the city in an area otherwise zoned for residential purposes. 56 Rancho Park, a neighborhood of starter homes averaging less than 1,600 square feet in mostly Spanish Colonial Revival style, abuts the Fox studio’s western boundary (see Figure 2.3). Originally developed by the Janss Investment Company, who sold Fox the studio land, in the 1920s and 1930s as part of Westwood Hills, Rancho Park took a new name and identity following the extension of Olympic Boulevard through the neighborhood in 1936, dividing the original development. Rancho Park, then, claimed the development between Olympic and Pico Boulevards from Century City to roughly Sepulveda Boulevard on the west. Rancho Park Golf Course opened in 1947. Pico and Westwood boulevards serve as the commercial corridors of the community. 18 The immediate area south of the intersection of Pico and Westwood remained sparsely developed until the 1940s, after Paramount sold the land it purchased for a new, larger studio for housing (see Chapter 4). Due south of Fox’s studio, on the other side of Pico from the main gate and Rancho Park, is the residential neighborhood known as Cheviot Hills (see Figure 2.3). With street names like Dumfries, Troon, and Wigtown and architecture, including angled roofs and brickwork, and lush gardens and landscaping, the community of 1,450 single- family houses along rolling green hills is intentionally reminiscent of the namesake hills that divide England and Scotland. Begun soon after the arrival of Fox, in the early 1920s, the five tracts that make up Cheviot Hills, each built by different developers, were primarily built in the 1940s and 1950s. Houses that range from starter homes to quarter- acre properties with multi-million-dollar homes line its serpentine streets. Cheviot Hills Park and Hillcrest Country Club occupy about half of the neighborhood’s area. Motor Avenue, the first paved road between the Fox and MGM studios, is Cheviot Hill’s main 57 FIGURE 2.3 MAP OF FOX STUDIO’S NEIGHBORS. This 2012 Google Map shows the residential neighborhoods of Rancho Park, Cheviot Hills, and Beverlywood among others surrounding the Fox studio. The Fox studio is approximately marked by the red balloon. Source: Google Maps. 58 thoroughfare. In the years after the Century City development, the neighborhood has born the brunt of the traffic congestion resulting from commuters to and from Century City and the 10 Freeway south of the neighborhood. 19 To the east of Cheviot Hills lies Beverlywood (see Figure 2.3). A planned community devised by Walter H. Leimert, Beverlywood opened in 1940. A prolific developer in California, Leimert created Leimert Park in Los Angeles and a tract in Cheviot Hills. The Beverlywood Homes Association enforces the codes, covenants, and restrictions placed on the development of 1,354 single-family houses. Bounded by Robertson Boulevard on the east, Monte Mar Drive on the north, Beverwil and Roxbury drives on the west, and Beverlywood Street on the south, but surrounding streets have claimed inclusion in Beverlywood, indicating its status as a desirable place to live. South Beverly Drive is the neighborhood’s spine, complimented by a park, known as Circle Park, located in the traffic circle at the center of the development. The original houses were modest but with relatively large yards, which in recent years have attracted enlargement of some houses, all of which the homeowners’ association regulates in order to maintain the character of the neighborhood. Many of the homes’ enlargers are members of the Orthodox Jewish community, who have large families and a strong desire to live near the amenities of the Pico-Robertson cluster of kosher markets and synagogues. 20 While few complaints arose from the operation of the film studio in close proximity to these conventional suburban residential neighborhoods, there have been grumblings about the increased traffic generated by the Century City development. The completion of Century City also increased property values and impetus to improve 59 nearby commercial areas as it solidified as an employment center. 21 The Los Angeles Times reported that after the initial Century City development “Los Angeles soon imposed limits on building heights, density and car trips in and out of the Century City area. The aim was to balance development and quality-of-life issues in adjacent residential areas, including Cheviot Hills, Beverlywood and others. It was agreed that both a Beverly Hills Freeway and a rapid transit line would be needed to make the commercial center workable.” 22 Neither the freeway nor the rapid transit line materialized, and the surrounding neighborhoods have absorbed the traffic of commuters to and from Century City and other Westside employment centers. 23 Before getting too far ahead of the story, let’s return to Fox’s land-use decisions that predated Century City. BUILDING THE STUDIO On October 28, 1928, the Fox Film Corporation dedicated its new Movietone City, named for Fox’s newly-innovated sound-on-film process, studio plant in West Los Angeles. In ninety days, 350 men working in three shifts around the clock had nearly completed the first set of studio buildings, which included the administration building, four sound stages, a film storage vault, other production and supply buildings, a hospital, power plants, and other industrial facilities. A fourteen-foot wall had been partially completed to surround the forty-acre manufacturing plant valued at $10 million (see Figure 2.4). 24 The remaining nearly sixty acres were reserved for temporary sets on the backlot and future studio development. Fox oriented its studio to Pico Boulevard, its southern boundary, rather than its northern border along the more prominent Santa Monica Boulevard and streetcar line. This suggests Fox did not expect its employees to depend 60 FIGURE 2.4 1928 VIEW OF THE STUDIO. This aerial photograph, looking southeast, circa 1928 shows Fox’s new Movietone City studio. The upper right corner contains the administrative building, sound stages, and other permanent facilities for the studio facing Pico Boulevard. The remainder of the land includes a hodgepodge of temporary sets on the backlot. In the 1930s and 1940s, Fox expanded on the land to the east (where the oil rigs stand). Source: Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection 61 on the streetcar. Fox’s locational choice contributed to Los Angeles’s urban development trends in the 1920s: increasing decentralization, growing dominance of the automobile, and decline of the streetcar. 25 The Los Angeles Times article announcing the opening of the studio focused on the innovative infrastructure, and for good reason: this was the first studio purpose-built for sound-on-film production. Complete with didactic illustrations of the features of sound-proof stages on the new lot, the article detailed the complex systems involved. Designed by expert G.H. Mulldorfer, the sound-proof stages were each a building within a building in order to omit unwanted sounds. A concrete shell encased an unattached inner building padded with cork. Mulldorfer claimed airplanes could fly directly above or an earthquake could rattle below without interrupting filming. The sealed-off nature of sound stages created a challenge for ventilation, however. A separate air conditioning unit pumped air in and out of the stages, heating or cooling as needed, without the aid of fans or other vibration-producing mechanisms. The air conditioning plant was the largest on the West Coast at the time with the capacity to transform 350 tons of air per day. 26 In the 1930s and 1940s, Fox expanded its West Los Angeles property. In 1936, the newly merged Twentieth Century-Fox purchased from Fox Hills Realty Company, of which Janss Investment Company was a majority shareholder, 97.62 acres for $537,700. The land, adjacent to the eastern boundary of the studio, extended to Health Avenue south of Olympic Boulevard and north of Pico Boulevard. 27 The price of $5,508 an acre was nearly double that paid thirteen years prior; in the midst of the Great Depression that indicated the increase in the value of the land as a result of residential building in the vicinity. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) Land Use map of the City of Los 62 Angeles illustrated this area as a golf course in 1939, indicating that Fox reserved the land for future development. 28 In 1943, Fox, led by President Spyros P. Skouras in New York City, completed its land acquisition for the West Los Angeles studio with the purchase of the golf course north of Olympic Boulevard to Santa Monica Boulevard, from the studio boundary to Health Avenue. The 89.349 acres, purchased by the studio’s subsidiary Fox Realty Corporation of California from Fox Hills Realty Company, cost $491,419.50 (or $5,500 an acre). Along with the deed to the land, the purchase agreement included the removal of restrictions for drilling for oil and natural gas on the previous two land purchases. 29 During the rezoning of this portion of the land, Beverly Hills residents, adjoining the studio, forced a 250-foot buffer zone of single-family residential along this eastern boundary. They took this action in order to limit Fox’s potential nuisance, especially in views created by towering sets, according to later assessments from Fox’s director of property development. 30 On the recently acquired land, Fox expanded its production facilities in 1946. In addition to some remodeling, the building campaign included three new sound stages, a five-story wardrobe building, a prop storage building, a two-story production office building, scene dock buildings, and two rehearsal halls. Additional industrial facilities were also constructed, including a powerhouse, an electrical building, an incinerator, new storm drains, and electrical work. 31 The majority of the studio-owned land remained undeveloped for backlot and future development purposes (see Figure 2.5). 63 FIGURE 2.5 1956 VIEW OF THE STUDIO AND SURROUNDING AREA. This aerial photograph taken in 1956, looking southeast, shows Fox’s expansion and the in-fill of single-family housing around the studio. Source: Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection 64 PLANNING CENTURY CITY The studio plant Fox expanded in the 1930s and 1940s, when greater capacity was a necessity, now exceeded its operational requirements. Fox misjudged the future of the film industry when it invested in the 1946 studio expansion. Although Fox and the major film studios did well during the war years, the antitrust suit filed by the federal government in 1938 was finally adjudicated in 1945, which eventually ended their lucrative business model when the final decision by the Supreme Court was issued against the studios in 1948. Following the dissolution of the studio system, Fox’s evolving business model, much like for its rival film studios, entailed stumbling efforts and gimmicks to attract audiences into theaters in order to turn a profit in the motion picture industry. One thing was certain: without a chain of national theaters under the studio’s control, there was less impetus to turn over product and thus fewer films were made. Fewer films meant that each film was more important in the bottom line and there was even less margin for flops, as well as diminished requirements for sound stages and other studio facilities. Subsequently, Fox sought to lower its fixed costs and expand its revenue sources by redeveloping a portion of its studio land, and thereby favoring exchange value over the use of the existing studio. Recent attempts to merge with Warner Bros. and then MGM signaled financial difficulties even if public records indicated that Fox had been operating at a profit since 1941. 32 While overall the company made a profit, the core of its business—the production and distribution of films—operated in the red. 33 The need to curb losses in Fox’s principal business motivated Skouras to investigate other revenue sources and possibilities with its large real estate holdings. In 1952, Fox initiated an oil and gas lease 65 with Universal Consolidated Oil Company in order to capitalize on its oil rights and untapped profits under the studio land. 34 Fox earned its first royalties from this arrangement in 1955, and by 1963, had earned nearly $3.4 million in profit from the oil rights. 35 While oil revenues were akin to printing money—since Fox collected royalties without any expenditures—the profits were not enough to satisfy the struggling studio. As early as the May 1956 stockholders’ meeting, Skouras announced that the company was considering disposing of some of its assets not necessary to the production of motion pictures. These assets included real estate, a large library of motion pictures, and interests in oil production. 36 In July 1956, Skouras’s nephew-in-law and attorney-turned-aspiring-real-estate- magnate, Edmond Herrscher, based in Beverly Hills, recommended Fox engage the services of Welton Becket & Associates to plan the future development on the Fox studio property. 37 Herrscher’s advice, which Skouras soon followed, to hire the Los Angeles firm was valuable local knowledge to a company in New York City making decisions about its assets in Los Angeles. Following Herrscher’s second unsolicited missive on the topic a year later, Skouras hired him as Fox’s Director of Property Development, based at the Los Angeles studio, effective July 1, 1957. 38 Herrscher was an eager developer and an advocate for Century City with invaluable local knowledge to a company based in New York and Skouras’s ear, but he would prove too inexperienced to accomplish Fox’s mission to develop the land on its own. On October 1, 1956, following discussions with executives, Welton Becket submitted to Fox a contract for his firm to execute a land use study and master plan of the West Los Angeles studio property. The agreement included a four-point economic survey 66 and analysis, that included: 1) determining the most profitable use of the land and suggestions for structures most suited to it; 2) gathering and evaluating information on land values; 3) studying the effects of proposed freeways on proposed development and other traffic patterns; and 4) providing economic data to interested investors. The $60,000 fee, paid over the six months of work, for Welton Becket & Associates also purchased a comprehensive master plan of the site, schematic renderings of the plan, drawings and a block model of the development, rendered solutions to screen or blend oil wells and related facilities, and six printed brochures advertising the master plan to potential purchasers, developers, or lessees. The contract stated that the firm strongly preferred to master plan the entire site, but it would provide alternative partial planning should Fox dictate it. 39 According to Los Angeles Times reporting of the annual shareholders’ meeting in May 1957, Skouras announced Fox’s “very likely” plans to develop the “Radio City of the West” with office buildings, apartment houses, and stores on its studio property. 40 Studio operations would either remain on the lot in a concentrated area or completely removed to Fox’s ranch near Malibu or to MGM in Culver City, with whom Fox was negotiating a merger of their physical properties (but not their business interests). Skouras informed shareholders that for many months Welton Becket & Associates, assisted by Homer Hoyt Associates, had been conducting a land use survey of the main studio property in West Los Angeles. While the results would still be unknown for some time, Skouras anticipated the report to recommend commercial and residential development for the “more valuable acreage.” 41 67 In the more than thirty years since Fox purchased the studio land, the exchange value greatly appreciated, especially in the postwar years as West Los Angeles developed beyond its sporadic settlements. What started on Los Angeles’s southwest urban fringe as a movie studio island in the late 1920s with gradual residential neighbors became a central location in the rapidly developing Westside of Los Angeles with infill development, the rise of adjacent Beverly Hills as an economic node, and planned freeway construction. The western terminus of transcontinental Interstate 10, known as the Santa Monica Freeway west of downtown Los Angeles, had been plotted to pass just south of the studio, which it did when completed in 1964. The proposed Beverly Hills Freeway, along what is now California Route 2, would have transformed Santa Monica Boulevard’s former streetcar line into a highway traversing Fox’s northern boundary. Although neighborhood opposition derailed that plan, the proposed freeway shaped Century City planning as well as other plans in the area. The freeway remained in city planning documents at least through 1971. 42 A map (Figure 2.1) within a promotional brochure for Century City depicted the development centrally located, with Los Angeles’s central business district marginalized to the eastern edge. 43 This map illustrated the larger urban development trend in 1960s Los Angeles: the commanding growth of the city’s Westside. For instance, the West Los Angeles planning district, of which Century City is part, had a population of 72,800 people in 1969, which was a 24.17 percent increase over the 1960 population of 58,627. The growth rate exceeded both that of the entire City of Los Angeles (18.51 percent) and the Western Los Angeles Region (20.73 percent), which includes neighboring municipalities. 44 68 In October 1957, Herrscher provided Skouras with a ten-page memo, including a comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of six strategies for managing the Century City development. Herrscher did not make any recommendations as to which strategy he would advise following. Nor did he analyze the ultimate path taken (the sale and lease-back of the property), but the nearest option was the outright sale of the land excluding the eighty-acre core studio property and oil rights. Under that rubric, Herrscher listed two advantages: qualifying for capital gains tax and the proceeds would be available for corporate purposes. Meanwhile, he enumerated seven disadvantages, including that the purchaser would likely dispose of the property at a “considerable gain” and that the sale would mean the loss of a “valuable nest egg for a ‘rainy day.’” 45 According to Herrscher’s estimates, the value of the real estate was $80 million, the anticipated costs of buildings, improvements, and infrastructure was $230 million, and that the net income from the development of Century City should be $12 million. Following these estimates, Herrscher affirmed Skouras’s $70 million asking price for the land and oil rights. His report also included a list of parties interested in the development, including Sheraton Hotels, department stores, several supermarket chains, insurance companies, multiple banks, and the ultimate developer, William Zeckendorf. 46 Herrscher’s analysis indicated that, as of October 1957, Fox fully intended to develop the property on its own to maximize its profits. Fox publicly confirmed its plans on January 7, 1958, with a press conference on the studio lot and a press release folder on the proposed development of Century City. A six-page press release touted Fox’s move to redevelop its 284-acre site as “one of the biggest land developments of all time” motivated by land values that had climbed 69 steadily. Master planned by the Los Angeles firm of Welton Becket & Associates, 176 acres of the studio’s 284-acre production lot, the press release read, “will be redeveloped in a sweeping change of land use that will include office buildings, a hotel, a shopping center, apartment buildings, parks, restaurants and broad concourses.” The project would also include a “film industry center” with offices, an exhibit hall, a motion picture museum, a movie theater that seats 500 people, and multipurpose auditorium that will seat 4,000 people, “large enough to handle award presentations.” 47 Meanwhile, Fox would invest $12 million to $15 million to improve its film production facilities with new sound stages and offices on the remaining eighty acres of the studio site. Some sets and backlot shooting would move to the 2,300-acre studio ranch near Malibu. In 1958, the studio expected to spend $65 million on film production, a $15 million increase over the previous year. With the total value of the Century City project estimated at $400 million, the first phase of construction was set to begin in July 1958; the first building to rise in Century City would be Welton Becket & Associates new headquarters. 48 At the press conference, Becket explained the site plan (see Figure 2.6): the northern portion, along Santa Monica Boulevard, would be occupied by office towers twenty to thirty stories tall and a 1,000-room hotel. Behind these buildings would be the shopping center with markets, shops, and a major department store surrounded by a huge double-deck parking lot. The southern portion of the site, near Pico Boulevard, would contain eighteen apartment buildings of varying heights with parks, play areas, and swimming pools. The central artery of the development, traversing between Santa Monica and Pico Boulevards, would be the Champs Elysees modeled on the famed 70 FIGURE 2.6 CENTURY CITY SITE PLAN. This site plan of Century City by Welton Becket & Associates was presented at a press conference and in a press release on January 8, 1958. Source: Welton Becket and Associates and 20 th Century-Fox Film Corp., Press Release Wednesday, January 8, 1958, Century City Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 71 Parisian boulevard. 49 Perhaps realizing it did not resemble its namesake, the street was renamed Avenue of the Stars. Studio officials, estimating the property alone valued at $80 million to $100 million, announced the studio intended to retain title to the site but would likely release some of the property for outside development on a lease arrangement. At the time of the announcement, financing had not been finalized, but insurance representative Fred Gebers said it was possible as many as twenty insurance companies may invest in the development. 50 Rather than replicate the single-family housing patterns that surround the studio, Becket envisioned a new model of urban development (see Figure 2.7). The comprehensive development of mixed uses, called a “city within a city” and described as a downtown on the fringe, ultimately reinforced Los Angeles’s polycentricism and capitalized on the postwar growth of Los Angeles’s Westside. In preparation for the development, Herrscher analyzed the current zoning of the property and its necessary adjustments in March 1958 while preparing a master plan for the rezoning of the property. The bulk of it or 233.33 acres, was zoned M-1-0 at the time, which permitted heavy industrial activity. Herrscher’s main concern was seventeen acres, buffering the eastern boundary of the studio and the Beverly Hills city border, zoned R-1- 0, permitting only single-family residences. Welton Becket planned to build his headquarters on four of those acres, at the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Moreno Drive, which would require commercial zoning. Herrscher recommended Fox agree to Becket’s offer to lease the land for fifty years, reverting to Fox afterwards, in exchange for an average yearly income of $36,500 for the $2 million building paid for by Becket 72 FIGURE 2.7 1958 MODEL OF CENTURY CITY SUPERIMPOSED ON THE LANDSCAPE. This 1958 photo shows a contemporary model of Century City superimposed on an aerial photograph with surrounding areas labeled. The view looks south from Santa Monica Boulevard to the suburban development that has filled in beyond the studio. Source: Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection 73 that would catapult the Century City development into reality. The remaining thirteen acres would require rezoning in order to fetch more value by the square foot. Another 9.25 acres of the property, along Santa Monica Boulevard between the auto gate and the northeastern boundary opposite the Beverly Hilton Hotel, was zoned C-2-0. This commercial zoning did not interfere with Fox’s plans. 51 Herrscher’s rezoning plan intended to reduce the M-1-0 zoning to the appropriate commercial and residential designations for the Century City development, but to do so in a way that would not interfere with film production on the property in the interim between zoning and building. Fox pursued some of the rezoning agenda soon after. Both the rezoning of the property for Becket’s headquarters and the remaining land zoned for single-family residences along the eastern boundary of the studio were rezoned for commercial purposes in 1959. 52 Los Angeles City officials did not protest the zoning changes. They encouraged the development by providing rubber stamps on these plans and other matters as the development went through the approval process, likely because the City viewed the increase in exchange value as a positive result. The Wall Street Journal reported, following a Board of Directors meeting, in April 1958, that “no definite plans have as yet been formulated” to build Century City, according to Skouras. 53 Skouras’s speech to stockholders in May 1958 relayed the Board’s decision to “await the receipt of ten or twelve bona fide proposals from prospective lessees or buyers, before adopting a final policy for this development.” 54 With this announcement, Herrscher warned Skouras that “Century City is in danger of becoming a ghost town before it is even begun.” Herrscher advised, “To breathe new life into the project, we must undo what has been done by demonstrating in a tangible way 74 that Century City is a reality. The best way to do this is to commence building, and the best impact that can be made in this direction is to have the master planner himself start the project.” Herrscher added urgency to the message by declaring the next three years of development and building at Century City depended on building as soon as possible. 55 Skouras and the Fox Board of Directors intended to wait to break ground on Century City, anticipating a flood of offers from companies and developers to help manage and finance the project. Meanwhile, Herrscher urged Skouras to strike while the iron was hot, fearing that failing to act quickly on an ambitious and unprecedented project Fox had widely publicized might cast doubt over the development’s viability. SELLING THE LAND Fox’s hesitancy to commence the Century City project and its strategy to wait for offers of developers and tenants rather than pursue the development with the gusto the company’s earlier announcements exhibited indicates that Fox was struggling with how to realize such a grand-scale real estate development. At a time when the company struggled to run its studio, a business it had commanded for more than four decades, Fox strained to operate outside its film-industry expertise with implementing the Century City master plan. While Herrscher continued to advise Skouras on the matter and urge to build sooner rather than later, his memos did not include actual steps to be taken or other services expected from a developer. Herrscher lacked the experience to execute such a large project. Rather than scrap the project, Fox, determined to profit from its land, and escape its money woes, sought to sell the land to a developer. According to the eventual developer, William Zeckendorf of New York-based Webb & Knapp, Skouras approached 75 him after several unsuccessful attempts with other developers around the country. 56 Skouras relied on his New York connections in cementing a development deal rather than pursue a developer more experienced in Los Angeles real estate. Zeckendorf, in turn, utilized his resources to finance the deal through associates in New York and Pittsburgh, not Los Angeles. This underscores the significance of the distance between Fox’s headquarters in New York and its large landholdings in Los Angeles and the role the relationship played in the shaping of this part of the metropolis. While the design was local, thanks to Herrscher’s insight, its capital and management was not. Long experienced in large real estate developments, Zeckendorf almost immediately saw the potential in the Century City site. After convincing Skouras to nearly halve the price of the land (from $100 million with oil rights to $56 million without oil rights), Zeckendorf planned to sell Fox’s lease on the remaining studio site to an insurance company to easily raise $25 million for the purchase. However, the $31 million balance was a large capital investment from a firm that was spread thin across the country and would eventually collapse under these obligations. Consequently, Zeckendorf arranged for Webb & Knapp to acquire the land in parcels and pay over time rather than in one lump sum. Zeckendorf intended to then sell off portions of the property to different interests, modeled on a technique he previously pioneered for selling fractional parts of and rights in a building, which he named the Hawaiian Technique. 57 With the agreement in place, Zeckendorf worked toward organizing the financing. Webb & Knapp provided the initial $2.5 million down payment in April 1959. To cover the expense, Webb & Knapp brought in the Lazard Freres investment firm with a “put” for the $2.5 million borrowed against other property held by Webb & Knapp. The put 76 meant that Lazard Freres could cancel the deal and demand its $2.5 million back at any time. 58 Struggling since the beginning to secure financing, Webb & Knapp twice postponed a second cash payment of $3.8 million by the time Lazard Freres, nervous about losing the down payment, recalled its $2.5 million in 1960. At the time, Zeckendorf was committed to building the Zeckendorf Hotel in Manhattan, which demanded all of Webb & Knapp’s cash on hand. Zeckendorf had to decide between building his hotel and the investment in Century City. He chose the hotel, citing that his involvement with Century City had already brought the “project from the realm of fantasy to the world of the probable.” Subsequently, Zeckendorf negotiated, over many sessions in New York and Los Angeles, with Skouras and his team at Fox to make it an all-cash deal for $43 million, which was the current value of the land given the previous amortized arrangement. Next, Zeckendorf sold the contract to buy the property with the newly agreed terms to the Kratter Corporation of New York in May 1960. Marvin Kratter had previously offered to purchase Fox’s land, exclusive of oil rights and eighty acres for the studio, in December 1957 for $50 million, which would have been a more favorable deal for Fox. With Kratter poised to profit from the fractioning of the land, Webb & Knapp pocketed $4.5 million and twenty-five acres of Century City for its trouble. 59 From the start, Kratter had difficulty securing financing. 60 In June 1960, Kratter pulled out of the deal, “afraid of taking on such a great commitment,” in Zeckendorf’s estimation. Kratter blamed the dissolution of the deal on Webb & Knapp not agreeing with the terms of a sale of a portion of the property to Webb & Knapp. Zeckendorf was in a difficult spot. Lazard Freres required its money by August 1960 and the $3.8 million 77 was due to Fox. If Zeckendorf did not find another investor, Webb & Knapp would lose the land and the $2.5 million down payment. 61 In a daring move, Zeckendorf made a last-minute pitch to the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) in Pittsburgh to secure the financing. Alcoa, not sure about entering real estate having never deviated from aluminum before, accepted the proposal. Zeckendorf proposed that Alcoa put up two-thirds of the investment at Century City and Webb & Knapp would contribute the other third but the profit sharing would be reversed. Alcoa agreed and gave Zeckendorf a check for $2.5 million to cover Lazard Freres. 62 In late August 1960, as Webb & Knapp and Alcoa announced their partnership in New York, Welton Becket and Associates moved into its new $4 million headquarters in Century City, the first completed building in the development. 63 Business historian George David Smith devotes few pages to Aloca’s introduction to real estate or its later sizable investment in real estate in his history of the corporation, but yet offers some insight into the significance of the transaction. Smith describes Alcoa’s partnership with Zeckendorf in Century City and entrance in real estate development as inadvertent, but reports that afterwards Alcoa pursued real estate deliberately. By the close of 1962, Alcoa was involved in seven major urban developments in Indianapolis, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and New York, mostly in joint ventures organized by Zeckendorf. Ten years later, Aloca reported a $68 million equity investment in real estate operations that generated $38.6 million, or 38 percent of the company’s total net income. Smith argues there was “no particularly strong strategic rationale for an aluminum producer to diversify into real estate,” but the “initial justification” was that direct development might further the demonstration of aluminum 78 for large-scale applications. However, Smith points out that moving forward in real estate developments, showcasing aluminum was less a priority, allowing architects to select the materials and aesthetics. Instead, government policies, including seed money for urban redevelopment and accelerated depreciation tax incentives, which favored increasing exchange values, guided increased enthusiasm for developing real estate. 64 Fox shareholders approved the new sale of the studio property, from its wholly- owned subsidiary Fox Realty Corporation of California to Webb & Knapp and Alcoa’s joint subsidiary 91091 Corporation, on October 17, 1960. Skouras urged stockholders to approve the deal, declaring it the best obtainable for the management and the stockholders. The sale of the studio’s more than 280-acre studio for $43 million in cash, rather than a parcel-by-parcel deal that would have grossed just over $56 million, also included a more attractive lease-back provision. For an annual rent of $1.5 million Fox would retain its seventy-six-acre studio for ninety-nine years. After five years, Fox gained great flexibility with the lease; it could sell the lease or redevelop the property however it wished. When challenged by stockholders over the reduced price, Skouras informed that the corporation was in no position to develop Century City on its own. There had been five unsuccessful attempts to dispose of the property. Meanwhile, the deal would also provide a $9 million capital gains advantage. 65 With the sale, Fox officially handed over the reigns of the Century City development to Zeckendorf and Alcoa, who later took over the sole management of the project (see Figure 2.8). Fox had commissioned the transformation of a portion of West Los Angeles. Without the capability of developing the project, Fox sought the revenue 79 FIGURE 2.8 GATHERING TO SELL THE LAND (1961). These 1961 photographs represent milestones in the creation of Century City. Top (left to right): Otto E. Koegel (chief counsel for Fox), Leon E. Hickman (executive vice president of Alcoa), Welton Becket (master planner), and William Zeckendorf, Jr. (executive vice president of Webb & Knapp) gather to overlook a model of Century City when signing the $43 million land sale to Webb & Knapp and Alcoa. Bottom: the model the men above viewed. Source: Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection 80 from the sale of the land. Ten years later, it pursued its own development addition to Century City with intent to level the remaining studio land. Webb & Knapp and Alcoa completed the land purchase on April 16, 1961, with payment of $38 million. Equitable Assurance Society of the United States and Mellon National Bank also contributed to the financing. 66 It was no coincidence that Mellon provided funding for the development, as Mellon was a large stockholder in Alcoa. Zeckendorf noted in his biography that General Richard Mellon had told him years later, while shipmates returning from abroad, that the purchase of Century City was one of the greatest and proudest milestones in the company’s history. 67 WELTON BECKET & CENTURY CITY IN PERSPECTIVE Welton Becket, born in 1902 in Seattle, received his architectural training at the University of Washington and at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Fontainebleau, France. In 1933, Becket moved to Los Angeles and formed a partnership with University of Washington classmate Walter Wurdeman and older local architect Charles Plummer. The partners drew attention, awards, and praise for their Pan-Pacific Auditorium in 1935, and the earnings from the project were invested in a country club membership that then garnered many commissions for homes from the Hollywood elite. After Plummer’s death in 1939, Wurdeman and Becket continued their practice, surviving the lean building years during World War II with government contracts for thousands of housing units for military families and wartime workers. They also collaborated with other architects, including Richard Neutra, Paul Williams, and Gordon Kaufmann, in the design of Pueblo del Rio, public housing for African Americans in South Central Los Angeles. In 1943, Los Angeles community builder Fritz Burns 81 commissioned the pair to design the prototypical and experimental Post-war House, which Becket updated in 1951 as the House of Tomorrow. Perhaps the most prominent of works by Wurdeman & Becket was the Bullock’s Pasadena Department Store (1944- 1946), which spawned additional commissions from Bullock’s (Westwood, 1952), other department stores, and the Mobil Oil Company Building (downtown Los Angeles, 1946). After Wurdeman’s untimely death in 1949, Becket continued the practice as Welton Becket & Associates, never to have another partner or shareholder in his firm until his own death in 1969. 68 Following several modernist office buildings, Becket designed the world’s first round office building as the Capitol Records Tower on Vine Street in Hollywood in 1956. Another Hollywood landmark, the Cinerama Dome, followed in 1963. In between, Becket designed hotels in Beverly Hills (the Beverly Hilton, 1955) and around the world. Following the initial plan for Century City and contemporaneous with the design and construction of buildings there, Becket designed the Los Angeles County Music Center downtown in the mid-1960s. 69 Architectural historian Thomas Hines described Becket’s firm as “the most consistent in its development of the ethic and aesthetic of the International Style—with a preference clearly for its Latin American manifestations, particularly in the contemporary work of such masters as Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer, the designers of Brasilia. More than any other West Coast office, Becket pushed that mode from its canonical successes in small and medium-sized buildings to structures of the largest scale.” 70 Becket employed the International Style in these landmark buildings as well as those he designed for Century City. 82 Along the way, Becket developed his motto and mode of operation known as Total Design. According to architectural historian William Dudley Hunt, Jr., “In its simplest terms, the phrase connotes both architectural philosophy and practice that embrace all of the services required to analyze any architectural problem, perform the necessary studies and research to solve the problem, and translate the solution into a building or group of buildings complete down to the last detail of furniture, sculpture and other art, landscaping, and furnishings, even to ashtrays, menus, and matchboxes.” 71 Despite his mastery of the International Style of Modernism and completion of high- profile projects around the globe, Becket is largely unknown outside Los Angeles. Without any accessible Becket archive, it is impossible to definitively determine the influence of existing plans and places on the innovation of the Century City master plan. 72 However, there are several noted examples that serve as Century City’s design heritage: Le Corbusier’s urban planning schemes, Rockefeller Center, and Park La Brea. While these ideas may have inspired Becket in the planning of Century City, it is important to note that Century City was part of the mid-century master-planning paradigm that realized several new towns across the country and the globe. Eric Mumford has informed that the tower in the park concept usually associated with Le Corbusier and vilified for its failure in public housing complexes also independently occurred to American architects and developers in the 1920s. 73 Le Corbusier, an innovator in the International Style of Modern architecture, was more than likely Becket’s influence. One need only compare the plans of Century City (Figure 2.6) to Le Corbusier’s 1933 La Ville Radieuse (Figure 2.9) to see the similarities, especially in the geometry and quadrants of single use in an overall mixed-use plan. Figure 2.10 83 FIGURE 2.9 LE CORBUSIER’S ZONING PLAN FOR LA VILLE RADIEUSE. Below is the zoning plan by Le Corbusier for his 1933 La Ville Radieuse (The Radiant City). Compare this to Welton Becket & Associates site plan for Century City (Figure 2.6), and the similarity should be apparent in the geometry of the plans, the quadrants of single-use with a mixed-use plan, and the strong central axis. Source: Le Corbusier, The Radiant City: Elements of a Doctrine of Urbanism to Be Used as the Basis of Our Machine- Age Civilization (New York: The Orion Press, 1967), 141. 84 FIGURE 2.10 LA VILLE RADIEUSE & CENTURY CITY STREETSCAPES. The top image is a sketch by Le Corbusier of a potential street in La Ville Radieuse, and the bottom image is a 1985 photograph of Avenue of the Stars. There is a striking similarity between the two streets lined with tall towers. Sources: Top: Le Corbusier, The Radiant City: Elements of a Doctrine of Urbanism to Be Used as the Basis of Our Machine-Age Civilization (New York: The Orion Press, 1967), 122. Bottom: Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection 85 compares Le Corbusier’s sketch of a potential streetscape from La Ville Radieuse with an actual photo of Century City’s Avenue of the Stars. Le Corbusier first proposed widely-spaced towers set in parks in 1921 in a Parisian avant-garde magazine he edited, L’Esprit Nouveau; he expanded the idea in his scheme to remake central Paris, Ville Contemporaine, the following year, which included sixty-story cruciform office towers and six- and eight-story duplex apartment buildings. 74 The tower in the park construct was mostly executed in housing in the United States, especially public or low-income housing. Century City’s initial design, which was largely executed, featured residential, office, and hotel towers in park-like settings and superblocks. While Becket and others absorbed Le Corbusier’s design elements, his plans included the radical restructuring of society, a sort of socialist regime led by technocrats. In contrast, Century City was an entirely capitalist project engineered to aid Fox’s studio money troubles. Two master-planned, privately-developed tower in the park developments that predate Century City that may have served as examples for its plan are Rockefeller Center and Park La Brea. It may have been no coincidence that Skouras declared to the press his intention to build the “Radio City of the West.” 75 Radio City was a nickname then in vogue for Rockefeller Center, so called for its inclusion of multiple tenants in the radio business (RCA, RKO, and NBC). Rockefeller Center, conceived on the eve of the Great Depression, executed in its midst, and expanded in the postwar era, is the Art Deco collection of skyscrapers in midtown Manhattan (originally bounded by 48 th and 51 st Streets and Fifth and Sixth Avenues) designed as a unit and formed an often-emulated prototype in the twentieth century. Promoted as a “city within a city,” the original 86 Rockefeller Center lacked housing and hotels but boasted expansive office space, multiple theaters, and public spaces. 76 Meanwhile, northeast of Century City’s site was the recent Park La Brea development. Following the success of its tower projects in New York City, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company built Park La Brea in the Miracle Mile district of Los Angeles. Constructed during World War II, Gordon Kaufmann and J.E. Stanton combined the current trend of garden apartments around common greens, as in the Radburn Plan, with Le Corbusier-inspired cruciform tower apartments surrounded by green space. The community, exclusively housing, broke with the surrounding grid; in later years, this grid separation provided a course for gates around the perimeter, making Park La Brea a gated community. Century City’s concentration of multiple activities, or “city within in a city,” in a new urban space is indicative of the rise of master planning on blank slates at midcentury. In Reforming Suburbia, Ann Forsyth offers critical analysis of three new towns, including Irvine, California, designed by Becket’s fellow Los Angeles-based corporate Modernism architect-planner William Pereira (see Chapter 4 for Pereira’s design work for Paramount). Forsyth identifies three strains of planning practices in the creation of master-planned new communities: the Garden City tradition, Modernism, and small-town nostalgia. 77 Century City is squarely an example of the Modernism tradition. While High Modernist architects, planners, and engineers radically restructured cities through surgical urban renewal and divisive highway construction, others turned their attention to creating new towns in previously undeveloped or sparsely developed places. Internationally, Le Corbusier designed Chandigarh, India (1952), while Lucio Costa and 87 Oscar Niemeyer designed Brasilia (1956). International new towns, including the aforementioned Modernist examples and those in Europe more strongly influenced by Garden City ideals, were developed by public and nonprofit developers. In contrast, new- town building in the U.S. has almost exclusively been undertaken for profit by private developers. 78 James Rouse planned suburban new towns Columbia, Maryland (1963), and Reston, Virginia (1964). Los Angeles-based architect-planners, such as Pereira and Victor Gruen, created the Southern California new towns of Irvine (1960s) and Laguna Niguel (1960), respectively. While most of the new town development was on urban fringes or exurban, Century City was a rare example of master planning on a tabla rasa within a developed metropolis. Its unique placement was due to Fox’s land-use decision to raise money through the redevelopment of the majority of its studio land. Forsyth observes that James Rouse and architects, including Walter Gropius as early as the 1940s, saw new towns as models for the redevelopment of central cities. 79 Becket may have been the first to implement such plans with Century City. Meanwhile, journalist Joel Garreau grouped Century City with Beverly Hills in his listing of nationwide “edge cities,” which is his term for the exponential growth of decentralized office and retail space outside traditional downtowns. 80 Although Garreau fashioned the prototypical edge city as a phenomenon of the late twentieth century, urban historians have demonstrated that the mass decentralization of work, shopping, and leisure quickly followed suburbanites to the outer reaches of cities, beginning in the first half of the twentieth century, adopting new built forms along the way. 81 The trend toward concentration of office space in decentralized locales is shared by Century City’s innovation as an economic and cultural node between downtown Los 88 Angeles and the Pacific Ocean, in an area of the metropolis that was expanding in population and wealth. In a 1970 plan for West Los Angeles, Century City was deemed the most significant center of employment in that part of the city with more than 10,000 employees at the time and another 4,000 expected over the next two years. 82 “The success or failure of Century City cannot readily be predicted. Its undertaking, nonetheless, embodies the forward thinking optimism of California,” wrote Interiors in 1966 after the first set of buildings opened. 83 Century City was an innovative plan and remains a unique piece of the Los Angeles urban fabric, whose success is measured by traffic congestion and recent development pressures in the last twenty years that have demolished original buildings and replaced them with new ones. While from the start Century City conformed to Los Angeles’s polycentric structure, it was and remains like no other place in the city. Los Angeles is frequently linked with Modernism, especially in art and architecture. However, the image conjured in this pairing is usually a sleek glass house in the Hollywood Hills rather than Century City’s master-planned Modern landscape. Furthermore, Century City was ahead of its time. In 1966, after several buildings had been completed, the New York Times exclaimed that the development is “that of a vast, adult Disneyland, a spectacle in architectural and urban planning that is brimming with implications of what can be done elsewhere.” 84 More than forty years later, the same paper said Century City “resembled the New York World’s Fair of 1964-65, with its futuristic buildings and its park-like setting.” 85 Despite the publicity and boasting the largest private capital investment in an urban development, there were few appraisals in between. 89 One such assessment, by architecture critic John Pastier for the American Institute of Architects journal Architecture in 1988, explained, “this is not a place that the architectural profession cares to talk about. Century City has not been extensively published, and its planning and individual buildings are not often the subject of architects’ debates.” Pastier, citing “indifference,” continued, “Although its very earliest and latest buildings are well designed, the overwhelming majority are ordinary at best, and the visual relationships among them are usually haphazard or simplistic.” He referred to the reliance on pairs for the design of Century City’s largest buildings and the low-rise housing for their banality. 86 Pastier summed up his criticism, “In its treatment of vehicles, pedestrians, shopping, and housing, Century City combined urban densities with suburban values. In short, a rare opportunity for enlightened city-building evolved into an immense but rather ordinary real estate development.” 87 Century City is an ordinary real estate development by what standards? Pastier does not elaborate as to what that really means. My previous analysis contradicts his conclusion. Combining density with “suburban values,” as he puts it (presumably the accommodation and dominance of the automobile), is the contemporary trend in urban development. Rather than ordinary, Century City is forward-thinking and innovative, and despite some critics’ assertions that its design was immutable to change, it has evolved over the last fifty years. 88 In the end, Pastier’s architectural myopia may have clouded his understanding of urban planning and development. After declaring Century City “ordinary,” he does enumerate several favorable items about the development, including its success as measured by the City of Los Angeles’s need to restrict development in order to control traffic to surrounding streets’ capacities, its popularity with political 90 leaders and Westside residents, its diversity of uses, its activity at night and on weekends, and that it is “generously and skillfully landscaped.” 89 The landscaping was boosted by Becket’s program to conserve 850 mature trees from the studio land for planting in Century City. 90 After demolition of the site in August 1961, the first office building in Century City since the sale of the land opened in 1963 (see Figure 2.11). The following year, Gateway East joined Gateway West, a pair of aluminum curtain wall structured buildings on either side of Avenue of the Stars at Santa Monica Boulevard. Meanwhile, Century City contributed $400,000, nearly $300,000 more than required, for a new sewer to serve Century City and other parts of West Los Angeles. 91 Also in 1964, the fifteen-acre Century Square regional shopping mall opened as did the individually-owned buildings for the Automobile Club of Southern California, headquarters for the National Cash Register Company, and headquarters for the Pacific Telephone Company. 92 In 1965, the twin Century Towers apartment buildings, each twenty-seven stories tall, opened (see Figure 2.12). Designed by I.M. Pei, Pastier more than twenty years later, declared that the apartment buildings, later converted to condos, “set a strong design standard” and “represent a milestone in local high-rise housing design.” 93 Pastier offered tempered praise to Century City’s iconic building, the $30 million, uniquely curved, twenty-story Century Plaza Hotel, which opened in 1966 (see Figure 2.13). Minoru Yamasaki, the architect of ill-fated landmarks World Trade Center Towers in New York and the Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex in St. Louis, designed the luxury hotel. Pastier stated that it and office buildings opened around the same time “did not measure up to Pei’s work but still were solid, respectable efforts in the context of 91 FIGURE 2.11 1963 VIEW OF CENTURY CITY UNDER CONSTRUCTION. This aerial photograph taken in 1963, looking southwest, shows Century City under construction. Gateway West is complete and Gateway East is under construction fronting Santa Monica Boulevard, divided by Avenue of the Stars, which is also under construction. Welton Becket & Associates’s headquarters building is in the lower left-hand corner. Source: Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection 92 FIGURE 2.12 1965 VIEW OF CENTURY CITY. This aerial photograph taken in 1965, looking southeast, shows Century City with several buildings completed and labeled. I.M. Pei’s Century Towers are labeled “High Rise Apartments” in the upper right corner. Source: Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection 93 FIGURE 2.13 THE CENTURY PLAZA HOTEL. This is an undated photograph of the Century Plaza Hotel along Avenue of the Stars, which opened in 1966. The Century Plaza Hotel is the icon of Century City and its most frequently appraised building, designed by Minoru Yamasaki. When it was threatened by demolition in 2009, there was an outpouring of support to save the building and a compromise was reached to retain its historic integrity. Source: Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection 94 their time.” 94 Soon after its opening, Architectural Record featured the Century Plaza Hotel in a spread on hotels, declaring “the site is exceptional,” while cooing, “The Century Plaza Hotel is a glamorous paradox, a luxury resort on a mid-city site, designed to attract conventions and large events without interfering with the relaxed atmosphere of a resort.” 95 When Century City’s most reviewed and adored building was threatened with demolition in 2009, triggering a forceful response from local and national historic preservation groups—the Los Angeles Conservancy and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, respectively—the New York Times described the hotel as “hemmed in, with much taller buildings surrounding it.” 96 Oscar-winning actress and preservationist Diane Keaton, admiring its distinctive shape worth saving, compared the hotel to a “sexy woman surrounded by ogling men,” likening the Century Plaza in its current context to “Sophia Loren in the 1960s.” 97 Meanwhile, Culver City-based postmodern architect Eric Owen Moss, arguing the Century Plaza was not a building he would fight to preserve, stated, “I think it’s a hotel you could ship to Sao Paulo or Singapore or Dubai and nobody would know the difference.” 98 While as an example of International Style architecture, you would expect to find this kind of design across the globe, Century City, and by extension the Century Plaza Hotel, were trendsetters and predate Sao Paulo’s, Singapore’s, and Dubai’s modernist skylines. In September 1966, four twenty-story apartment buildings, known as Century Park Apartments, opened for occupation. Reports indicated that half of Los Angeles’s new luxury apartment leases were signed in Century City, where rents commanded up to 95 $1,200 per month. At the time, Century City was expected to ultimately contain 5,000 apartment units in twenty buildings, housing 12,000 people, and four million square feet of office space in twenty-eight buildings, with a daytime population of 20,000 people. 99 FINAL ATTEMPT TO REDEVELOP THE STUDIO Although the studio had recently operated over capacity and while some of master-planned Century City still lay undeveloped, Fox formulated plans to convert its studio facilities into another phase of commercial and residential development, again favoring exchange value over use value (see Figure 2.14). In 1970, Fox hired a real estate consultant, Lewis N. Wolff, to oversee its vast land holdings, and the following year, created subsidiary Twentieth Century-Fox Realty and Development Company and installed Wolff as president. 100 Under Wolff’s leadership, in March 1971, Fox announced the development of a $25 million medical complex on nine acres of studio land fronting along Avenue of the Stars. 101 These actions along with an announcement in October 1971 that Gruen Associates had been hired to conduct an eighteen-month comprehensive land- use survey of the West Los Angeles studio indicated that Fox was again seeking to profit from its land and escape the woes, at least temporarily, of declining box office revenues. 102 The biggest sign of intent to redevelop came in July 1973 when Fox purchased the seventy-six-acre site it had leased from Alcoa since 1961 for $21 million. In addition to the $21 million for the title to the studio land, Fox paid $18 million over twelve years in rent, at $1.5 million per annum, a total of $39 million. Fox received $43 million for the more than 280 acres it sold, which provided Fox with only $4 million in profit after the land exchange and millions more for Alcoa. The agreement included an option for Alcoa 96 FIGURE 2.14 1971 VIEW OF CENTURY CITY. This aerial photograph taken in 1971, looking south, shows how Century City has filled in but large gaps remain. This did not deter Fox from planning its own redevelopment plan for its remaining studio (the upper right quadrant). Source: Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection 97 to buy back 17.5 acres fronting along Avenue of the Stars, and left Fox with fifty-five unrestricted acres to redevelop. With the announcement, Wolff reiterated his twelve-year development program that would have luxury townhomes and condominiums and commercial space rise on the studio site. 103 “The studio is old and inefficient and it is now an anachronism in West Los Angeles. It has a long history, but it’s out of date,” planner Allen M. Rubenstein, Gruen Associates partner, told the Los Angeles Times as he detailed his intent for the redevelopment master plan. 104 As the specific plan, a particular type of municipally- approved plan, moved through the planning process it received objections from the City of Beverly Hills and neighboring residents from Beverly Hills, Cheviot Hills, and other communities over its presumed traffic congestion and air quality impacts even though the details fell within the parameters set by the West Los Angeles Master Plan. Others criticized its lack of income diversity in the pricing for homes. 105 Ironically, two years after purchasing the land in West Los Angeles, Fox was concerned that the trickle of new homeowners in the general area would challenge its zoning as a nuisance and force the relocation of the studio. Fifty years later, Fox’s industrial practices were no concern but its plans to develop residential and commercial space and invite more congestion was an unforgivable nuisance. Over the loud objections of its neighbors, the Los Angeles City Planning Commission approved the plan in October 1974. Throughout the process, the City Planning Director, Calvin Hamilton, was especially criticized for favoring Fox’s plans, including a short public comment period on the environmental impact report (EIR). 106 In December 1974, the Los Angeles City Council approved the specific plan and rezoning 98 of the property in a compromise between the developer and some neighbors’ concerns. Beverly Hills, however, was not appeased by the compromise, and the following month filed a complaint to halt the plan’s implementation. 107 In October 1976, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled in Fox’s favor, permitting the plans for the twenty acres of commercial and fifty-five acres of residential development to occur. A Hollywood Reporter article cited an unnamed Fox official stating that the board had not decided whether to go ahead with the development plan when it was finally freed of all legal tangles. 108 The development never came to pass, but at this point, it is unclear exactly why not. It may well have been the legal hurdles, but Fox may have also realized that the site was valuable as a production facility and had underestimated the ratio between its use and exchange values. The redevelopment of the remaining studio production facilities in West Los Angeles were usually discussed in tandem with the construction of new facilities elsewhere. Since plans for new facilities never materialized, Fox recognized the value in and the necessity to keep the studio. The recently instituted rental structure for the plant, providing a mechanism to keep stages from being idle, should have reorganized the financial situation to a profitable state. In January 1979, the Hollywood Reporter said the studio was “bursting at the seams, and there are several factors behind the burgeoning activity,” chiefly television production. 109 The studio was so busy it had to rent offices nearby off-site and do double shifts in the dubbing rooms. They expected the pace to continue for awhile. 110 Meanwhile, Fox moved its headquarters from New York City to Los Angeles in December 1972, following the lead of Warner Bros. and MGM. 111 The move signaled 99 another change in the business model. With film financing no longer reliant on Wall Street, the film industry shifted its headquarters to Los Angeles, which had served as the film production capital for about fifty years. It is more than likely that this shift in location for Fox executives informed their perspective on land use. While still based in New York, executives were keen to redevelop the studio site and seek new production facilities elsewhere in Los Angeles. In the twenty years since the creation of the Century City plan, Fox had been struggling all that time to efficiently run the studio while at times preparing to redevelop the remaining studio if one of numerous plans for new production facilities had materialized. Operating from Los Angeles, and gaining local knowledge in the process, may have presented the studio and its location as assets worth maintaining to executives, or in other words, they reassessed the studio’s use value. In summation, as a large landowner, Fox shaped the urban development of West Los Angeles. First, by purchasing about 284 acres ahead of development in the vicinity before the collapse of the studio system, Fox’s film plant and its neighboring golf courses set the development patterns in the area. After the collapse of the studio system, reassessing its landholdings and potential profits, Fox hired Welton Becket & Associates to master plan its redevelopment. The innovative “city within in a city” plan completely transformed the character of that portion of the metropolis, which had been fully developed by then. Relying on its New York networks, Fox’s Century City development demonstrated the Eastern influence on Los Angeles’s urban development. After the headquarters moved to the Los Angeles studio at the end of 1972, Fox canceled plans to redevelop the remaining studio to compliment the Century City development. Ultimately, the comprehensive approach applied in the creation of Century City sharply contrasts 100 with the land management of the other studios in the study, especially MGM, which follows in the next chapter. 101 1 Century City Chamber of Commerce, “The Century City Story,” undated press release, Century City California Index File, Los Angeles Public Library. 2 Aubrey Solomon, Twentieth Century-Fox: A Corporate and Financial History (Lanham, Md.: The Scarecrow Press, 2002), 141. 3 John M. Findlay, Magic Lands: Western Cityscapes and American Culture After 1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 286-287. 4 John Pastier, “Century City After a Quarter Century: The Huge Los Angeles Complex Ends Its Architectural Drought,” Architecture 77, no. 1 (January 1988): 60. 5 See, e.g., Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York: Vintage Books, 1961); R. Scott Fosler and Renee A. Berger, Eds, Public-Private Partnership in American Cities: Seven Case Studies (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1982); Jon C. Teaford, The Rough Road to Renaissance: Urban Revitalization in America, 1940-1985 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990). 6 Douglas Gomery, The Hollywood Studio System: A History (London: British Film Institute, 2005), 37-38. 7 Various correspondence, “Purchase of New Studio Property,” Box 836, Fox Legal Records (Collection 95), UCLA Performing Arts Special Collections. 8 Letter from Bauer, Wright & MacDonald to C.W. Howkings dated 10 April 1923, “Purchase of New Studio Property,” Box 836, Fox Legal Records (Collection 95), UCLA Performing Arts Special Collections. 9 Western Union Telegram from John C. Eisele to Alfred Wright dated 17 April 1923, “Purchase of New Studio Property,” Box 836, Fox Legal Records (Collection 95), UCLA Performing Arts Special Collections; Letter from John Eisele to Afred Wright dated 25 May 1923, “Purchase of New Studio Property,” Box 836, Fox Legal Records (Collection 95), UCLA Performing Arts Special Collections. 10 G.W. Baist, Plate 45, Baist’s Real Estate Atlas of Los Angeles (Philadelphia: G.W. Baist, 1921), accessed on 9 Nov. 2011 at <http://www.historicmapworks.com>; Glen Creason, Los Angeles In Maps (New York: Rizzoli, 2010), 65, 82-83; Patricia A. Allen, Janss: A Brief History (Los Angeles: Janss Recognition Committee, 1978), 6. 11 Letter from Bauer, Wright & MacDonald to Dr. Edwin Janss dated 13 Aug. 1923, “Purchase of New Studio Property,” Box 836, Fox Legal Records (Collection 95), UCLA Performing Arts Special Collections. 12 Marc A. Weiss, The Rise of the Community Builders: The American Real Estate Industry and Urban Land Planning (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 2. 13 Ordinance 38,750 (N.S.), Box B-1413, Los Angeles City Archives. 14 “Zoning of Westwood Studio Property” in Fox File 5/18/27, “Purchase of New Studio Property,” Box 836, Fox Legal Records (Collection 95), UCLA Performing Arts Special Collections; City Planning Commission Minutes, 28 Sept. 1923, vol. 4, p. 226-227, Box C-408, Los Angeles City Archives. 15 Letter from Bauer, Wright & MacDonald to William Fox dated 11 Dec. 1924, “Purchase of New Studio Property,” Box 836, Fox Legal Records (Collection 95), UCLA Performing Arts Special Collections. 16 Letter from Sol Wurtzel to Alfred Wright dated 6 April 1925, “Purchase of New Studio Property,” Box 836, Fox Legal Records (Collection 95), UCLA Performing Arts Special Collections; Letter from A.W. to Mr. Lester dated 13 April 1925, “Purchase of New Studio Property,” Box 836, Fox Legal Records (Collection 95), UCLA Performing Arts Special Collections; Letter from Bauer, Wright & MacDonald to 102 Sol Wurtzel dated 24 April 1925, “Purchase of New Studio Property,” Box 836, Fox Legal Records (Collection 95), UCLA Performing Arts Special Collections. 17 Sanborn Map Company, Los Angeles, vol. 24 (New York: Sanborn Map Company, 1926 updated to 1938), 2407-2409, 2414-2414, 2420, 2426-2427 via ProQuest. 18 H. May Spitz, “Neighborly Advice: Pancakes, Putting Green Just Around the Corner,” Los Angeles Times, 4 April 2004, K2. 19 H. May Spitz, “Neighborly Advice: The Burr of Scotland and the Whir of Cameras,” Los Angeles Times, 26 Oct. 2003, K2; Martha Groves, “‘Calmed’ Roads Led to a Storm,” Los Angeles Times, 20 July 2005, A1; Cheviot Hills Home Owners’ Association, <http://www.cheviothills.org/> Accessed 13 June 2012. 20 H. May Spitz, “Neighborly Advice: A Mid-Cities Look That’s Lasted,” Los Angeles Times, 28 Dec. 2003, K2; Leimert Investment Co., “Developments,” <http://www.leimert.com/developments.html> Accessed 13 June 2012. 21 Gerald Floyd, “Rancho Park: Shopping, Business Define Area’s Appeal,” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, 18 Dec. 1988, A3, California Index, Los Angeles Public Library. 22 Groves, “‘Calmed’ Roads.” 23 Current plans to build a “subway to the sea,” an extension of the Metro Purple Line along the Wilshire Cooridor, include a stop in Century City. 24 William M. Henry, “Millions Spent in Sound-Proof Stages For Making of Talking Pictures,” Los Angeles Times, 28 Oct. 1928, 20 th Century Fox Movietone News Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 25 Mark S. Foster, “The Model-T, the Hard Sell, and Los Angeles’s Urban Growth: The Decentralization of Los Angeles During the 1920s,” Pacific Historical Review 44, no. 4 (1975): 459-484; Scott L. Bottles, Los Angeles and the Automobile: The Making of the Modern City (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 175-210. 26 Henry, “Millions Spent in Sound-Proof Stages.” 27 Appellant’s Brief Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation v. Paul C. Teas, et al., United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, No. 18,245, pp. 2-3, “Fox Realty Corporation,” Box 499, Fox Legal Records (Collection 95), UCLA Performing Arts Special Collections. 28 Department of City Planning, City of Los Angeles Land Use Map, 1939-1940, Vol. 7, Sheet 34, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. 29 Appellant’s Brief Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, 2-4. 30 Letter from Edmond E. Herrscher to Spyros P. Skouras dated 18 March 1958, Box 44, Folder 7, Spyros P. Skouras Papers, M0509, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA. 31 “New Buildings Planned By 20 th Century-Fox,” Los Angeles Times, 19 Feb. 1946, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1946-1948) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 32 “20 th -MGM Near Deal on Merging Prod’n at Metro,” Hollywood Reporter, 8 Jan. 1957, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1954-1959) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “20 th Explores Move to MGM,” Beverly Hills-Citizen, 27 Feb. 1957, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1954-1959) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation/Fox Film 103 Corporation Selected Financial Data: 1927-1976,” Daily Variety, 25 Oct. 1977, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (July – December 1977) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 33 Spyros P. Skouras, Twentieth Century Fox Stockholder Meeting Speech, 21 May 1957, Box 80, Folder 53, Spyros P. Skouras Papers, M0509, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA. 34 Appellant’s Brief Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, 5. 35 Memo by Spyros P. Skouras with letter addressed to Darryl F. Zanuck dated 17 Dec. 1963, Box 1, Folder 8, Spyros P. Skouras Papers, M0509, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA; Spyros P. Skouras, Twentieth Century Fox Stockholders Meeting Speech, 15 May 1956, Box 80, Folder 52, Spyros P. Skouras Papers, M0509, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA. 36 Skouras, Twentieth Century Fox Stockholder Meeting Speech, 15 May 1956. 37 Letter from Edmond E. Herrscher to Spyros P. Skouras dated 8 July 1958, Box 44, Folder 8, Spyros P. Skouras Papers, M0509, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA. 38 Ibid. 39 Letter from Welton Becket to the Attention of F.L.Metzler dated 1 Oct. 1956, Box 44, Folder 6, Spyros P. Skouras Papers, M0509, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA. 40 “Delveopment Plan for Studio Told,” Los Angeles Times, 23 May 1957, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1954-1959) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 41 Ibid.; Skouras, Twentieth Century Fox Stockholder Meeting Speech, 21 May 1957. 42 Department of City Planning, “West Los Angeles District Plan: Preliminary Plan” (Los Angeles: City Plan Case 22839, 1971), GP 43 “The Gateway Buildings,” undated Century City promotional brochure, CPC 17588, Box 43309, Los Angeles City Archives. 44 Department of City Planning, “West Los Angeles Economic Study” (Los Angeles, Calif., 1970), 6. 45 Inter-Office Correspondence from Edmond E. Herrscher to Spyros Skouras, 28 Oct. 1957, Box 44, Folder 6, Spyros P. Skouras Papers, M0509, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA. 46 Ibid. 47 Welton Becket and Associates and 20 th Century-Fox Film Corp., Press Release Wednesday, January 8, 1958, Century City Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid.; “$400,000,000 City to Rise on Film Studio Lot,” Los Angeles Times, 8 Jan. 1958, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1954-1959) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 50 “$400,000,000 City to Rise on Film Studio Lot.” 104 51 Letter from Edmond E. Herrscher to Spyros P. Skouras dated 18 March 1958, Box 44, Folder 7, Spyros P. Skouras Papers, M0509, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA; Telegram from Buddy Addler to Spryos Skouras undated (circa 19 May 1958), Box 44, Folder 5, Spyros P. Skouras Papers, M0509, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA. 52 Los Angeles City Council File 93695, Box A-1551, Los Angeles City Archives; Los Angeles City Council File 91600, Box A-1545, Los Angeles City Archives. 53 Qtd. in “Twentieth Century-Fox Has No Definite Plan Yet for Movie Lot City,” Wall Street Journal, 30 April 1958, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1954-1959) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 54 Spyros P. Skouras, Twentieth Century Fox Stockholder Meeting Speech, 20 May 1958, Box 81, Folder 3, Spyros P. Skouras Papers, M0509, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA. 55 Letter from Edmond Herrscher to Spyros Skouras dated 14 May 1958, Box 44, Folder 7, Spyros P. Skouras Papers, M0509, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA. 56 William Zeckendorf with Edward McCreary, The Autobiography of William Zeckendorf (New York, Chicago, San Francisco: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970): 245-246. 57 Ibid., 245-247. 58 Ibid., 248. 59 Ibid., 248-249, 254; Letter from Edmond E. Herrscher to Spyros P. Skouras dated 8 July 1958, Box 44, Folder 8, Spyros P. Skouras Papers, M0509, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA. 60 Letter from Spyros Skouras to Darryl F. Zanuck undated (in response to letter of 11 July 1960), Box 44, Folder 5, Spyros P. Skouras Papers, M0509, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA. 61 Zeckendorf, The Autobiography of William Zeckendorf, 249; Kratter Corporation, undated press release circa June 1960, Box 44, Folder 9, Spyros P. Skouras Papers, M0509, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA. 62 Zeckendorf, The Autobiography of William Zeckendorf, 249-253; Zeckendorf erroneously names Frank Magee as “Frank McGee.” 63 “Alcoa Buys Big Share in Century City,” Los Angeles Times, 26 Aug. 1960, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1960-1963) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “Exit Zeckendorf,” Newsweek, 30 May 1960, p. 70, Century City Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 64 George David Smith, From Monopoly to Competition: The Transformations of Alcoa, 1888-1986 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 338-339. 65 Louis Pelegrine, “New Deal For Fox Lot Okayed,” The Film Daily, 18 Oct. 1960, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1960-1963) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 66 “20 th Gets Final $38 Million Payment For Studio Acreage,” Daily Variety, 17 April 1961, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1960-1963) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 105 67 Zeckendorf, The Autobiography of William Zeckendorf, 253. 68 Thomas S. Hines, Architecture of the Sun: Los Angeles Modernism 1900-1970 (New York: Rizzoli, 2010), 658-664. 69 Ibid., 665-675. 70 Ibid., 658. 71 William Dudley Hunt, Jr., Total Design: Architecture of Welton Becket and Associates (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972), 4. 72 The Getty Research Institute received architectural plans and photographs from the Becket family in 2010, but as of this writing, the collection remains unprocessed. 73 Eric Mumford, “The ‘Tower in a Park’ in America: Theory and Practice, 1920-1960,” Planning Perspectives 10 (1995): 17-21. 74 Ibid., 18-19. 75 “Development Plan for Studio Told,” Los Angeles Times, 23 May 1957, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1954-1959) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 76 Carol Herselle Krinsky, Rockefeller Center (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978). 77 Ann Forsyth, Reforming Suburbia: The Planned Communities of Irvine, Columbia, and The Woodlands (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 29-33. 78 Ibid., 27. 79 Ibid., 32. 80 Joel Garreau, Edge City: Life on the New Frontier (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 430. 81 See, e.g., Greg Hise, Magnetic Los Angeles: Planning the Twentieth-Century Metropolis (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997); Richard Longstreth, City Center to Regional Mall: Architecture, the Automobile, and Retailing in Los Angeles, 1920-1950 (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1997); Robert Lewis, ed, Manufacturing Suburbs: Building Work and Home on the Metropolitan Fringe (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004); Louise A. Mozingo, Pastoral Capitalism: A History of Suburban Corporate Landscapes (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2011). 82 Department of City Planning, “West Los Angeles Economic Study” (Los Angeles, Calif., 1970), 14. 83 “Environment: The California Concern,” Interiors 126, no. 1 (August 1966): 131. 84 Gladwin Hill, “Century City—New Stop on the Tourist Map,” New York Times, 26 June 1966, XX1. 85 Fred A. Bernstein, “A Hotel’s Past vs. a City’s Future,” New York Times, 22 July 2009, B8. 86 Pastier, “Century City After a Quarter Century,” 60. 87 Ibid., 61. 88 For criticism of its immutability and attempts to mold Century City for twenty-first century planning ideals, see Josh Stephens, “Softening the Edge: Modernism May Get an Update in Los Angeles’s Century City,” Planning 74, no. 3 (2008): 26-29. 106 89 Pastier, “Century City After a Quarter Century,” 61. 90 “Set Razing at Fox Studio to Begin Today,” Los Angeles Times, 17 Aug. 1961, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1960-1963) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 91 “Set Razing at Fox Studio”; Tom Cameron, “Century City: ‘Frontier’ Movie Towns Supplanted by Huge $500 Million Development,” Los Angeles Times, 10 June 1962, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1960- 1963) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Los Angeles City Council File 95279, Box A-1568, Los Angeles City Archives. 92 Ray Herbert, “Century City Makes Magic Where Film Studio Used to Spin Fantasy,” Los Angeles Times, 18 April 1966, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1966-1967) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 93 Pastier, “Century City After a Quarter Century,” 61. 94 Ibid., 61-62. 95 “Hotels, Motels, Resorts,” Architectural Record 140, no. 2 (August 1966): 125. 96 Bernstein, “A Hotel’s Past.” 97 Qtd. Ibid. 98 Ibid. 99 Herbert, “Century City Makes Magic.” 100 “Wolf To Develop 20 th ’s Extensive Real Estate,” Daily Variety, 15 April 1970, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1970) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “Fox Plans Activity In Building,” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, 24 March 1971, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1971) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 101 “Development Deal With Tishman, Others, For Century City Addition,” Hollywood Reporter, 31 March 1971, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1971) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 102 “Fox Westwood Lot Use Studied; Exploring Smaller, Modern Studio And Other Ways of Developing Acreage,” Daily Variety, 19 Oct. 1971, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1971) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “Fox Film Corp. Lets Pact for Land Use Place,” Los Angeles Times, 24 Oct. 1971, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1971) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 103 A.D. Murphy, “20 th -Fox Buys Back 76 Acres From Alcoa For $21 Million,” Daily Variety, 31 July 1973, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1973) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “Fox Will Pay Alcoa $21 Million for Fee Interest in Studio Site,” Hollywood Reporter, 31 July 1973, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1973) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “Fox Film Agrees To Repurchase Land It Had Sold to Alcoa,” Wall Street Journal, 31 July 1973, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1973) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 104 Qtd. in Gerald Faris, “Planners Will Lower Curtain on Fox Studio,” Los Angeles Times, 25 Nov. 1973, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1973) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 107 105 “B.H. Lashes Fox Studio Redevelopment Report,” Los Angeles Times, 21 March 1974, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1974) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Ray Ripton, “Neighbors Oppose Project: Panel Will Act on Fox Development Plan,” Los Angeles Times, 28 Aug. 1974, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1974) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Irv Burleigh, “Expensive Homes on Fox Property Win Planners’ OK,” Los Angeles Times, 17 Oct. 1974, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1974) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 106 “B.H. Showing Concern Over Fox Property Development,” Los Angeles Times, 20 Jan. 1974, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1974) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Skip Ferderber, “Hamiliton Draws Fire on Fox Studio Complex,” Los Angeles Times, 12 Sept. 1974, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1974) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Ray Ripton, “Alternatives for Fox Property to be Heard,” Los Angeles Times, 10 Oct. 1974, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1974) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Irv Burleigh, “Expensive Homes on Fox Property Win Planners’ OK,” Los Angeles Times, 17 Oct. 1974, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1974) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 107 Ray Ripton, “B.H. Moves to Halt Fox Redevelopment,” Los Angeles Times, 23 Jan. 1975, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1975) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Los Angeles City Council File 74-4757, Box B-545, Los Angeles City Archives. 108 “Court Okays Fox Building Plan,” Hollywood Reporter, 5 Oct. 1976, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1976) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 109 Frank Barron, “20 th -Fox Studios at Capacity, Expect Even Heavier Demands,” Hollywood Reporter, 15 Jan. 1979, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (January – April 1979) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 110 Ibid. 111 “Fox Moving West,” Hollywood Reporter, 22 Sept. 1971, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1971) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “20 th - Fox Finalizing N.Y.-To-L.A. Move,” Daily Variety, 29 Dec. 1972, 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1972) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 108 Chapter 3 Piecemeal Development: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Culver City In a scene befitting a film shoot on a studio backlot, representatives of the Hollywood and Culver City Chambers of Commerce arrived at Grauman’s Chinese Theater shortly after noon on October 6, 1937, in a gilded coach drawn by four white horses. The coach followed twenty-six members of the King’s Guard, in costume, from Selznick International Company’s Prisoner of Zenda. The parties orchestrated the props, pomp, and circumstance in front of the famed theater and footprints on Hollywood Boulevard for a “bury the hatchet” ceremony. The figurative and literal—an actual hatchet was buried in a cement block—meeting symbolized the end of the four-month- long feud after Culver City attempted to change its name to Hollywood. Broadcast on radio, California Governor Frank Merriam addressed the crowd of onlookers, which included chamber members, high-ranking civic officials, and Selznick staff. 1 Just after burying the hatchet, Culver City Chamber of Commerce President Blaine Walker delivered Hollywood Chamber President Otto Olesen a package containing rolls of film made at the Selnick studio in Culver City labeled “Culver City Presents Hollywood with a Culver City Made Film.” In the end, Walker declared, “We never really wanted the name of Hollywood. All we wanted was to have it recognized we made good pictures in Culver City, too.” Olesen responded, “the 165,000 residents of Hollywood who have enjoyed for fifty years the use of the name appreciate the fine gesture of the men from Culver City.” 2 109 Since before its incorporation in 1917, film studios—Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) chief among them—have been essential to Culver City’s economy and identity. The year before the name dispute, Culver City adopted a seal, still in use today. “The Heart of Screenland” and an image of motion picture equipment appear on the seal, signifying the importance of the industry. 3 Indeed, film production is at the core of Culver City’s founding history. During a luncheon at the California Club in downtown Los Angeles in 1913, Harry H. Culver announced his plans to develop a residential and commercial city halfway between Los Angeles and the ocean at a junction point of the Pacific Electric streetcar system. Culver was known for his promotional skills, and within a year, his town boasted paved streets with trees and lighting, stores, a macaroni factory, a bank, a newspaper, and a real estate sales force of 150 selling homes. In 1915, while standing on the banks of nearby La Ballona Creek, Culver watched Thomas Ince direct a western on location, away from Inceville, his studio site north of Santa Monica. Fascinated by the movies and driven by his entrepreneurial spirit, Culver convinced Ince to purchase property on Washington Boulevard. The first of Culver City’s three major studio sites, Ince along with D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett developed Triangle Studios, which is the site MGM took over nine years later. In 1917, residents rejected Los Angeles’s annexation attempts and instead voted to incorporate as an independent city. 4 Culver City grew into a moderate-income residential and industrial suburb. Greg Hise cites Culver City and its integral relationship with film studios, similar to other municipalities and communities in Los Angeles County with other industries, as an industrial suburb that challenges the received wisdom of American suburbs as high- 110 income bedroom communities. 5 Meanwhile, Mike Davis describes the relationship between MGM and Culver City as a “de facto company town.” 6 While the City of Los Angeles may be happy to reap the tax benefits and image boosting from its film industry, Culver City has relied on it and competed for it much more fiercely as a small city with a less diversified economy. Consequently, Culver City played a more active role in the redevelopment of MGM’s former backlots than Los Angeles did in the Century City development. Motor Avenue, the first paved road between Twentieth Century Fox (Fox) and MGM, dead ends at both studios. Century City, at the north end of Motor Avenue, is what often comes to mind when imagining the impact of film studios on the shape of Los Angeles. Yet, curving from Motor to Culver Boulevard, heading west along the current boundary of the studio in Culver City, or traveling a mile south on Overland Avenue, provides a tour of the city and the almost invisible impact of MGM’s once vast land holdings and their reshaping of Culver City. In contrast to the comprehensive, modern approach undertaken by Fox in the creation of Century City, MGM’s piecemeal sale of six of its seven lots created the ability for Culver City to retain its fabric even as it grew, developed, and changed. MGM’s location in an industrial suburb, unlike Fox’s wealthy enclave surroundings, and decision to sell for redevelopment more than a decade after Fox shaped Culver City’s urban development in fundamentally different ways than Fox’s Century City development shaped Los Angeles. MGM may not have been Culver City’s first film studio, but it was its largest and most important. Unlike Henry Ford who campaigned for municipal incorporation and 111 consolidation to better serve his needs at the River Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan, MGM executives did not interfere in Culver City’s operations. 7 MGM and other film companies in Culver City also remained silent during the Hollywood name dispute. With the top brass in New York, the company had no reason to manipulate such events since they did not threaten MGM’s business interests in Culver City. While MGM was the most successful and lucrative of the major studios during the studio era, its land management was the most haphazard. This laxity suggests that at MGM, filmmaking and land management were divorced from one another. Land was cheap in Culver City, and MGM continued to expand its holdings through the mid-1940s, just before the studio system collapse. The expansion housed semi-permanent sets and other storage purposes rather than production or industrial buildings. Unlike other studios, MGM did not consolidate all of its land in one walled compound, but instead spread across seven lots clustered at two major intersections about a mile apart. Marcus Loew, founding president of Loew’s, from his earliest theatrical enterprises, owned the land on which his theaters sat, ensuring he had the land to profit from if the show should fail. While MGM employed this strategy of owning the land it used for production, there was no clear plan, beyond accumulation, for its management. As production waned after the collapse of the studio system, the land and sets were less useful, and thus fell into disrepair. When MGM made the final decision to sell the bulk of its 187 acres in 1970, it had no plan other than to capture profits and stem the studio’s financial hemorrhaging. In the meantime, MGM and Culver City matured together, and when MGM sold its land for redevelopment in a fully developed Culver City, the city controlled the implementation of developers’ plans, sometimes to the detriment of MGM’s interests. At 112 that point, Culver City had much more invested in the future of the land than MGM and a strong interest in maximizing exchange values. THE CREATION OF MGM AND EXPANSION IN CULVER CITY Like the other major film studios, Loew’s Inc., MGM’s parent company, began with one enterprising individual. Born on the Lower Eastside of Manhattan to Jewish immigrant parents in 1870, Marcus Loew quit school at age nine for entrepreneurial pursuits. Around 1900, soon after entering amusements, Loew and others partnered with Adolph Zukor in his penny arcade business. Not wanting to share power, Loew and partner David Warfield left Zukor and formed their own company. In 1904, Loew formed the People’s Vaudeville Company, and two years later pioneered the nickel vaudeville, which combined films and live entertainment for a low price. By 1910, Loew’s theatrical circuit extended into all five New York City boroughs, and two years later it was incorporated as Loew’s, Inc. Loew, a skilled leader according to film historian Douglas Gomery, created a business model where his live and film entertainment combination was priced lower than high-class vaudeville but higher than motion picture shows. A key to his business model was to own the land on which his theaters sat, so that if the theater failed, he could still profit from the land. 8 Loew’s attitude toward land, which his successor Nicholas Schenck also shared in his earlier enterprises, had a lasting impact on the company. Facing higher prices for film rentals for his theaters, in January 1920, Marcus Loew vertically integrated his company with the purchase of Metro Pictures. Within four years, the small operation created to compete with Zukor’s growing empire evolved into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with the purchase of Goldwyn Productions in Culver City 113 (without Goldwyn) and the hiring of Louis B. Mayer to oversee production. Meanwhile, Loew and then the promotion of his second-in-command Nicholas Schenck, controlled distribution and exhibition from the top of the sixteen-story office building above the Loew’s State Theater at 43 rd and Broadway in Times Square since August 1921. 9 Gomery described Loew’s Inc.’s leadership, first under Marcus Loew and then Nicholas Schenck beginning in 1924, as conservative and focused on maximizing profit in the short run but lacking in vision for the long-term power and competition of a corporate studio. This characterization informs the land-use strategy the company used, accumulating large amounts of land for short-term needs and neglecting them in the long term. Loew’s owned the fewest number of theaters of the Big Five, but they were all well located (mostly in New York City) and debt-free by 1930. This strategy made Loew’s (with MGM for production) the only firm not to struggle during the Great Depression. Debt-free theaters with good attendance thanks to New York’s relatively minimal economic downturn and a publicity department projecting a “Tiffany of Film Studios” image to moviegoers assured strong ticket sales. 10 With such a competitive position, Loew’s enabled MGM to expand its operations, and in order to do so, expand its land holdings. By 1925, MGM was settling into its acquired studio space in Culver City. Originally built along the streetcar tracks in 1915 by Ince, Griffith, and Sennett as Triangle Studios, Goldwyn Productions leased the site in 1918, purchased it by 1920, and expanded the facilities. 11 The original imposing neoclassical colonnade front of the administration building (Figure 3.1) facing Washington Boulevard may have been one of the reasons, in 1918, Motion Picture News declared the facility “one of the finest motion 114 FIGURE 3.1 THE ADMINISTRATION BUILDING. This is a 1916 photograph of the administration building at Triangle Studios (later MGM), fronting Washington Boulevard in Culver City. Source: Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection 115 picture studios in the world.” 12 When MGM acquired the studio from Goldwyn in 1924, it encompassed just over forty acres and contained six glass stages and twenty-six buildings. 13 The Los Angeles Times reported that Culver City businessmen were pleased with the establishment of MGM’s production headquarters in Culver City, since it would likely improve the general economic welfare of the small city. 14 (See Figure 3.2 for a map of MGM’s seven lots and see Figure 3.3 for a table that summarizes MGM’s complicated land acquisitions.) The following year, MGM moved four stages and two dressing buildings from the former Metro studio, in Hollywood on Cahuenga Boulevard, nearly fifteen miles to the Culver City studio. Each building, cut into sections to facilitate the move, took about two weeks to travel the distance. 15 Additionally, the firm spent $1 million to expand the facilities, declaring it the largest and most complete film production plant in the world. The renovated studio counted more than fifty structures, including three additional administrative buildings, a huge prop building, 200,000 square feet of stage space distributed among fourteen stages equipped with mechanics for overhead lighting, 200 dressing rooms for featured players and dressing space for up to 5,000 extras, and a new power plant. The expansion also included the purchase of equipment, wardrobe, and furnishings. 16 In 1926, MGM expanded again, bringing the total stages to twenty, built a new laboratory to handle all photographic equipment and processes (nearly doubling the plant’s lab capacity), and remodeled and expanded the writers’ building to provide new offices for writing staff. 17 In 1928, MGM, along with at least five other studios, began conversion to sound films with the construction of two sound stages in one building and a two-story recording FIGURE 3.2 MAP OF MGM’S LAND HOLDINGS. This 1967 map created by Real Estate Research Corporation shows the locations of MGM’s 7 lots. Lots 1-6 are labeled as such. Lot 7 is labeled “Unimart.” Source: Steven Bingen, Stephen X. Sylvester, and Michael Troyan, M-G-M: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot (Solana Beach, CA: Santa Monica Press, 2011), 138. 116 117 FIGURE 3.3 TABLE OF MGM’S SEVEN LOTS. This table explains basic information about MGM’s lots. Lot Date(s) Purchased MGM Use Post-MGM Use 1 1924 Principal studio facilities Principal studio facilities 2 1927, 1937, 1939- 1942 Semi-permanent sets Single-family housing 3 1936 Semi-permanent sets, man-made lake used for water scenes Four separate condominium and townhome communities 4 1939, 1940s Zoo Office park 5 1940 Storage Shopping center 6 1940 Nursery and sod farm Gas station 7 1945 Storage then leased for commercial retail Commercial retail 118 building to manage the sound recording process. 18 The advent of sound also brought a change to production protocols; Irving Thalberg, MGM’s chief producer, instituted a practice of previewing films for the public and using their feedback for final editing (a practice still in place across the industry). In 1934, a streetcar spur was laid onto the rear of Lot 1 (the original studio acquisition) that connected with the Pacific Electric line through Culver City (along Culver Boulevard) in order to transport Thalberg and others to faraway preview locations. The “MGM Special” traveled the extensive streetcar network to Santa Ana, Pomona, Glendale, Riverside, and San Bernardino. 19 Like Fox, which sought greater acreage in Los Angeles’s undeveloped urban fringe to expand its growing needs after the establishment of the studio system, MGM also required additional space for elaborate sets as its business model evolved. While MGM built new production facilities on its original forty-acre lot, it had been contemplating off-lot activities for some time. MGM had been concerned about the lack of space for outdoor sets since filming Ben-Hur (1925) in Rome proved difficult and the production was completed in Los Angeles on land just east of the studio at Venice and La Cienega Boulevards. Illustrating its lack of expertise with land management, MGM began building the $300,000 set without seeking permission or renting the space; consequently, it was nearly bulldozed before completion. Disappointed there was no way to maintain the set, Mayer and Thalberg realized they would need additional land for larger backlot operations than the studio already had at the west end of the original lot. 20 In June 1927, the Los Angeles Times reported that MGM had leased space for outdoor sets in Studio City, a new enclave of film production facilities in the San Fernando Valley west of Universal City. 21 While the newspaper reported that MGM 119 planned to start work there on a film requiring 300 employees in early August 1927, I have found no other reference to or evidence of MGM’s Studio City location. 22 This location would have been a considerable distance from the MGM studio in Culver City. It would have been no small feat (and relatively expensive) to traverse the approximately twenty miles through pockets of development and limited paved roads on a regular basis. This was likely a land folly that did not pan out. In 1927, MGM expanded closer to the existing studio. It purchased twenty-five acres across the street at the northwest corner of Overland Avenue and Culver Boulevard and dubbed it Lot 2. The first set on Lot 2 was built that year for Quality Street (1927). 23 During the expansion and building campaign of Lot 1 in 1935, sets and buildings from Lot 1 were moved to Lot 2. At the time, MGM also constructed the later heavily-utilized New York street set for expanding production expectations. 24 After expanding to Lot 3 (described below), MGM enlarged Lot 2 eventually to thirty-seven acres in the late 1930s. The land north of Lot 2, Tract No. 5137, had been subdivided for single-family housing in 1922. 25 Most of the eastern portion of Tract 5137 was purchased by MGM from individual parcel owners in 1937 with a few remaining bought in 1939. The western portion of Tract 5137 was purchased from individual owners of parcels between 1939 and 1942. 26 While some of these parcels were absorbed into Lot 2’s backlot facilities, according to Los Angeles County Assessor information, some of these parcels contained single-family houses built prior to MGM’s acquisition that are still extant in the current landscape. How single-family houses fit into MGM’s land management strategy is unclear. 120 When MGM sought greater expanses of land for its ever-growing collection of sets, it purchased land on the fringe of Culver City’s development. Lot 1, originally built in 1915, was adjacent to the southwest edge of downtown Culver City. Two decades later, the studio was surrounded by development on the north, east, and southeast. Subsequently, MGM next expanded about a mile south of Lots 1 and 2. In June 1936, MGM purchased Lot 3, more than sixty-five acres located at the southeast intersection of Overland Avenue and Jefferson Boulevard, from Feature Productions Inc., who had purchased it four years prior from United Artists. 27 Lot 3 is the only expansion lot MGM purchased that had been previously owned by another studio. The Sanborn Fire Insurance Company did not map Culver City south of Ballona Creek, where MGM’s future expansion lay, which indicates neither studio likely built production buildings or sets. 28 It is unclear exactly while MGM chose to expand with Lot 3 one mile south of Lots 1 and 2. There are no Sanborn maps for the area between the lots either, but County Assessor information suggests this area had been subdivided and pockmarked with single-family houses (the bulk of which was not built until after MGM expanded south). Perhaps it was difficult to assemble several parcels together. Land was also likely cheaper south of Ballona Creek, which was a periodic flood nuisance until it was straightened and chanelized by the Army Corp of Engineers in 1935. 29 Lot 3 was the grandest of MGM’s auxiliary lots in both size and scope. In addition to the numerous street fronts created for films like Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), the sixty-five acres included an artificial lake, also known as a jungle river, and its lush variety of vegetation dominated the southeast quadrant of the lot. The lake, which 121 remains as part of the housing redevelopment of the site, spans 1,200 feet and up to ten feet deep in places. 30 The nearby process tank held more than three million gallons and facilitated the filming of aquatic sequences, such as open ocean scenes. 31 A tram connected Lot 3 to Lots 1 and 2 via Overland Avenue, but some remembered the one- mile journey took a long time to move items between lots. By the early 1960s, the lot was less frequently used. 32 Likely the growing presence of non-MGM entities in between and the overall growth of this part of the metropolis increased congestion, slowing the transfer. MGM expanded to Lot 4, which was four acres in two pieces separated by land owned by the City of Los Angeles, across the street from the eastern end of Lot 3 between the north side of Jefferson Boulevard and Ballona Creek. The small, eastern portion of Lot 4 was purchased in December 1939. The larger, western portion of Lot 4 was purchased by 1947, as there was no record of MGM’s ownership in the prior Assessor records. 33 Originally intended as a repository for sets from Lot 1, Lot 4 served as the zoo for MGM’s menagerie of animals after they were relocated from Lot 3 for their noisy presence interfering with other productions. Eventually the zoo was phased out as animal-rich films went out of fashion by the early 1950s. 34 Less than two months after the initial Lot 4 purchase, MGM purchased Lot 5 in January 1940. 35 The nearly eight acres at the southwest corner of Overland Avenue and Jefferson Boulevard across the street from Lot 3, was used mostly for storage. It contained storage hangers, prop houses, craft shops, scene docks, temporary backlot sets, and stables for horses owned by studio executives and stars. Lot 5 housed an assortment of props, including a large collection of real airplanes used for WWII films. 36 122 Days after purchasing Lot 5, MGM purchased Lot 6 in February 1940 from Economy Housing Corp. 37 The four acres were part of a subdivision of single-family housing laid out in 1928. 38 Lot 6 was the studio’s nursery and sod farm where all the living plants used for productions were raised and stored. The lot may have also housed the personal horse stables for studio chief Louis B. Mayer and star Fred Astaire. 39 Lot 7, twelve acres, located west of Lot 5 on the south side of Jefferson Boulevard and east of Sepulveda Boulevard, was purchased in November 1945. 40 One source claims that it “contained whatever ephemera there was no room for anyplace else.” 41 By the early 1960s, the site had been developed into a commercial retail space. Although the land was still owned by MGM, it was operated as a Unimart in 1967, according to a map prepared by real estate development consultants hired to assess MGM’s land holdings that year. 42 The leasing of this excess studio land for commercial purposes showed some foresight, but this type of plan of action was not pursued later when more land was deemed extraneous, indicating MGM’s lack of land management skills. MGM, like Fox, continued to expand its studio facilities until just before the Supreme Court ruling in 1948 began the dissolution of the studio system. Since the Justice Department sued the companies in 1938, MGM, Fox, and other studios had a decade to prepare for this likely action. To continue to expand as if the business model was not threatened was naïve. Meanwhile, as MGM expanded its land empire along the spine of Overland Avenue, Culver City was developing more rapidly. Culver City, after stalling following 1924, exercised an aggressive annexation campaign in the 1940s and 1950s. Culver City added 553 acres, southwest of its territory, in twenty annexations between 1943 and 123 1959. 43 Subdivisions filled in with housing and new commercial and municipal buildings debuted. In 1950, the Culver Center, one of Southern California’s first modern shopping centers, opened just north of Lot 2 between Venice and Washington Boulevards on the western side of Overland Avenue. It drew business away from downtown Culver City as the area increasingly suburbanized. 44 That same year, the Culver City-owned Veterans Memorial Building with an observation tower opened across the street from Lot 2 at the southwest intersection of Overland Avenue and Culver Boulevard. The building was planned to invite visitors to ascend the tower via elevator to an observation deck overlooking MGM’s extensive backlot operations, but the twenty-five-cent tour ended less than a year after it began. The lobby contained a display of movie memorabilia, further codifying the industry’s importance to Culver City’s identity and economy. 45 TWO DECADES OF TRANSITION The 1950s was an era of transition as Culver City matured and MGM began to wane. After the collapse of the studio system and the separation of the Loew’s Theaters from MGM, the extensive collection of sets were excessive, and MGM stopped building new ones in the mid-1950s. 46 This is likely why MGM transformed Lot 7, on the southwestern extreme of its land holdings, into a commercial retail space for the wider public. The roots of this decision likely trace back to the late 1950s. Although MGM did not publicly indicate explorations of liquidating its Culver City real estate until 1963, executives considered doing so five years earlier. Six months after the announcement of Fox’s plans to transform the majority of its studio lot into Century City, Fox’s Director of Property Development Edmond E. Herrscher, at President Spyrous Skouras’s suggestion, met with MGM executives at the Culver City 124 studio in July 1958. Herrscher, dispatched to assist with the studio’s property problems for his expertise in local real estate values and role in the Century City development, met with MGM’s President Joseph Vogel, Vice President Robert H. O’Brien, and Studio Manager W.W. Spencer for two and a half hours, including a tour of the property. The MGM executives informed Herrscher they planned to sell sixty of its 180 noncontiguous acres. Herrscher suggested they draw up a master plan and recommended Welton Becket, who did so for Fox, for the job. Previously, Vogel was insulted when a San Francisco realtor offered a “shamefully” low price for the land and then proposed to buy it at that price. In his report on the meeting to Skouras, Herrscher reflected on the lower earning potential of MGM’s land holdings in comparison with Fox’s development: “Of course, the use of the MGM property is altogether different from the possibilities open to us. As you know, it is in the midst of a rather small income bracket community and plans could possibly be made for tall, cheap apartments with community recreational features, renting in the neighborhood of $40. per room per month.” Herrscher suggested MGM consider this type of development in light of then-current government-subsidized loans. 47 Herrscher’s assessment of MGM’s land redevelopment potential highlights the difference between Culver City and Fox’s location in a wealthy enclave of West Los Angeles, soon to be Century City. Herrscher’s declaration of Culver City as a “rather small income bracket community” where “tall, cheap apartments” should be built is what you would expect a developer to recommend for a downscale suburban location today. Fox’s location, surrounded by golf courses, single-family homes, and the high-income city of Beverly Hills, accommodated its plans for high-end, mixed-use development. In contrast, Herrscher deemed Culver City’s lower-income suburb only likely to suit “cheap 125 apartments.” Although Herrscher did not speak about Culver City as an industrial suburb, his assessment of its exchange value potential indicates he may have understood it as such. Harry Culver envisioned Culver City as an industrial city with a balance of factories and homes, and in the decades after Culver’s departure from the city, it continued to expand its industrial base. In addition to the three significant film studios and several smaller studios that operated in Culver City, the city attracted other industrial outfits. The first non-film-related manufacturing plant to locate in Culver City was Western Stove, which set up shop in 1922 with two small buildings and twenty employees. In 1947, Western Stove occupied eleven acres and employed 750 people. On land adjacent to Western Stove, Adolph Steller, owner of a Main Street hardware store and president of the Culver City Chamber of Commerce, and Sam Hayden, a transplanted glass manufacturer, developed the Hayden Industrial Tract into sixty commercial lots on forty acres and linked it with the railroad. Additionally, Helms Bakery opened a large, Art Deco plant on the city’s boundary along Venice Boulevard, which closed in 1969. In addition, in the late 1960s, the Hal Roach Studio was modified and partly leveled to create the Landmark Industrial Tract. 48 With an industrial base, working-class families were the dominant occupants of homes in Culver City. While comments such as Herrscher’s are dismissive of Culver City’s potential, primarily based on class differences for the two studio redevelopment sites, others have interpreted Culver City’s working-class heritage differently. Becky M. Nicolaides argues “that in the blue-collar suburbs of Los Angeles, workers turned their residential environment into a source of economic security, a place where they devised 126 and pursued strategies for surviving in a maturing capitalist world. By so doing, they found ways to cope in the hostile, open shop climate of Los Angeles.” 49 In more recent years, after a period of decline and transition, Culver City has transformed into a mix of industrial (primarily film and television production), residential, and arts activities with a gallery row and restaurants along Culver Boulevard. The two biggest sites of non-studio manufacturing have been transformed into creative spaces. In the early 1980s, Fred and Laurie Samitaur Smith started buying abandoned warehouses in the Hayden Industrial Tract. With architect Eric Owen Moss, whose studio is in the tract, the Smiths transformed it into a creative industrial park. In recent years, the Helms Bakery has been transformed into a complex of high-end furniture stores and restaurants. 50 The available record is silent on whether MGM executives followed Herrscher’s advice, which is unlikely. The following year, MGM entered a contract with the Continental Oil Company in hopes of collecting on millions from oil reserves below the studio property. The nearby Baldwin Hills had been drilled for oil since 1924, and early photographs of Lot 3 show many clusters of oil rigs to its southeast. Continental Oil dug MGM’s first well on Lot 1 near Washington Boulevard and Overland Avenue and held leases on 850 surrounding acres, encompassing both MGM and non-MGM property. When announced in November 1959, both companies expected expansion of oil drilling and lucrative profits, but it is unclear what followed. 51 In the 1960s, MGM’s already uneven land management became even more so. In 1963, MGM announced it hired consultants to survey its 187 acres for non-studio income-producing development. 52 With no action taken on future development, two years 127 later MGM, apparently stretched for production space, rented three sound stages from nearby Desilu (Ince’s second studio in Culver City, now the Culver Studios, which is a rental property owned by Sony) and contemplated building a brand-new, state-of-the-art production facility on 1,500 acres in remote Ventura County. 53 In 1967, MGM continued to pursue the new studio by purchasing the land for $8.75 million from the Janss Corporation and renewed efforts to redevelop its Culver City land by engaging another team of consultants. 54 By the end of the turbulent decade—during which MGM had no less than three different presidents—the studio seemed all but certain to sell the bulk of its Culver City land as well as its recent purchase in the Conejo Valley in Ventura County and move its headquarters from New York City to Culver City. 55 While MGM was uncertain about its land use plans, Culver City commissioned a report of its own land use issues. The report, presented to the City Council in February 1967 by Development Research Associates, provided a scathing critique of MGM’s aesthetic contribution to downtown Culver City and recommended redevelopment of its properties. The Los Angeles Times reported that the study declared, “maximum improvement can be attained if Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc. moves out of Culver City and its 164.8 acres are used for other purposes.” The report recommended that for Culver City to improve on its slumping growth, down from the 1950s and slower than western Los Angeles County, it should attract a major department store to a shopping mall, build an auto complex with six or seven dealerships, create more multifamily housing, and increase industrial building to expand industrial employment. The report apparently did not consider MGM and other film studios as the industrial enterprises they are but instead as a failing industry. The recommendation to redevelop MGM’s property, 128 with some of the most desirable sites for such activity, included specific suggestions: the shopping mall should replace Lot 2, the car dealerships replace Lot 1, and industrial uses replace Lots 5 through 7. 56 The City of Culver City unlikely shared such a dim view of MGM and its plentiful tax revenue, even if some, including local business owners, disliked the increasingly rundown appearance and chain-link fences that may have contributed blight to Culver City’s downtown. 57 MGM had long served as a cultural as well as economic boost to Culver City even if it was struggling at the time. Culver City did not implement the plan. When MGM did sell its land for redevelopment, a public outcry and city council action halted increasing the number of multifamily housing units. Additionally, the plan included unrealistic growth goals (population expectations for 1985 that surpass those today) that question the credibility of the blueprint. PLANNING, REDEVELOPMENT, AND NIMBYISM IN CULVER CITY The pressures of the post-studio era—namely, less film production and greater profit uncertainty—culminated in MGM’s decision to sell the bulk of its large landholdings and other properties. In early 1970, as the New York headquarters prepared to move to Culver City, MGM announced it was auctioning off its massive collection of props and wardrobe from its classic productions and selling the bulk of its land holdings. In February, MGM announced its asking price for the 131.8 acres for sale, including the entirety of Lots 2 through 6 and twelve acres on the west end of Lot 1. A single purchaser would pay $19,398,000, discounted from the $21,384,000 asked of the land lot by lot. At the same time, MGM confirmed it was selling Lot 7 for which it had served as landlord for years for a shopping center and the 2,000 acres purchased in the Conejo Valley for a 129 new studio (1,850 undeveloped, the remainder an industrial park co-owned with the Janss Corporation). Although MGM had received bids for the land prior to its announced price tag, the first of the lots, Lot 3, did not sell until late September. 58 Meanwhile, in conjunction with establishing its headquarters in Culver City, MGM announced plans to invest $1 million in a facelift of Lot 1, including expanding parking facilities, building new film vaults, relocating equipment in anticipation of the sale of most of its land, and a landscaping and painting program to improve the aesthetics of the plant at the city’s request. 59 In an August 1970 letter to the editor of the Los Angeles Times, Mayor Pro Tem John Carl Brogdon, when writing about Culver City’s civic renaissance, did not have the nicest things to say about MGM’s participation: “For far too long ‘The Heart of Screenland’ has been hampered, hindered, and held back by having MGM’s gruesome factory and its grimy satellites squatting in our front yard. Once MGM’s newly promised massive landscaping project, designed at our behest to enhance our environment and their cinematic factory, has been faithfully implemented, perhaps there will be some escalation of support for the notion that ‘what’s good for MGM is good for the city.’” 60 Brogdon’s tone suggests there was friction between the studio and the city as both considered their futures. Culver City closely monitored the transformation of the MGM land. In April 1970, the city considered purchasing Lot 3 for a movie museum and tourist center. City Councilman Richard Pachtman suggested the sixty-five acres could showcase its pride as a place in film history while also housing a park, concessions, apartments, and office buildings. 61 Ultimately, these plans did not move forward, but they foreshadowed Culver 130 City’s interest in showcasing and preserving MGM’s and the film industry’s legacy in the city. Meanwhile, MGM’s plans to sell off its land for redevelopment coincided with the City of Culver City’s dedication to an era of redevelopment. As local historian Julie Lugo Cerra observed, “By 1970 the only vacant land in Culver City lay in Fox Hills, and the leading issue became redevelopment. Property values soared. The prime location, known for its climate, schools, and municipal services, continued to draw people to the city.” 62 In 1971, the city council, serving as its membership as a different body, formed the Culver City Redevelopment Agency (CRA). In the 1970s, the CRA established three redevelopment project areas that covered about one-third of Culver City, and MGM’s land was split between two of these project areas. Redevelopment Project Area 2, designated in December 1971, included MGM Lots 3 through 6. 63 Culver City’s oversight of this project area included the city’s first implementation of Planning District zoning, which permitted a mix of various zone classifications in one area subject to city approval. 64 Redevelopment Project Area 3, established in 1975, encompassed the historic downtown area, including MGM Lots 1 and 2. The purpose of this redevelopment area was to eradicate blight and protect and stabilize the adjoining low density, low and moderate-income residential areas. 65 As the largest of MGM’s lots with the greatest opportunity for developers to profit, it was no surprise that Lot 3 was the first to sell. In late September 1970, MGM sold Lot 3’s more than sixty-five acres to Levitt & Sons for $7.25 million, $500,000 less than the advertised asking price in February. The development was the first proposed in Los Angeles County for the famed housing development company. This first sale was 131 expected to raise the value of the remaining land, or in other words, increase the exchange value for the remainder of the studio properties. 66 Originally planned as one large gated luxury apartment and townhouse community called Raintree—named for the Elizabeth Taylor movie Raintree County (1957) filmed on the lot—by Levitt, the former Lot 3 is now four separately gated condominium and townhouse communities built by four different developers. Levitt’s Raintree was the first and largest of the developments, containing 354 condo units (originally apartments) in six large buildings and 210 townhouses on twenty-five lushly landscaped acres (See Figure 3.4 for a site plan of Raintree). The later phases, called Tara Hill, Lakeside Villas, and Lakeside Village, were also built as apartments (and townhouses in Lakeside Villas) and later converted to condominiums. While it seems that the availability of a large land parcel attracted Levitt to Lot 3, ultimately it did not consider it feasible to develop the project itself. Soon after Levitt initially filed its plans to create the original three-phase Raintree development of luxury apartments and townhouses, Mayor Pro Tem Brogdon, who had earlier criticized MGM for its contribution to blight in Culver City, wrote the Mayor and Councilmen urging them to consider condominiums rather than apartments for the development. Cognizant of the development’s “long shadow, fundamentally affecting the character and future of our town forever,” Brogdon argued that “to permit the creation of an essentially rental complex would be a mistake” and the community would be better off with a condominium complex similar to the recent, nearby Villa Marina. He continued, “we can have an economically profitable development on this site without sacrificing the basic ownership-occupancy character of our community.” In other words, Brogdon would FIGURE 3.4 RAINTREE HOUSING DEVELOPMENT SITE PLAN. This 1973 site plan for the Raintree development shows the layout of housing. The large buildings in the lower right quadrant are the apartment buildings that were later converted to condominiums. The numbered units are townhouses. Lot 3’s Lake is visible in the center. Source: Overland & Jefferson MGM Lot #3 Box, Culver City Planning Division Files. 132 133 rather keep Culver City’s residential development, which up to that point was overwhelmingly single-family homes, for homeowners if not detached housing. Rather than couch his opinion in language that blatantly screamed NIMBY (“not in my backyard”), he advocated for condominiums. The message is still the same: no rental housing in Culver City. Brogdon appealed to their economic sensibilities by insisting condominiums would not only cost the city less in services and infrastructure “but will contribute to the enhancement in value of other properties. They will also contribute to urban stability, not urban disintegration.” 67 Brogdon’s request fell upon deaf ears. Culver City continued with the approval process for apartment rentals rather than condominiums. In September 1972, Levitt requested that Raintree’s 354 apartment units about to open be converted to condominiums, and the Staff Report prepared by the Culver City Planning Division recommended the action since the permit fees would raise revenue for acquisition of public park land in the vicinity. 68 However, the condominium conversion request was denied for unknown reasons. The Raintree development’s apartments converted to condominiums in 1976, the first in Culver City, and the other three developments converted a couple years later. 69 In his history of condominiums, Matthew Gordon Lasner describes the condo’s emergence “as a hybrid between suburban and urban impulses.” 70 That characterization may have also struck Brogdon. Condominiums provide owner-occupied homes in generally more dense arrangements than single-family houses. While Culver City recognized a need for greater amounts of housing and at higher densities than single- family homes, Brogdon likely wanted to maintain Culver City’s “suburban character” 134 through home ownership. Not coincidentally, condominiums command higher exchange values than rental apartment buildings although their use values are likely similar, depending on available amenities. Meanwhile, the 1970s was a prolific era for condo conversions with 360,000 conversions nationally, one third in Census-defined “central cities” and another third in suburbs (the rest were presumably in isolated resorts). The Los Angeles metropolitan area was one of the leaders of conversions during the decade, which made condo conversions in Culver City (not just on the former MGM property) and Century City part of larger metropolitan and national trends. 71 Citing a shortage of land as the metropolis developed and raising prices for single-family homes, condominiums provided an affordable housing option for those looking to buy but were priced out of the hot real estate market, especially on the desirable Westside. 72 At the same time, the Los Angeles Times reported that condominium sales accounted for 25-30 percent of all real estate business on Los Angeles’s Westside in 1978, which was up from 10 percent in 1973. 73 In July 1972, the Culver City Council approved the $3.5 million development of a shopping center on MGM’s former Lot 5 by Levitt-Multihouse Corporation. Named Raintree Shopping Center, now known as Raintree Plaza, to compliment the Raintree housing development on the other side of Overland Avenue, it replaced an earlier deal Levitt & Sons had struck with other developers to place a shopping center on the housing site. The shopping center was to originally include a supermarket, liquor store, drug store, bank, and other businesses with parking for 431 cars and bike racks. Culver City Planning Director William Phelps estimated, at the time, that the center would draw $18 million in business, contributing between $150,000 and $200,000 in sales tax revenue to 135 the city. To support the urban and economic development, the city agreed to widen and improve the Jefferson Boulevard and Overland Avenue intersection. Levitt agreed to provide street lights, trees, traffic signals, and public fire hydrants. 74 Exercising its authority to approve MGM’s redevelopment, Culver City delayed Lot 4’s sale and redevelopment. For more than two years, between 1975 and 1977, the city council, MGM, developers, and Raintree residents wrangled over the fate of Lot 4, the four-acre strip of land north of Jefferson opposite the Raintree development and south of Ballona Creek. Originally designated as park land in the general plan, Raintree residents were dismayed when the city council considered changing the zoning to permit an office park. After reneging on an agreement to let residents and other neighbors decide, the city council backed MGM’s plan and its prospective buyer and developer for the land to allow an office park, deeming the land not ideal for park use. 75 Culver City’s action favored increasing exchange values rather than residents’ desires to increase their neighborhood’s use value with a park. In contrast, Lot 6 received less attention. In November 1971, the Culver City Council considered Levitt & Sons plans to develop the four-acre Lot 6 into commercial space, possibly as a service station and another single-tenant structure, according to the Los Angeles Times. 76 By 1976, the former Lot 6 housed office buildings, and the seventh lot remained a commercial retail space. 77 Meanwhile, Culver City exhibited the most control over MGM’s Lot 2 redevelopment. Lot 2 was originally slated for sale, in 1972, to Levitt Multi-Housing Corp. for $5 million pending the required zoning change to transform the land into another large housing complex similar to its plans for Lot 3. 78 That plan too proved 136 controversial, and in a desperate bid to save face and sell the land for any amount, MGM sold it to Mr. and Mrs. Ching C. Lin, who were interested in selling the underground wires for scrap. After years of continued decay, fires, and wrangling over payment (while MGM leased the backlot for shooting), the Lin’s sold the land to Goldrich, Kest & Associates. 79 In 1977, the city council approved Goldrich, Kest & Associates’s plan for 224 single-family houses on the thirty-eight acres. 80 Levitt and Goldrich had each proposed packing the land with multifamily housing, which came under strict criticism from neighbors, the council, and concerned citizens who formed the Committee for Single-Family Homes (CSFH) in order to advocate for low-density housing on the former Lot 2. CFSH submitted a petition to the council, stating, “It is our hope to maintain our community life here and encourage more families to take up residence in Culver City by offering additional quality, desirable single-family homes.” 81 Although Development Research Associates had suggested Culver City greatly increase its stock of multifamily housing in order to accommodate projected population increases a decade earlier, NIMBYism won the debate for housing on Lot 2 after a protracted period, despite the appeal of Raintree and similar developments that quickly sold out during the condo conversion occurring at the same time. In City of Quartz, Mike Davis details case studies of NIMBY activity in communities in Los Angeles’s San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys. Density, Davis explains, was one of the “big unitary issues of the late 1970s” that sparked NIMBY outcries. 82 Yes, density was an issue for Culver City, but CFSH voiced clear objections to the type of housing, rather than its density; the group wanted to preserve Culver City’s 137 suburban, single-family housing character rather than tarnish its image with multifamily rental housing populated with presumably less desirable people. 83 Part of the lot’s sets were razed beginning in February 1978, and two years later, when forty-five houses were set for completion, half the development had been sold. Known as Studio Estates, with street names like Hepburn Circle and Garland Drive, it was the largest single-family tract approved by the Culver City Council since 1961 and one of the largest in development at the time in the Santa Monica Bay Area. 84 Although Culver City exercised strong oversight over MGM’s land redevelopment, the city lamented the loss of so many film artifacts—critical to its identity—in the process that it instituted a landmarking program. In 1976, Culver City’s CRA made plans to protect film landmarks from destruction after the bulldozing of most of MGM’s backlot as well as other studios in the city. 85 It was not the only group concerned about the loss of film history. Earlier, Debbie Reynolds, a former MGM star, gathered friends and family to try to rescue Lot 3 as a touring theme park, but ultimately failed. Reynolds faulted MGM’s shortsightedness on the profitability of tourism and nostalgia at such a storied studio. 86 In 1978, a gathering of film fans and architects, headed by Robert Nudelman, which called itself the Hollywood Group, wanted to rescue Lot 2 from the wrecking ball and turn it into a theme park. The Hollywood Group, which rescued many props and costumes during MGM’s auction of such items, intended to combine them with the remaining sets for a theme park that would also be rented for film productions on occasion. In trying to raise the needed $500,000 Nudelman said he had not received support from people within the film industry and would need to look elsewhere. 87 138 Years later, when Nudelman and Roger Mayer, former MGM President, met again on another preservation project, Mayer confided that the studio almost immediately realized its mistake in not preserving the lot but by then it was too late. 88 Mayer explained to the Los Angeles Times, in 1994, “That decision was made with the full knowledge of the fact that it could have turned into a Universal Studios-type tour with plans for such a tour available to that management. Yet, that management felt that No. 1, it wasn’t too good an idea; No. 2, they wanted cash for other purposes and, No. 3, [the backlots] were not really being used because everybody was going on location in those days.” 89 The decade of MGM’s land redevelopment and other redevelopment in Culver City significantly impacted the city. The 1980 census counted 38,189 residents (a 23.1 percent increase from 1970’s 31,035). More dramatically, and in no small part due to the redevelopment of Lots 2 and 3, there was a 42.3 percent increase in housing units in Culver City during the same period. 90 This growth and urban development was also part of the larger development of metropolitan Los Angeles. As the Center for Land Use Interpretation, based in Culver City, noted, “In the 1970s the studio backlots were filled with housing and office parks, as homogenization flooded the Los Angeles basin, turning Culver City into part of the continuous urban suburb.” 91 Such criticism echoes Reyner Banham’s dismissiveness of the plains (of which Culver City is part) in his seminal 1971 work, Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies. 92 In summation, as a large landholder in a small city, MGM had an oversized impact on Culver City’s economy, identity, and land-use patterns. This power did not go unchecked, however. After MGM decided to sell the land it accumulated during the 139 studio era in response to the collapse of the studio system, the city guided the redevelopment projects in order to preserve its urban fabric and create new environments that it and vocal residents deemed acceptable for the community’s industrial suburban character. MGM’s experience, from accumulating noncontiguous parcels to selling the land piecemeal, sharply contrasted with Fox’s comprehensive Century City vision. Paramount, the subject of the next chapter, differs from both; rather than contract, like Fox and MGM, Paramount expanded in the post-studio era. 140 1 “Hatchet Burying to End Hollywood-Culver City War,” Los Angeles Times, 5 Oct. 1937, A1; “News of the Screen,” New York Times, 5 Oct. 1937, 29; “Culver-Hollywood Name Dispute Ends,” The Citizen, 8 Oct. 1937, 1. 2 “Peace Fest Ends Film City Fight,” Los Angeles Times, 7 Oct. 1937, 2; For more details on the name dispute which represented intrametropolitan competition over the film industry in Los Angeles, see Stephanie Frank, “Claiming Hollywood: Boosters, the Film Industry, and Metropolitan Los Angeles,” Journal of Urban History 38, no. 1 (January 2012): 71-88. 3 Julie Lugo Cerra, Culver City: The Heart of Screenland (Chatsworth, CA: Windsor Publications, 1992), 41. 4 Ibid., 19-24. 5 Greg Hise, “‘Nature’s Workshop’: Industry and Urban Expansion in Southern California, 1900-1950,” in Manufacturing Suburbs: Building Work and Home on the Metropolitan Fringe, ed. Robert Lewis (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004), 178-199. 6 Mike Davis, “Sunshine and the Open Shop: Ford and Darwin in 1920s Los Angeles,” in Metropolis in the Making: Los Angeles in the 1920s, eds. Tom Sitton and William Deverell (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2001), 99. 7 Heather B. Barrow, “‘The American Disease of Growth’: Henry Ford and the Metropolitanization of Detroit, 1920-1940,” in Manufacturing Suburbs: Building Work and Home on the Metropolitan Fringe, ed. Robert Lewis (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004), 203-209. 8 Douglas Gomery, The Hollywood Studio System: A History (London: British Film Institute, 2005), 27-28. 9 Ibid., 30. 10 Ibid., 99-102. 11 Steven Bingen, Stephen X. Sylvester, and Michael Troyan, M-G-M: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot (Solana Beach, CA: Santa Monica Press, 2011), 16; “Triangle Studios to Goldwyn,” Motion Picture News, 19 Oct. 1918, Triangle Film Corp. Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Los Angeles County Assessor Map Book 745, page 201 (1924-31), Los Angeles County Hall of Records; Los Angeles County Assessor Map Book 369, page 4 (1917-24), Los Angeles County Hall of Records. 12 “Triangle Studios to Goldwyn.” 13 “Facts About MGM,” Hollywood Reporter, 22 April 1954, p. 8, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1954) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 14 Helen Starr, “Three Sisters Communities Complete Development Program Typical of Southland: Culver City is Town of Fame,” Los Angeles Times, 8 June 1924, D10. 15 “Moving of Film Buildings Seen as Unusual Feat,” Los Angeles Times, 12 Feb. 1925, A9. 16 “Rebuilding of Studio Nears End,” Los Angeles Times, 10 June 1925, A2; “Millions For Film Program,” Los Angeles Times, 2 June 1924, A1. 17 “Mayer Will Add Stage to Studio,” Los Angeles Times, 30 Aug. 1926, I5. 18 James W. Elliott, “Studios Spend Millions in Talkie Construction,” Los Angeles Times, 5 Aug. 1928, E1, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer ( -1939) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 141 19 Bingen, Sylvester, and Troyan, M-G-M: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot, 57. 20 Ibid., 133. 21 “Plans Rushed For Film City,” Los Angeles Times, 26 June 1927, E1. 22 “Sennett Studio Plans Finished,” Los Angeles Times, 31 July 1927, E5. 23 Los Angeles County Assessor Map Book 745, page 206 (1924-31), Los Angeles County Hall of Records; McFadden, Strauss & Irwin Inc., “MGM’s Lot #2: The End of an Era – The Beginning of the New,” press release dated 17 July 1972, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1972) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 24 George P. Erengis, “MGM’s Backlot: Its Glory Is Fading And Its Like May Never Be Seen Again,” Films In Review (Jan. 1963), 30, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1963) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; McFadden, Strauss & Irwin Inc., “MGM’s Lot #2.” 25 Tract No. 5137 Map, Los Angeles County Recorder Map Book 56, page 16. Accessed through Dept. of Public Works online database <http://gis.dpw.lacounty.gov/website/surveyrecord/tractMain.cfm>. 26 Los Angeles County Assessor Map Book 745, pages 13, 14, 15 (1931-46), Los Angeles County Hall of Records. 27 Los Angeles County Assessor Map Book 745, page 6 (1931-46), Los Angeles County Hall of Records. 28 Sanborn Map Company, Culver City (New York: Sanborn Map Company, 1919) via ProQuest; Sanborn Map Company, Culver City (New York: Sanborn Map Company, 1924) via ProQuest; Sanborn Map Company, Culver City (New York: Sanborn Map Company, 1929) via ProQuest. 29 Center for Land Use Interpretation, Into the Heart of Screenland: Culver City, California: An Inexhaustive Investigation of Urban Context (Culver City: CLUI Urban Tours Program Publication, 2011). 30 Bingen, Sylvester, and Troyan, M-G-M: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot, 226-227, 241. 31 Ibid., 250. 32 Ibid., 222, 228. 33 Los Angeles County Assessor Map Book 745, page 8 (1931-46), Los Angeles County Hall of Records; Los Angeles County Assessor Map Book 745, page 203 (1947-51), Los Angeles County Hall of Records; Los Angeles County Assessor Map Book 745, page 6 (1931-46), Los Angeles County Hall of Records. 34 Bingen, Sylvester, and Troyan, M-G-M: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot, 222-223. 35 Los Angeles County Assessor Map Book 745, page 8 (1931-46), Los Angeles County Hall of Records. 36 Bingen, Sylvester, and Troyan, M-G-M: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot, 223. 37 Los Angeles County Assessor Map Book 745, page 50 (1931-46), Los Angeles County Hall of Records. 38 Tract No. 10025 Map, Los Angeles County Recorder Map Book 146, page 8. Accessed through Dept. of Public Works online database <http://gis.dpw.lacounty.gov/website/surveyrecord/tractMain.cfm>. 39 Bingen, Sylvester, and Troyan, M-G-M: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot, 223. 40 Los Angeles County Assessor Map Book 745, page 8 (1931-46), Los Angeles County Hall of Records. 142 41 Bingen, Sylvester, and Troyan, M-G-M: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot, 223. 42 Ibid., 138. 43 City of Culver City, “City of Culver City Annexation Map,” 5 Feb. 2007. Accessed online <http://www.culvercity.org/Government/IT/Gis.aspx>. 44 Center for Land Use Interpretation, Into the Heart of Screenland. 45 Cerra, Culver City, 62; Bingen, Sylvester, and Troyan, M-G-M: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot, 144; Center for Land Use Interpretation, Into the Heart of Screenland. 46 Erengis, “MGM’s Backlot,” 37. 47 Letter from Edmond E. Herrscher to Spyros P. Skouras dated 29 July 1958, Box 44, Folder 8, Spyros P. Skouras Papers, M0509, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA. 48 Cerra, Culver City, 49-51; Center for Land Use Interpretation, Into the Heart of Screenland. 49 Becky M. Nicolaides, “The Quest for Independence: Workers in the Suburbs,” in Metropolis in the Making: Los Angeles in the 1920s, eds. Tom Sitton and William Deverell (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2001), 78. 50 Center for Land Use Interpretation, Into the Heart of Screenland. 51 “M-G-M Finds Oil Without Gable, Tracy,” Hollywood Citizen-News, 23 Nov. 1959, Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer (1955-1959) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Bingen, Sylvester, and Troyan, M-G-M: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot, 224. 52 “MGM May Develop Its Holdings,” Los Angeles Times, 7 March 1963, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1963) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “MGM Formulates Recovery Program,” Hollywood Reporter, 1 March 1963, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1963) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 53 “MGM Rents Space At Desilu Culver,” Daily Variety, 2 Aug. 1965, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1965) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “Ventura Studio Zone Set,” Hollywood Reporter, 1 Nov. 1965, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1965) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “M-G Takes Another Option On Valley Land For New Lot,” Daily Variety, 21 March 1966, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1966) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “M-G-M’s Proposed New Studio in Ventura County, California” press release dated 12 Feb. 1966, Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer (1966) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 54 “MGM Extends Option on Land,” Los Angeles Times, 3 Aug. 1967, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (April-Dec. 1967) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Dick Turpin, “MGM Land Use Studied,” Los Angeles Times, 5 Sept, 1968, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1968) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “MGM Culver Lot Survey Initiated,” Hollywood Reporter, 12 June 1967, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (April- Dec. 1967) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “Study Continues on Future Use of MGM’s Culver Lot,” Hollywood Reporter, 28 June 1967, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (April-Dec. 1967) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 143 55 “MGM Mulls Sale of Lot,” Daily Variety, 6 Sept. 1968, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1968) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Ben Kaufman, “MGM Studio Expansion Plans,” Hollywood Reporter, 15 Jan. 1969, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Jan-Aug 1969) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “Ponder MGM’s Studio Properties,” Daily Variety, 22 Oct. 1969, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Sept-Dec 1969) Core Collections File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “MGM Would Sell Coast Facilities, Move West, Streamline Co. by 50%,” Film TV Daily, 15 Dec. 1969, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Sept-Dec 1969) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “Aubrey Says MGM To Sell All But 20 Acres of Lot,” Daily Variety, 15 Dec. 1969, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Sept-Dec 1969) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Bill Ornstein, “MGM Moving Home Office Here,” Hollywood Reporter, 29 Oct. 1969, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Sept-Dec 1969) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 56 Burt Wuttken, “Gigantic Facelifting of Culver City Envisioned,” Los Angeles Times, 2 Feb. 1967, WS1. 57 Bingen, Sylvester, and Troyan, M-G-M: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot, 269. 58 Bill Ornstein, “MGM Ready Headquarter Here,” Hollywood Reporter, 23 Jan. 1970, Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer (1970) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “MGM Sells Props And Wardrobe, To Lease Library,” Daily Variety, 29 Jan. 1970, Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer (1970) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “Important Bids Made For MGM Real Estate,” Hollywood Reporter, 2 Jan. 1970, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1970) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “150 Acres Of MGM Lot For Sale,” Daily Variety, 16 Jan. 1970, Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer (1970) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “MGM Has Nibbles On 130 Acres To Be Sold From Lot,” Hollywood Reporter, 29 Jan. 1970, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1970) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; A.D. Murphy, “$20 Mil Tag On 118 MGM Acres,” Daily Variety, 5 Feb. 1970, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1970) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; A.D. Murphy, “Reveal Precise MGM Price Tags On Studio Parcels,” Daily Variety, 6 Feb. 1970, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1970) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “1 st MGM Backlot Land Sale,” Daily Variety, 1 Oct. 1970, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1970) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 59 Nadine M. Edwards, “MGM To Return To Former Glory,” Citizen News, 5 June 1970, Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer (1970) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “$1 Million Facelift at MGM Paving Way for Office Transfer,” Los Angeles Times, 5 July 1970, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1970) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “$1 Million MGM Facelifting OKd,” Los Angeles Times, 19 July 1970, Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer (1970) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 60 John Carl Brogdon, “An Auspicious Event,” Los Angeles Times, 30 Aug. 1970, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1970) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 61 “Culver Seeking MGM Land for Movie Museum,” Los Angeles Times, 30 April 1970, Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer (1970) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 62 Cerra, Culver City, 69. 63 Ibid., 69-71. 144 64 Steve Kline, “Ruling Due on Change in MGM Development,” Los Angeles Times, 7 Nov. 1971, Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer (July-Dec 1971) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 65 Cerra, Culver City, 71; Gerald Faris, “Rebuilding Around Culver Hotel Planned,” Los Angeles Times, 5 June 1975, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1975) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 66 “1 st MGM Backlot Land Sale,” Daily Variety, 1 Oct. 1970, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1970) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; A.D. Murphy, “Ask $14 Mil for 72 MGM Acres,” Daily Variety, 8 Oct. 1970, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1970) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 67 Letter from John Carl Brogdon to Mayor Marty Lotz, et. al. dated 20 Jan. 1971, Overland & Jefferson MGM Lot #3 Box, Culver City Planning Division Files. 68 Staff Report dated 13 Sept. 1972, Overland & Jefferson MGM Lot #3 Box, Culver City Planning Division Files. 69 Author conversation with Greg Rainer, General Manager, Raintree Mutual Corporation, 26 June 2012. 70 Matthew Gordon Lasner, High Life: Condo Living in the Suburban Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 4. 71 Ibid., 258. 72 David M. Kinchen, “Shortage of Land, Affordable Housing: Condo Conversions Increasing,” Los Angeles Times, 11 Dec. 1977, L1. 73 “In Condo Sales: Orderly Procedure a Prime Consideration,” Los Angeles Times, 22 April 1979, CS5. 74 Doug Smith, “Raintree Shopping Center: $3.5 Million MGM Lot 5 Complex Approved,” Los Angeles Times, 27 July 1972, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1972) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “Former MGM Lot Will Become Shopping Center,” Hollywood Reporter, 1 June 1972, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1972) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 75 Ray Ripton, “Culver Now Favors Development for MGM Lot Once Classified for Park,” Los Angeles Times, 29 June 1975, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1975) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “Culver Defers Vote on Raintree Land Use Issue,” Los Angeles Times, 17 July 1975, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1975) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Ray Ripton, “Residents, Merchants Will Help Solve Raintree Issue,” Los Angeles Times, 14 Aug. 1975, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1975) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Ray Ripton, “Culver City Backs Off From Proposal for Business Park,” Los Angeles Times, 15 May 1977, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1977) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “Raintree Wants Business Park Plan Changes,” Los Angeles Times, 13 Oct. 1977, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1977) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 76 Kline, “Ruling Due on Change.” 77 “Culver City Seeks To Protect Film Landmarks From Ruin,” Daily Variety, 15 Oct. 1976, Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer (1976) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 145 78 “Fading Ghost of Filmdom’s Glory Days Soon To Be Housing Site,” Daily Variety, 25 Aug. 1972, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1972) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 79 Bingen, Sylvester, and Troyan, M-G-M: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot, 278-282. 80 “Low-Density Housing OKd for MGM Lot 2,” Los Angeles Times, 13 Oct. 1977, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1977) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 81 Ibid. 82 Mike Davis, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, 2 nd edition (New York: Verso, 2006), 203-209. 83 For more on NIMBYism, see Michael Dear, “Understanding and Overcoming the NIMBY Syndrome,” Journal of the American Planning Association 58, no. 3 (1992): 288-300; Robert W. Lake, “Planners’ Alchemy Transforming NIMBY to YIMBY: Rethinking NIMBY,” Journal of the American Planning Association 59, no. 1 (1993): 87-93. 84 Steve Harvey, “Old MGM Sets Razed,” Los Angeles Times, 23 Feb. 1978, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1978) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “Homes For Sale on Former MGM Lot 2,” Los Angeles Times, 12 Jan. 1980, Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer (January-June 1980) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “Studio Estates Built on MGM Lot 2 Site,” Los Angeles Times, 24 May 1980, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (January-June 1980) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 85 “Culver City Seeks To Protect Film Landmarks From Ruin,” Daily Variety, 15 Oct. 1976, Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer (1976) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 86 Bingen, Sylvester, and Troyan, M-G-M: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot, 275. 87 Steve Harvey, “Old MGM Sets Razed.” 88 Bingen, Sylvester, and Troyan, M-G-M: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot, 285. 89 Qtd. in Robert W. Welkos, “Frankly My Dear, It’s All Gone,” Los Angeles Times, 13 Jan. 1994. 90 Cerra, Culver City, 69. 91 Center for Land Use Interpretation, Into the Heart of Screenland. 92 Reyner Banham, Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). 146 Chapter 4 Incremental Expansion: Paramount in Hollywood The firm that made the first feature-length film in Hollywood, The Squaw Man (1914), persists as the last major studio located in Hollywood today. As tourists drive along Melrose Avenue they often crane their necks to catch a glimpse of the famous Paramount gate (Figure 4.1)—the same one Gloria Swanson passed through in Sunset Boulevard (1950). Once the public entrance at the intersection of Bronson Avenue and Marathon Street, it is now tucked into Paramount’s walled compound. What was once the smallest of the three film studios in this study, today may be the largest in acreage. This conclusion seems counter to expectations given the urban location of Paramount and the higher value of the land on which it sits. Rather than disperse to the metropolitan fringe like Twentieth Century Fox (Fox) and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Paramount remained in its relatively urban location at a smaller studio plant. Instead, Paramount expanded its plant when the other two shrank, reflecting differing reactions to the dramatic changes in the film industry following the collapse of the studio system and the enduring legacy of Hollywood as a site of film production. Like the other studios in this study, Paramount made land-use decisions in response to the changing business model of the film industry that shaped the urban development of the surrounding city. However, Paramount’s trajectory diverged from that of Fox and MGM in multiple ways. The most striking contrast was Paramount’s expansion rather than contraction following the collapse of the studio system. Paramount expanded its older, smaller studio in Hollywood beginning in the 1940s—part of Los 147 FIGURE 4.1 THE BRONSON GATE. This undated photograph shows men milling about on the street in front of the famous Bronson Gate of Paramount Studios along Marathon Street (at Bronson Avenue). The Bronson Gate served as the main entrance to the studio for years. Since the 1980s, it has been tucked into the studio lot after Paramount expanded the studio south to Melrose Avenue. Source: Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection 148 Angeles’s urban core by then—after shelving plans to follow other studios to the urban fringe with a new, larger production facility. Unlike Fox and MGM, Paramount observed the pending changes the federal government would soon enforce on the industry and scaled back its ambitious plans for manufacturing facilities. Instead, Paramount incrementally expanded eastward into the surrounding residential neighborhood by purchasing and demolishing existing buildings and then building increased production capacity at its Hollywood studio. This process proved Paramount to be a prudent planner and better land manager than either Fox or MGM, even while conducting its Los Angeles affairs from New York City. After Gulf & Western purchased Paramount in 1966, the land management decisions changed when the new parent, still operating from New York, contemplated hasty responses to a failed attempt to acquire multiple sites for television production. After plans to sell and redevelop Paramount’s facilities—now more than doubled by the 1967 joining of its original lot with the former RKO studio on its western border—fell through, Paramount retained the largest studio in acreage of the three case studies. Some of Paramount’s success as a prudent land manager should be credited to its forward-thinking business management that historically made use of keen attention to film industry trends. As the first film company to vertically integrate, Paramount led the industry from the start. Adolph Zuckor recognized that greater profits could be made from consolidation and others followed. Paramount created the business model that then drove the land-use decisions of the entire industry. Next, Paramount anticipated television’s transformative power on the industry and embraced it in its experimental phase in the 1930s long before other studios cowered from its audience-siphoning effect. 149 Paramount built television production facilities on its own lot and enhanced other facilities at another location before making a bigger push for television production in the 1960s. Lastly, Paramount was the first of the three studios under study to lose its independence when a conglomerate purchased it in 1966. This purchase radically changed its land-use management. In the years since, conglomerates purchased all other major film studios with varying results in land and other management. Those issues are ripe for further study. CORPORATE ORIGINS, VERTICAL INTEGRATION, AND THE MOVE TO HOLLYWOOD Paramount started the vaunted studio system under the creative leadership of founder Adolph Zukor. Born in 1873 in Risce, Hungary, and orphaned at age eight, Zukor immigrated to New York in the autumn of 1888 with $40 sewed into the lining of his clothes. He apprenticed first with an upholsterer and then with a furrier. He followed his Hungarian friend Max Shosberg to Chicago to build up its fur trade in 1893. Zukor first invested in the new moving pictures in 1904 when his cousin Max Goldstein offered Zukor and his then-partner in fur, Morris Kohn, an opportunity to invest in the Automatic One-Cent Vaudeville, a penny arcade that featured peep shows and phonographs. From there, Zukor expanded until he had a chain of nickelodeons, which he merged with another chain owned by a former furrier, Marcus Loew, to form Loew’s Consolidated Enterprises, the forerunner of Loew’s Inc., future parent company of MGM. Zukor did not remain with the company long; instead, he sold his shares for $35,000 in order to purchase the rights to the French-made Queen Elizabeth starring Sarah Bernhardt. Zukor’s exhibition of the film with live appearances by its star boosted him, and with 150 others, he formed the Famous Players in Famous Plays (later Famous Players Film Company) in order to produce his own films. 1 Meanwhile, San Franciscan Jesse L. Lasky first established himself as a vaudeville act with his sister and then an agent for vaudeville performers before embarking on a career in legitimate theater. Through his theater connections, Lasky met Cecil B. DeMille around the same time his sister married Polish immigrant Samuel Goldfish (soon to be Samuel Goldwyn). Goldwyn, mesmerized by the new film medium, converted Lasky who in turn recruited DeMille to direct. The three formed the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company. In shooting their first film together, The Squaw Man, they sought a western landscape; DeMille first traveled to Flagstaff, Arizona, but famously continued to Los Angeles where he rented a barn at the intersection of Selma Avenue and Vine Street in Hollywood where he shot the film—the first complete feature filmed in Hollywood. 2 That barn was the beginning of the future Paramount’s studio in Hollywood, where it would grow to consume two square blocks before the company moved to its current location in 1926. Famous Players Film Company and the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company with Howard Bosworth’s Pallas Pictures and the Oliver Morosco Photoplay Company joined with W.W. Hodkinson’s film exchange to form Paramount Pictures Corporation. Within two years, Zukor took control of Paramount by buying out the interests of several investors. The press hyperbolically dubbed Paramount “the United States Steel Corporation of the motion picture industry,” signifying the industrial might Zukor exhibited as he vertically integrated his company and created the studio system. Further strengthening his position, Zukor merged his company with Lasky’s to form Famous 151 Players-Lasky Corporation (FPLC) in June 1916. Operating as a holding company for awhile, by the end of 1917, FPLC consolidated all of its interests. In seeking its own theater chain, FPLC acquired several theaters around 1920, including New York’s Rialto, Rivoli, and Criterion, and a half-interest in Grauman’s Theater in Los Angeles. By 1921, Paramount was already under attack for monopoly with the largest theater network in the world. In 1925, Zukor initiated a $20 million theater-building project that resulted in twenty-two new first-run theaters. That same year, he bought the Chicago-based Balaban & Katz chain, and Sam Katz joined Zukor and Sidney Kent in management of the film giant in New York. 3 Meanwhile, Lasky’s company and then the combined FPLC expanded its studio operations around the barn at Selma and Vine into the early 1920s. At the time, a series of Los Angeles Times articles made the case that studio deals and improvements, including those of FPLC, were in the process of solidifying Los Angeles, and specifically, Hollywood, as a film capital. 4 In September 1923, FPLC debuted its new film laboratory, which had been under construction for sixteen months. Replacing the studio’s laboratory that dated from 1915, the new lab cost more than $250,000 and was the largest in the Western U.S. at its completion. The new lab promised to process more than one million feet of film per week. The building also contained four projection rooms that each sat seventy-five people, space for twenty film printing machines, and fourteen vaults for film editing. The building was fitted with cutting-edge technology, including a conveyor belt to move film from room to room, an air ventilation and control system, and fireproofing to prevent the highly-flammable film from combusting. The original laboratory would be used for 152 storage. 5 The Los Angeles Times reported, “The building of this plant proves the permanency of Los Angeles and Hollywood as a motion picture capital, the owners say.” 6 In 1927, the firm was known as Paramount-Famous Lasky Corporation. Three years later, emphasizing the prominence of the Publix Theater circuit that would eventually force the company into bankruptcy, it was known as Paramont-Publix Corporation. In 1936, during the reorganization that retired Zukor to an advisory role as chairman of the board and installed Barney Balaban as president, the company was titled Paramount Pictures, Inc. 7 THE “NEW” HOLLYWOOD STUDIO Although FPLC had recently invested a lot of capital in a film laboratory, as the craft of filmmaking and the industry matured, the company needed more space to develop a modern film manufacturing plant. In January 1926, FPLC purchased United Studios on Marathon Street in Hollywood (see Figure 4.2). While the sale price was not disclosed, the Los Angeles Times reported that it was the largest deal of its kind since film production’s establishment in Los Angeles. FPLC purchased about 25.5 acres with nine stages. With the acquisition, FPLC intended to fully occupy its new studio May 1. The Los Angeles Times initially reported that FPLC planned to raze its original studio site for commercial development, but subsequent reports suggest its future was less certain with the exception of handling production at least through the summer while upgrades were made at the new studio. 8 The United Studios, originally established as the Robert Brunton Studios circa 1915, occupied about thirty acres between Melrose Avenue and the Hollywood Cemetery (now known as Hollywood Forever Cemetery) just east of Bronson Avenue to just west 153 FIGURE 4.2 MAP OF PARAMOUNT STUDIOS. This 2012 Google Map shows Paramount’s location in Hollywood. The purple rectangle represents the approximate 1926 boundaries of the studio when it was purchased from the United Studios. The blue rectangle represents the current studio boundaries, not accounting for some parking facilities that have been built on the west side of Gower Street. The red balloon marks the historic Bronson Gate. Source: Google Maps (base map only) 154 of Windsor Boulevard. 9 United Studios, run by M.C. Levee and Joseph M. Schenck (brother of MGM’s Nicholas Schenck), was a consortium of independent producers that purchased the similarly-run independent production facility of Robert Brunton in 1921 for $2 million. The Los Angeles Times reported that Robert Brunton Studios sold United Studios a plant with five main stages and one great stage with capacity for twenty production units. The props, stock scenery, permanent exterior settings, and electrical equipment included in the deal were valued at more than $850,000. The plant did not include a film laboratory. United Studios improved the plant, constructing another three stages before FPLC purchased it. 10 The purchase and adaptation of existing production facilities is a hallmark of the film industry and a key reason for the current existence of Los Angeles’s historic studios. Just as MGM was the third operator of its Culver City facilities, Paramount is the same for its Hollywood studio. The bulk of the existing production space in metropolitan Los Angeles built before the end of the studio system has changed hands over the years. Many facilities remain from the 1910s before the studio system, especially in Hollywood. This is also an area worthy of further exploration. As part of the sale of the land to FPLC, United Studios retained 4.5 acres fronting along Melrose Avenue, which had been developed as commercial space or was pending further commercial and residential development. United Studios intended to build a six- story building on Melrose east of Bronson Avenue to house its property rental business. 11 When United Studios purchased the Robert Brunton Studios, the production facility extended to Melrose Avenue on the south. In February 1924, United subdivided the eastern portion of the studio between Melrose Avenue and Marathon Street into parcels 155 25-feet-by-100-feet along Melrose and 50-feet-by-110-feet along Marathon. The eastern- most portion along Marathon was one parcel about 225 feet wide. 12 In 1927, United filed another subdivision to combine that large parcel with its opposing Melrose lots to form one parcel of more than 1.18 acres. 13 Soon after, on the site rose the Valentino apartment building, named after Paramount’s Rudolph Valentino who died suddenly the year before. It was purchased and converted into office space by Paramount in the 1980s. The initial subdivision was a success, evidently, and United repeated the process in February 1925 with the regular pattern of 25-feet-by-100-feet and 50-feet-by-110-feet lots on the western portion of the property between Melrose and Marathon. The 1919 Sanborn map illustrates that any development in the area was concentrated along Santa Monica Boulevard and the streetcar line, east of the Hollywood Cemetery and a public school; the residential development only trickled south toward Melrose. 14 This indicates United was an early commercial developer in this portion of Hollywood. United’s successful development of the property between Melrose and Marathon later constrained Paramount’s ability to expand its production facilities. The bulk of this area was not purchased and redeveloped by Paramount until the 1980s. FPLC purchased the larger studio and land in order to carry out its ambitious plans to increase production. Jesse L. Lasky, first vice president in charge of production for FPLC, issued a statement via telegram from New York confirming the sale and explaining the firm’s motives. He declared, “Although our studio in Hollywood long has been considered the best plant in the country, it is not large enough to take care of the productions scheduled for this year.” 15 Lasky announced that 1926 would see a $4 million increase in production expenses over any previous year for the firm. 16 156 Construction began on the $500,000 improvements to the studio plant on March 29, 1926. Three eight-hour shifts put carpenters, masons, and other construction men to work around the clock in order for FPLC to move into its new studio in June. The first building to be constructed was the two-story Spanish Revival Administration building (Figure 4.3) on Marathon Street. Other buildings constructed and remodeled were influenced by the style and design of the Administration building. The plans also included a three-story dressing-room building to contain ten star suites, twenty-one special rooms, and one hundred dressing rooms. Also planned was a three-story wardrobe building, with dressing rooms for up to 1,200 extras, to house the wardrobe department, casting offices, the purchasing department, dining rooms, and cold storage for furs. Additional buildings included one housing four projection rooms for directors, a steel and concrete camera vault (to protect and isolate explosive film stock), a photography building, an experimental stage, a hospital, and a schoolhouse for seventy students. Half the investment, an expenditure of $250,000, went toward the industrial components of the studio plant, which the Los Angeles Times described as “a small industrial city exclusively” for film production. The new industrial facilities included a power house with four synchronous sets powerful enough to light a small town, a foundry, a prop- making department, lumber yard and mill, extensive garages, and shops for carpenters, electricians, electrical construction, paint, plumbing, machine, sheet metal, and blacksmiths. Three stages from the original studio were moved to the new plant and expanded. The only building to remain at the original studio was the laboratory, which FPLC had invested significant funds in three years earlier. 17 By February 1927, Paramount successfully asked the city to vacate Bronson Avenue north of Marathon 157 FIGURE 4.3 THE ADMINISTRATION BUILDING. This undated, pre-1930 photograph shows the Spanish Colonial Revival Administration Building, the first building completed as part of Paramount’s renovations of its new Hollywood studio in 1926. Source: Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection 158 Street. With this addition, the studio was then 25.742 acres and formed a regular rectangle to be walled. 18 In June 1926, FPLC announced that it had leased to the Frank L. Meline Company its former studio site, between Vine Street and El Centro Avenue and Sunset Boulevard and Selma Avenue, for subdivision. Rumors spread at the time about the construction of a $2 million Publix Theater, owned by FPLC, on the site. 19 Today there is no trace of the former studio. As the film industry continued to evolve, Paramount adapted its facilities. In the last quarter of 1928, Paramount began its conversion to sound films with the construction of sound-proof stages. Roy J. Pomeroy, director of sound effects at Paramount, designed four new sound-proof stages each seventy feet wide and one hundred feet long within one building, 220 feet long that cost $250,000. Another $250,000 was spent on permanent equipment for the building. The new technology required the construction of a heating and cooling plant to regulate the temperature of the sound-proof stages that neared completion as the stages began construction. Paramount’s project, set to open January 1, 1929, was the largest multiunit stage constructed to that point in Hollywood for sound production. Paramount’s sound conversion included the construction of three other buildings for the purpose: a two-story sound proving building that cost $100,000 and two recording buildings, each costing $50,000. The recording buildings employed a new building material, patented by the Pacific Fireproofing Company, consisting of gypsum on an expanded metal base to deaden sound and protect against fire. 20 159 PLANNING A NEW, LARGER STUDIO ON THE URBAN FRINGE In 1935, when both RKO and Paramount were in the midst of restructuring during bankruptcy, executives from both companies in New York discussed merging the two adjoining Hollywood studios. The Motion Picture Herald reported the merger was near after the Atlas Corporation had increased its ownership of shares in RKO while already maintaining a substantial interest in Paramount. 21 The merger did not occur, but as the article pointed out, such a deal would have expanded Paramount’s production facilities, which had been cramped for some time. Two years later, Paramount announced plans to build a much larger studio in West Los Angeles. Since 1934, Paramount had been considering a substantial expansion of its production facilities, either at the Marathon lot or a new 150-acre site bounded by Pico Boulevard on the north, Overland Avenue on the east, National Boulevard on the South, and Kelton Avenue on the west. On the land, located just south of Rancho Park about midway between Westwood Village on the north and Culver City on the south, was a drive-in movie theater and a large residence owned by Ferdinand Bain, owner of the acreage with the Sabichi Company. The studio would have likely wiped out the drive-in and mansion, which were isolated structures. In 1937, Paramount expected the purchase of the land and studio construction to cost $7 to $10 million. The Citizen, a Culver City newspaper, reported the new studio with excitement, claiming that it would boost Culver City’s reputation as a film production center given its proximity. 22 While this new studio was not in Culver City, it would be closer to Culver City than Hollywood. At the time of Paramount’s announcement, the Culver City and Hollywood Chambers of Commerce were battling over the “Hollywood” brand. 160 In April 1939, Paramount confirmed its plans to build the new studio plant called Paramount City. The $12 million “Studio of Tomorrow” would include twenty-six sound stages with sound-proof observation rooms for visitors, television communication systems, “homelike accommodations” for talent, restaurants, nurseries, police and fire departments, gyms, swimming pools, tennis courts, and a large water reservoir for filming water scenes. The former Bain mansion and its landscaping would remain as a permanent set. Meanwhile, the curving path of the Exposition Boulevard streetcar line of the Pacific Electric Railway would bisect the studio plant. Paramount anticipated a station for Paramount City and underpasses would be constructed for the trolley’s route through the studio. 23 William Pereira, a Chicago-born architect trained at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, designed the new studio. Later known as a master of corporate modern architecture in Los Angeles and master planner of Irvine, Pereira and his wife, who was an aspiring actress, moved to Los Angeles in 1938. Over the previous six years, he had designed seventy-five movie theaters in twenty-six states for the Balaban & Katz chain of theaters owned by Paramount. President Barney Balaban, based in New York, supported the architect in Los Angeles by employing him at Paramount. Pereira’s first assignment was the design of the new studio; the research for which apparently taught him multiple aspects of the filmmaking industry. For Paramount, Pereira worked as photographer, art director, and producer. He won an Oscar for special effects photography in 1942 for Cecil B. DeMille’s Reap the Wild Wind. Through the 1940s, Pereira maintained careers in architecture and film, producing financially successful films for Paramount, RKO, and Selznick, before focusing on his architecture career full time. 24 161 The proposed plant promised urban and economic development for West Los Angeles, then sparsely populated. A week after Paramount announced plans for Paramount City, the Los Angeles Times reported that it had “given marked impetus” for the realty activity in the nearby Cheviot Knolls-Cheviot Hills-Monte Mar Vista residential district south of Pico Boulevard. Cheviot Knolls recently opened a 120-single- family-home subdivision. Meanwhile, nearly $100,000 in additional new home construction in Cheviot Hills was set to begin almost immediately. 25 A new plant could fill those new homes with owners. Soon after, Geroge Bagnall, Paramount Vice President, spoke before the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce West Division’s annual banquet to tout the economic benefit of the new studio. Bagnall estimated the new studio would bring $22 million annually to the district, including $18 million in salaries. 26 Paramount’s only direct contribution to West Los Angeles’s urban development came in April 1940 when it signed a contract with the City of Los Angeles to provide $50,000 for Works Projects Administration Project No. 11818, which installed the fourth unit of the Sawtelle-Westwood Storm Drain. 27 On the surface, Paramount’s exploration of moving to the urban fringe might question the assertion that it was a prudent planner given what we know about Fox and MGM’s expansions in the 1930s and 1940s. Paramount considered following the film industry’s trend to expand production on larger, cheaper acreage. However, its prudence emerged in its decision to halt those plans when clear signals emerged that the industry would likely change in the near future. In October 1940, Paramount shelved the nearly-complete plans for the new studio. Citing lackluster world economic and film market conditions, Paramount 162 anticipated moving ahead with the project when the situation improved in several years. In the interim, a baseball diamond was built as the home field for the semiprofessional Paramount Club baseball team. 28 Paramount retained the land, expecting to eventually build the studio, until August 1944 when it was sold for housing. Paramount sold the 150 acres for the same $400,000 it paid in 1940 to a group of local businessmen and builders for a project to include 600 single-family homes and commercial stores along Pico Boulevard. 29 Assessor data and tract maps filed with the Los Angeles County Recorder indicate the acreage was immediately subdivided and houses built mostly in 1944 and 1945. Retail stores and a Vons supermarket replaced the drive-in theater on Pico Boulevard. 30 The houses remain, but the commercial space was replaced by a regional shopping mall now known as the Westside Pavilion in the mid-1960s. In a 1947 critique of varying property tax rates in Los Angeles County, James O. Stevenson, Director of the Los Angeles Bureau of Municipal Research, cited the City of Los Angeles’s increased and unequal assessments of property in the city as Paramount’s reason for abandoning its new industrial plant. 31 While I have found no evidence that this was the case, it may have been a factor. More likely, the chief reasons for halting the project were the uncertain and changing economic climate for filmmaking. Paramount’s prudent planning, including its contemporary assessment of the industry and the needs for such a studio, ensured the company dodged a bullet by canceling its plans to build the new studio. Breaking even with the land purchase and sale after having spent significant funds for the storm drain and studio design, Paramount spared itself from making a large capital investment to expand its production facilities on the eve of the collapse of the studio system. Fox made that mistake and, within a decade 163 of the collapse, was eager to sell its excessive studio land for much-needed cash. Similarly, MGM continued to expand its landholdings in Culver City until just before the collapse and then spent the next two decades contemplating what to do with the land before selling it piecemeal for redevelopment. Paramount’s impact on the urban development of West Los Angeles, then, was through landbanking and omission. In contrast to Fox’s commission of Century City, Paramount shaped this nearby portion of the metropolis by holding the 150 acres for a short time and then selling it as soon as it decided against using the land for its production facilities. Paramount provided an opportunity for other developers to take advantage of the land for housing to alleviate wartime shortages in the face of an expanding population and growth of the city. Following this, Paramount carried out a deliberate plan of development at its Hollywood studio. INCREMENTAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT AT THE HOLLYWOOD STUDIO Meanwhile, Paramount was terribly constrained by its twenty-five-acre studio in Hollywood. Needing more space for production, Paramount looked to its residential neighborhood in order to expand. While the new studio was on hold, Paramount expanded its Marathon Street plant by buying several parcels adjoining the eastern boundary in 1942 (see Figure 4.4). The new boundary with the neighborhood formed an irregular pattern. Paramount sought to vacate the portion of Lemon Grove Avenue and Monroe Streets in order to close off its entire property to the public, which was accomplished in May 1944 via Los Angeles City ordinance. The following year, Paramount requested the complete vacation of Lemon Grove Avenue west of Van Ness after purchasing more of the adjoining residential property. 32 In July 1945, the Los 164 FIGURE 4.4 MAP OF PARAMOUNT’S EASTERN EXPANSION IN 1942. Paramount prepared this map (annotating an index of tract maps) and submitted it to the Los Angeles City Council with street vacation requests for Lemon Grove Avenue and Monroe Street (shaded yellow). The area shaded blue represents Paramount’s recent parcel acquisitions of the adjoining residential neighborhood. The red outline indicates the studio’s boundaries before the eastward expansion. Source: Council File 11169, vol. 3524, box A-804, Los Angeles City Archives. 165 Angeles Times reported the difficulty Paramount had in receiving a zoning variance in order to expand its production facilities all the way to Van Ness at Monroe Street. The problem was evicting 160 people who lived in the apartment building and cottages, owned by Paramount for two years, which would need to be demolished to make way for more production space. 33 The residential area along Van Ness between Melrose and Lemon Grove was subdivided into parcels 50-feet-by-150-feet in 1906, but lay undeveloped in 1919, indicating the housing followed the increased studio activity and United Studio’s development of Melrose Avenue. 34 As of August 1947, Paramount owned all but one apartment building with sixteen units along Van Ness at Monroe Street. At the time it sought to vacate Monroe Street to the edge of that apartment building. In 1950, the city granted Paramount the complete vacation of Lemon Grove Avenue west of Van Ness and the vacation of Monroe Street to a point ninety-nine feet west of Van Ness to accommodate the remaining apartment building. On the land it had recently expanded on, Paramount built multiple buildings, including individual structures for payroll, publicity, dance rehearsal, green house, nursery, set construction, and lamp stage with shop. Paramount constructed a gatehouse to monitor traffic into the studio from the east at Lemon Grove Avenue and Van Ness. It also owned adjoining residential buildings it intended to demolish for more production space. These included multifamily housing ranging from duplexes to eight-unit apartment buildings and one sixteen-unit building and a bungalow court. The only building not owned by Paramount along Van Ness between Marathon Street and Lemon Grove was that one sixteen-unit apartment building at Monroe Street (see Figure 4.5). 35 According to a Paramount studio map circa 1956, the sixteen-unit apartment building was extant, but FIGURE 4.5 1955 SANBORN MAP SHOWING PARAMOUNT’S EASTWARD EXPANSION. This Sanborn map updated to 1955 shows Paramount’s expansion to Van Ness Ave. The only property north of Marathon St. south of the cemetery not owned by Paramount is the 16-unit apartment building outlined in red. The map also shows the building that has occurred on the lot since the studio expanded eastward beginning in 1942. (Only half of the lot shown.) Source: Sanborn Map Company, Los Angeles, vol. 9 (New York: Sanborn Map Company, 1919 updated to 1955), 952 via ProQuest. 166 167 the remaining residential buildings along Van Ness had been replaced by storage and parking areas on the Paramount lot. Additionally, mechanical and blacksmith shops and other industrial uses expanded that portion of the studio. 36 Although constrained by high land values and its fully-developed surrounding neighborhood, Paramount managed to incrementally increase its studio production facilities in order to meet its needs. Meanwhile, it sought to increase its facilities for its budding television subsidiary through incremental property management as well. Paramount, whose leadership created the studio system and remained in Hollywood when others chose larger landholdings on the urban fringe, again pioneered with experimental television. At a time when the industry regarded emerging television as the big bad wolf ready to blow film’s studios down, Paramount embraced the new medium and sought out property to house its operations. Recall that the proposed new studio in West Los Angeles was to include experimental television facilities. In 1952, Paramount subsidiary Paramount Television Productions petitioned the Los Angeles City Council for approval to build the KTLA television station building over an alley that existed northwest of the intersection of Melrose and Bronson—Paramount’s first extension of its studio plant to Melrose Avenue. The City Council granted permission in January 1956. 37 In the interim, Paramount purchased the former Warner Bros. Sunset Boulevard studio in Hollywood in December 1953. The ten-acre property between Bronson and Van Ness Avenues (some six or seven blocks due north of the Paramount studio) was purchased to house the television station and the Motion Picture Relief Fund’s planned motion picture museum. 38 The museum never materialized, but the studio was used for 168 the station and television production rentals. In 1964, Gene Autry’s Golden West Broadcasters purchased KTLA’s license and broadcast facilities (but not the real estate) from Paramount for $12 million. Three years later, Golden West Broadcasters purchased the Sunset studio, which it had been renting a portion of to operate KTLA, from Paramount for $5 million. According to executives, Paramount’s sale of its rental facilities was in line with plans to expand and modernize its principal studio facilities. 39 The KTLA television station remains at the Sunset Boulevard studio. In the midst of incrementally managing its television facilities, Paramount explored other possible revenue increases from its studio land. In 1958, Paramount followed Fox’s lead in exploiting oil rights on its studio property. The City Council approved an oil drilling district on the Paramount lot via ordinance. 40 After the initial oil- drilling announcement, there were no follow-up reports in the press or indication of its profitability. Like the other studios in this study who all explored oil reserves, Paramount sought additional revenue streams at a time of industry uncertainty. A year after the oil drilling began, Paramount and other film companies announced plans to diversify outside the entertainment field in hopes of steadier growth in profits. 41 While to some extent, all the studios in this case study can be interpreted as incrementally expanding its facilities, Paramount was the only one to do so as part of a strategic plan to manage its expansion in the face of the constraint of its surrounding urban development. Fox purchased its studio land in three transactions over time, perhaps overestimating the amount of land it would eventually need. MGM made several transactions to accumulate seven lots in such a haphazard fashion as to suggest that it bought the land because it could. Paramount, in contrast, fully aware of its expansion 169 needs had no choice but to expand incrementally given its location in a fully-developed neighborhood. Incrementalism, as set forth by Charles E. Lindblom, implies that those who pursue it lack strategic vision and instead proceed by “muddling through.” 42 Paramount did have a strategic plan: to acquire as much of the surrounding land as it could and expand the plant to Van Ness Avenue. MGM was the one who muddled through its land purchase and disposal. NEW CORPORATE OWNERSHIP’S FAILED ATTEMPTS AT REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT A new corporate parent shifted Paramount’s prudent planning and incremental property management regime to profit-seeking through hasty real estate developments that never materialized. Still managed from New York, Paramount’s new leadership struggled to manage its foray into a new industry. On October 19, 1966, Paramount became a subsidiary of Gulf & Western, an industrial and leisure conglomerate with headquarters in New York. Gulf & Western classified Paramount under its Leisure Time properties rather than Manufacturing or Consumer Products. 43 Universal was the first of the major film studios to lose its independence when MCA purchased its backlot in 1958 and then the studio in 1962. However, MCA, as a talent agency, was a related entertainment company. Indeed, the Justice Department considered the merger a violation of antitrust laws and forced MCA to choose between its talent operations and the film studio (it chose the latter). 44 In stark contrast, Gulf & Western executives knew nothing about the film business. Instead, president Charles Bluhdorn acquired Paramount for its potential profits, but the glamour and prestige of the industry drew his attention, too. The Associated Press reporting of the merger anticipated more films and less financial risk. It also labeled Paramount’s union 170 with Gulf & Western as the first in “an apparent trend within the movie industry toward merger with bigger diversified corporations.” 45 That prediction was correct; today all major film studios are owned by national or international media conglomerates. Gulf & Western, under Bluhdorn’s direction, eager to expand its production space available for independent filmmakers and television producers, purchased Desilu Studios for $40 million in 1967. Desilu, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s studio, acquired RKO’s former property adjoining Paramount at Melrose Avenue and Gower Street and its studio and backlot in Culver City a decade earlier. Gulf & Western’s purchase of Desilu also included a nine-stage studio property on Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood. The Justice Department determined that Paramount was forming another monopoly, this time over excessive production space at a time when others were divesting their interests, and forced Gulf & Western to sell all but the adjoining studio space. 46 Soon after the purchase, Paramount filed a petition with the Los Angeles City Council to vacate portions of Marathon Street, Windsor Boulevard, and a nearby alley in order to fully integrate the two studios as one 45.57-acre property. The process closed the famed Bronson Gate and created a new central gate for the combined studio. 47 While the process was underway to join the former RKO plant with Paramount’s facility, Paramount complied with the consent decree mandating the sale of the other three studios. In September 1968, Paramount sold the fourteen-acre studio and twenty-nine- acre backlot, both in Culver City, to Perfect Film & Chemical Corporation for $9 million. 48 The following April, the last lot to be sold, the Cahuenga studio constructed in the 1950s for television production, was sold to a Long Beach firm outside of the film industry. 49 171 Although Gulf & Western’s acquisition of the Desilu properties was intended to expand its production capabilities and increase profits by offering the facilities for rent to independent producers, after the antitrust action and compliance with the consent decree, Gulf & Western’s stewardship of Paramount sharply turned in another direction. Film historian Bernard F. Dick described Bluhdorn’s behavior after the consent decree as erratic and Gulf & Western as a company that “advocated long-range planning but never really planned ahead.” This may explain why in October 1969, Paramount initially announced it was selling the entire Hollywood studio and less than two weeks later, slated only the feature-making, original Paramount end of the studio for sale. 50 Later that week, Variety reported that a group of show business personnel headed by Danny Thomas were in talks to purchase the studio plant from Paramount, but they were discouraged by the $30 million pricetag. 51 In December 1969, Paramount seemingly changed its mind again. In order to better evaluate its options, Paramount divorced production from the studio real estate, creating a subsidiary called Paramount Studio Properties Inc. (PSP), headed by Irving R. Horowitz, whose previous position was managing Gulf & Western’s real estate properties. Variety assessed the decision in light of the industry’s recent turmoil: “The immediate crisis in Hollywood might lead to near-term conclusions to unload production facilities and real estate. But cooler heads, taking the long view and particularly the survival of the fittest studios in an era of increasing rental functions, might suggest a wait-and-see attitude. That apparently is the new thinking that is to be reflected through PSP.” 52 Meanwhile, Paramount’s production offices moved from the Hollywood studio to an office building in Beverly Hills only steps away from The Bistro, the power restaurant 172 of the day. The separation of production executives from the studio, coincidentally or not, was fruitful for Paramount; some of its greatest films and box office hits in the post- studio era were made during this exile that lasted about five years, until 1975. 53 Paramount changed course again seven months later. In June 1970, Gulf & Western announced it sold 50 percent of the stock in PSP to Societa Generale Immobilare (SGI), an Italian-based international real estate and construction firm with ties to the Vatican; also part of the deal was Gulf & Western’s purchase of 10.5 percent of SGI’s stock. At the time, PSP and SGI announced possible future studio redevelopment, including residential and commercial activities with a compact studio or a modern, master studio complex. Gulf & Western along with SGI pursued increasing the exchange value of the land through redevelopment rather than the previous management’s high estimation of its use value. Ultimately, Gulf & Western’s partnership with SGI dissolved under unknown circumstances; the sale may have never gone through or SGI’s legal and financial troubles scared Gulf & Western away. Redevelopment plans were called off by 1975, when the production offices returned to the Hollywood studio. 54 In the interim, Paramount explored moving its operations to both the Fox and Universal studios before Paramount President Frank Yablans declared, in November 1971, that Paramount would not be moving or selling the studio just yet. 55 In summation, Paramount was subject to the same industrial pressures as its competitors, but choosing to remain at a relatively small studio plant in Hollywood posed different challenges and rewards than the other firms in this study. Paramount’s decision to remain in Hollywood meant it was constrained by its compact studio, high land values, and the surrounding residential and commercial neighborhood that developed after it 173 moved to the site in 1926. Meanwhile, remaining in Hollywood boosted the brand and solidified it as a center of filmmaking. Paramount’s good planning shelved and then ended plans to build a new, large studio complex on 150 acres in sparsely developed West Los Angeles when it realized the industry was in turmoil. Yet Paramount’s production facilities were cramped in Hollywood. With a new studio deemed imprudent, Paramount incrementally expanded eastward through the mid-1940s. In 1967, when Paramount’s competitors were in the process of shrinking their studio plants, Paramount again expanded, under Gulf & Western’s leadership, when it purchased the smaller, former RKO studio on its western boundary and merged the two lots. That Paramount, whose studio occupied the highest valued land of the three case studies, expanded rather than contracted in the post-studio era suggests that exchange values and use values for film production facilities in Los Angeles were not as unbalanced as some New York film executives claimed as they prepared redevelopment plans. Paramount’s major competitors left Hollywood for larger studio properties on Los Angeles’s evolving urban fringe. Yet, Paramount remained in Hollywood, more than doubling its acreage since settling at its current location in 1926. Paramount’s keys to persistence have been good planning and incremental property management. After Gulf & Western bought the film company in 1966, it initiated redevelopment plans for the studio property that never materialized. Gulf & Western’s unrealized schemes nearly undermined the previous leadership’s successful land management. Such hasty real estate development attempts failed and Paramount remains in Hollywood today. It has expanded since then, now claiming the entire Melrose Avenue frontage between Van Ness Avenue and Gower Street. 174 1 Bernard F. Dick, Engulfed: The Death of Paramount Pictures and the Birth of Corporate Hollywood (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001), 1-5. 2 Ibid., 6-8. 3 Ibid., 9-13; Douglas Gomery, The Hollywood Studio System: A History (London: British Film Institute, 2005), 17, 20-25. 4 “Film Capital Is Fortified,” Los Angeles Times, 13 Nov. 1921; “Studio Deal Completed,” Los Angeles Times, 3 Jan. 1922; “Building Shows Film Stability,” Los Angeles Times, 24 May 1923. 5 “Building Shows Film Stability,” Los Angeles Times; “Paramount Starts New Laboratory,” Los Angeles Times, 20 Sept. 1923. 6 “Paramount Starts New Laboratory.” 7 Gomery, The Hollywood Studio System, 81. 8 “United Studios Are Sold,” Los Angeles Times, 2 Jan. 1926; “Lasky Confirms Film Deal,” Los Angeles Times, 6 Jan. 1926. 9 “Lasky Confirms Film Deal”; Sanborn Map Company, Los Angeles, vol. 9 (New York: Sanborn Map Company, 1919), 951-952 via ProQuest. 10 “Film Capital Is Fortified”; “Studio Deal Completed”; Sanborn Map Company, Los Angeles, vol. 9, 951 (1919). 11 “United Studios Are Sold”; “Lasky Confirms Film Deal.” 12 Tract No. 7834 Map, Los Angeles County Recorder Map Book 87, page 24. Accessed via <http://dpwgis.co.la.ca.us/website/surveyrecord/tractMain.cfm>. 13 Tract No. 9850 Map, Los Angeles County Recorder Map Book 139, page 78. Accessed via <http://dpwgis.co.la.ca.us/website/surveyrecord/tractMain.cfm>. 14 Tract No. 6512 Map, Los Angeles County Recorder Map Book 109, page 62. Accessed via <http://dpwgis.co.la.ca.us/website/surveyrecord/tractMain.cfm>; Sanborn Map Company, Los Angeles, vol. 9, 952 (1919) 15 Qtd. in “Lasky Confirms Film Deal.” 16 “Lasky Confirms Film Deal.” 17 “Studio Remodeling Begun,” Los Angeles Times, 29 March 1926; “Romance Not All of Film,” Los Angeles Times, 11 April 1926. 18 Tract No. 9885 Map, Los Angeles County Recorder Book 147, page 31. Accessed via <http://dpwgis.co.la.ca.us/website/surveyrecord/tractMain.cfm>. 19 “Studio May Be Theater’s Site,” Los Angeles Times, 19 June 1926. 20 “Film Stages Started,” Los Angeles Times, 12 Sept. 1928; “New Studio Plant,” Los Angeles Times, 13 Sept. 1928; “Talkie Stages Speeded Up,” Los Angeles Times, 16 Dec. 1928. 21 “Merger of RKO, Paramount is Near, Report,” Motion Picture Herald, 12 Oct. 1935, Paramount Pictures (1930-1935) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 175 22 “Paramount Will Purchase 150 Acres For New Studio,” Los Angeles Times, 10 July 1937, A1; “Paramount Proposes Ten Million Dollar Studio Near Culver City,” The Citizen, 16 July 1937. 23 “Film Studio to Build Huge New Plant,” Los Angeles Times, 22 April 1939. 24 Thomas S. Hines, Architecture of the Sun: Los Angeles Modernism 1900-1970 (New York: Rizzoli, 2010), 678-679. 25 “Cheviot Knolls Activity Stimulated,” Los Angeles Times, 30 April 1939, E2. 26 “Paramount Studio Great Civic Asset,” Los Angeles Times, 7 May 1939, E3. 27 Los Angeles City Contract 10529, Vol. 108, Box 6644, Los Angeles City Archives. 28 “New Para. Studio Plans Laid Away,” Hollywood Reporter, 24 Oct. 1940, Paramount Studios (1940- 1949) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “Semipro Baseballers Play in League Struggles Today,” Los Angeles Times, 10 June 1943, I7. 29 “Par Sells Pico Studio Site,” Daily Variety, 22 Aug. 1944, Paramount Pictures (1944-1945) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 30 Tract No. 13037 Map, Los Angeles County Recorder Map Book 261, page 17. Accessed via <http://dpwgis.co.la.ca.us/website/surveyrecord/tractMain.cfm>; Tract No. 11370 Map, Los Angeles County Recorder Map Book 277, page 43. Accessed via <http://dpwgis.co.la.ca.us/website/surveyrecord/tractMain.cfm>; Tract No. 13061 Map, Los Angeles County Recorder Map Book 358, page 24. Accessed via <http://dpwgis.co.la.ca.us/website/surveyrecord/tractMain.cfm>. 31 James O. Stevenson, “The Assessor vs. Industry,” Los Angeles Times, 9 June 1947, A4. 32 Los Angeles City Council File 11169, vol. 3524, box A-804, Los Angeles City Archives; Los Angeles City Council File 21572, vol. 3697, box A-879, Los Angeles City Archives; Los Angeles City Council File 29702, vol. 3843, box A-942, Los Angeles City Archives. 33 “Los Angeles Briefs: Zoning Problem Faced,” Los Angeles Times, 13 July 1945, A3. 34 Marlborough Tract Map, Los Angeles County Recorder Map Book 10, page 9. Accessed via <http://dpwgis.co.la.ca.us/website/surveyrecord/tractMain.cfm>; Sanborn Map Company, Los Angeles, vol. 9, 952 (1919). 35 Los Angeles City Council File 29702, vol. 3843, box A-942, Los Angeles City Archives. 36 Los Angeles City Council File 80229, box A-1423, Los Angeles City Archives. 37 Los Angeles City Council File 54423, vol. 4313, box A-1144, Los Angeles City Archives. 38 “Paramount Films Buys Warners’ Studio on Sunset,” L.A. Daily News, 23 Dec. 1953, Paramount Studios (1950-1959) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “Para. Buys WB Sunset Studio: Lot Will Be New Home of TV Station KTLA, Also Motion Picture Museum,” Hollywood Reporter, 23 Dec. 1953, Paramount Studios (1950-1959) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 39 “Autry Dickers For Par Sunset Lot,” Daily Variety, 5 Dec. 1966, Paramount Studios (1960-1969) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “Gene Autry Firm Buys Paramount Sunset Studio,” Los Angeles Times, 21 Jan. 1967, Paramount Studios (1960- 1969) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 176 40 Los Angeles City Council File 80229, box A-1423, Los Angeles City Archives; Thomas M. Pryor, “Hollywood Vista: Industry Hopefully Faces the Coming Months—Paramount Drills for Oil,” New York Times, 29 June 1958, Paramount Studios (1950-1959) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “Hollywood: Props for Profit,” Newsweek, 7 July 1958, Paramount Studios (1950-1959) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 41 Harold Walsh, “March of Finance: Film Producers Move to Diversify,” Los Angeles Times, 2 Aug. 1959, Paramount Pictures (1953-1959) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 42 Charles E. Lindblom, “The Science of ‘Muddling Through,’” Public Administration Review 19, no. 2 (Spring 1959): 79-88; Charles E. Lindblom, “Still Muddling, Not Yet Through,” Public Administration Review 39, no. 6 (Nov.-Dec. 1979): 517-526. 43 Dick, Engulfed, 85-86. 44 Ibid., 103-104. 45 “Financial Strength Boosted: Paramount May Start Movie Merger Trend,” Los Angeles Times, 21 Oct. 1966, Paramount Pictures (1966) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 46 Dick, Engulfed, 119; “Terms Limit Sale Of Desilu Stages,” Hollywood Reporter, 2 Nov. 1967, Paramount Studios (1960-1969) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 47 Los Angeles City Council File 131717, box A-2004, Los Angeles City Archives; Tract No. 30487 Map, Los Angeles County Recorder Map Book 804, page 20. Accessed via <http://dpwgis.co.la.ca.us/website/surveyrecord/tractMain.cfm>; “Par’s Marathon Expansion Plan,” Daily Variety, 6 Feb. 1968, Paramount Studios (1960-1969) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; William Tusher, “Paramount Opens the Gate to New Efficiency Via Consolidation With Adjoining Desilu Studio,” Film Daily, 2 Aug. 1968, Paramount Studios (1960-1969) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 48 “Perfect Film Sells 100,000 Downe Shares, Agrees to Buy Two Studios for $9 Million,” Wall Street Journal, 19 Sept. 1968, Paramount Studios (1960-1969) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “Par, Per Consent Decree, Unloads Lots,” Weekly Variety, 25 Sept. 1968, Paramount Studios (1960-1969) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 49 “Cahuenga Studio Sold By Paramount Pictures,” Box Office, 21 April 1969, Paramount Studios (1960- 1969) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 50 Dick, Engulfed, 119, 122; Joseph Morella, “Par Revamping to Cut Costs,” Daily Variety, 15 Oct. 1969, Paramount Studios (1960-1969) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Ben Kaufman, “Official: Para Lot For Sale,” Hollywood Reporter, 28 Oct. 1969, Paramount Studios (1960-1969) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 51 “Danny Thomas Group Dickers Par Studio, But Is Balking At Pricetag, Around $30 Mil,” Daily Variety, 3 Nov. 1969, Paramount Studios (1960-1969) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 177 52 “Horowitz Heads Par Subid ‘To Develop Studio Potential,’” Daily Variety, 17 Dec. 1969, Paramount Studios (1960-1969) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 53 Dick, Engulfed, 122; “Par: Marathon St. to BevHills,” Weekly Variety, 29 Oct. 1969, Paramount Pictures (1969) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 54 Dick, Engulfed, 125, 146, 165; “Italo Firm Buys 50% of Par Lot: No Decision on Ultimate Fate of Studio,” Daily Variety, 25 June 1970, Paramount Studios (1970-1979) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 55 Dave Kaufman, “Par Pondering Westwood HQ,” Daily Variety, 14 June 1971, Paramount Pictures (1971-1972) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “Par Drops Talks Anent Moving To Universal Lot,” Daily Variety, 14 Sept. 1971, Paramount Studios (1970-1979) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; “Par Not Selling Studio Or Moving Out of It—Yablans,” Daily Variety, 17 Nov. 1971, Paramount Studios (1970-1979) Core Collection File, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 178 Chapter 5 Conclusion: Three Typologies of Urban Development The preceding case studies of Twentieth Century Fox (Fox), Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer (MGM), and Paramount have documented the role of film studios, as large landowners, in the shaping of the urban development of metropolitan Los Angeles as defined by two dramatic shifts in the business model of the film industry. First, the vertical integration of the film industry in the 1920s, that created the studio system, necessitated larger plants and larger landholdings. Second, after the collapse of the studio system, film companies grappled with declining profits and transformed their film manufacturing plants accordingly. In the case of Fox and MGM, the studios sold and redeveloped the majority of their landholdings, albeit in very different manners. Paramount—an exception to the prevailing trend in the industry to redevelop excessive studio land in the post-studio era—expanded its smaller studio plant that had been constrained by existing urban development. Executives in each company’s headquarters in New York City made all the land-use decisions about the Los Angeles studios. This separation of management from production, while not unique to the film industry, demonstrated that the studios’ financial dependence on New York constrained its influence on Los Angeles. By way of conclusion, this chapter compares and contrasts the case studies through the establishment of distinct urban development typologies they demonstrate: comprehensive development (Fox), piecemeal development (MGM), and incremental expansion (Paramount). The five-point typology rubric is as follows: 1) location, 179 including displacement and changing surrounding development; 2) land acquisition; 3) property strategies, including redevelopment; 4) management, including headquarters- production site relations; and 5) urban politics, or the neighbors’ and municipal response to the studio’s activities. (See Figure 5.1 for a summary of each typology.) LOCATION The defining location issue among the studios in the study was a decision to locate in the core or the periphery. Both Fox and Paramount established their first Los Angeles film production facilities in Hollywood in the 1910s when the area attracted such a concentration of companies that it became the core of film production in Los Angeles. As film production increased and Los Angeles’s growth exploded beginning in the 1920s, Hollywood—a sleepy town of orange groves twenty years earlier—was incorporated into the urban core of the metropolis by the time Paramount committed to staying at the studio and incrementally expanded in the 1940s. While Paramount remained in the core of film and urbanized Los Angeles, Fox chose to build a new studio on the urban periphery. Meanwhile, when three film companies merged to form MGM in 1924, the firm selected Goldwyn’s Culver City plant rather than Metro’s Hollywood studio. Culver City, by then, was a secondary node of film production in Los Angeles on the metropolitan periphery. As the metropolis matured, these original locational decisions shaped the film companies’ expansion and redevelopment possibilities. Another way to understand the studios’ locational choices in metropolitan Los Angeles is to consider the kinds of suburbs they each chose to settle in. The three studios each selected a location in successive phases of suburbs in the Los Angeles metropolis. Hollywood, established during a population and real estate boom in the 1880s, is a first- FIGURE 5.1 TYPOLOGIES OF URBAN DEVELOPMENT MATRIX. Comprehensive Development Piecemeal Development Incremental Expansion Location Undeveloped urban fringe that becomes a 3 rd generation suburb (West Los Angeles) Existing studio in a 2 nd generation suburb (Culver City) Existing studio in a 1 st generation suburb that becomes absorbed into the urban core (Hollywood) Land Acquisition Three large, undeveloped parcels Many, many parcels and transactions over 20 years Incremental small parcels with a strategy Property Strategies Led development with a comprehensive, master plan for Century City Caught up to development through piecemeal accumulation and development Led by development as it incrementally expanded its constrained studio after abandoning plans to build a new studio on the urban fringe Management New York-based management strongly influenced redevelopment plans Management, which lacked long-term vision, moved from New York to Culver City just as the land was sold Gulf & Western nearly destroyed previously prudent land planning Urban Politics City of Los Angeles rubber stamped the initial Century City plans and neighbors resisted later expansion Culver City exercised strong oversight over redevelopment plans with resident NIMBY input City of Los Angeles was not as accommodating as it was for Century City but did not block expansion efforts 180 181 generation suburb, which remained rather sleepy until the solidification of the film industry in the neighborhood in the 1910s and another population and real estate boom in the 1920s. Culver City, a second-generation suburb, originated in the 1910s with the intention to balance residential uses with industry, especially film. The West Los Angeles neighborhoods surrounding Fox, third-generation suburbs begun in the 1930s, matured in the postwar era and were further shaped by the creation of Century City beginning in the 1960s. Fox located its new studio on the undeveloped urban fringe in West Los Angeles. By the time the company decided to redevelop the bulk of the studio land in the late 1950s, the city had grown around it. Typical suburban, single-family houses and golf courses surrounded the studio. In the postwar years, Los Angeles’s population and urban development grew exponentially, especially on the Westside. This provided an opportunity, seized by Welton Becket & Associates in its Century City plan, to create an economic node between downtown and the Pacific Ocean. The Century City development did not displace any people; the land cleared for development was dotted with temporary sets for Fox’s backlot shooting. MGM acquired what was the first film studio of many in Culver City, which was adjacent to the downtown main street for the small moderate-income community designed as an industrial and residential suburb. As MGM expanded its studio, it did so in noncontiguous lots as the city grew around and between them. There was no known displacement. Paramount’s relocation to another studio in Hollywood in 1926 placed it in a more developed location than either Fox or MGM with correspondingly higher land 182 values. While multifamily residential development trickled into the area in the 1920s, United Studios, which sold Paramount its former studio, developed Melrose Avenue for commercial and multifamily residential tenants, constraining Paramount’s future expansion in the area. Primarily multifamily housing surrounded the studio, which meant that Paramount displaced residents with its expansion in the 1940s. Unlike the other studios that sought greater acreage on the urban fringe, Paramount was the only major studio to remain in Hollywood. The location issues of the case studies also highlight the tension between exchange and use values in urban development. MGM and Paramount settled in existing film production studios, which they adapted into movie-manufacturing plants and expanded over time, indicating the high use value for production facilities in the early years of the studio era. That Paramount, which occupies the highest valued land of the three studios examined, expanded when the others contracted in the post-studio era also suggests that the difference between exchange and use values for film production facilities in Los Angeles was much less than the other executives estimated. Indeed, Los Angeles retains a large number of production facilities dating from the 1910s and 1920s in Hollywood, Culver City, and other places. Surely the real estate market would have forced their demolition decades ago were they not economically feasible. A full cataloguing and study of all extant film production spaces is warranted for further insight into such issues. LAND ACQUISITION AND PROPERTY STRATEGIES The studios diverged over land acquisition as well. Fox made three large, adjoining parcel purchases while MGM and Paramount made many small land 183 transactions. The difference between MGM and Paramount had everything to do with strategy and planning. Paramount decided to incrementally expand its small Hollywood studio, the only way to do so due to the constraints of its urban neighborhood, after it abandoned plans to build a new studio on 150 acres on the urban fringe. MGM, in contrast, had no discernable plan but to accumulate land to store its increasing number of semi-permanent sets. In a move that later proved inconvenient, MGM’s seven lots were not all contiguous, but instead clustered around two major intersections in Culver City one mile apart. Furthermore, the firms’ property strategies correlated with their manner of land acquisition and locational decisions. Fox, in pursuing comprehensive development, took advantage of its studio’s location—by then surrounded by development in the expanding part of the city—to hire an architect-planner to master plan Century City. Fox had intended to manage the development itself in order to maximize the revenue from the redevelopment, which was the impetus for the plan in the first place. While MGM was similarly surrounded by development, Culver City, as an industrial suburb, had lower land values and the studio’s scattered property limited its options. MGM offered its land for sale for redevelopment, rather than planning its use, which was sold in the piecemeal fashion similar to how it was purchased. In contrast, Paramount employed a strategy of incremental expansion in order to fulfill the cramped studio’s production requirements after it canceled plans to build a new studio on the urban fringe. The urban location of Paramount and its residential and commercial neighbors constrained its growth when Fox and MGM had more abundant land available for expansion. However, Paramount proved to be the most prudent land planner among the three. 184 Fox purchased its approximately 284 acres in West Los Angeles in three separate transactions in 1923, 1936, and 1943, and then hired Welton Becket & Associates to master plan Century City on its property in 1956. Century City is a comprehensive development of mixed use, touted as a “city within a city,” and classified as a downtown substitute. As part of the trend of Modernist new towns on blank slates, Century City transformed a portion of the Los Angeles metropolis from a low-rise film studio surrounded by low-rise suburban land uses (single-family housing and golf courses) into a new kind of high-rise, multifunction environment. In this way, Fox led development in West Los Angeles. Fox’s strategy to engage a master planner who then engineered such a plan contrasts with other studios’ strategies. Fox had intended to retain ownership of the land and reap greater profits by developing the project itself, but ultimately the company realized it could not manage to do so and sold the land, in 1960, for others to develop, first under Webb & Knapp and then Alcoa’s guidance. Fox repurchased the studio land it had been leasing in 1973 intending to redevelop it, but that never occurred. MGM did not appear to have a clear plan for land acquisition or, later, disposal. In more transactions than feasible to count, MGM purchased land for its expanding studio between 1924 and 1945. The studio accumulated land because it was cheap and useful to store the numerous sets it built over the years and other items for production. Only Lot 1 included principal production facilities such as sound stages, administrative offices, editing rooms, dressing rooms, and the like. Most of MGM’s subsequent lot purchases were absent any development, but the accumulation of Lot 2 included parcels with single- family houses that are extant today. After considering redeveloping some of the studio lots in the 1950s, MGM leased Lot 7 for retail use in the 1960s. In 1970, the company 185 offered Lots 2 through 7 up for sale, which were ultimately sold and redeveloped individually in a piecemeal manner. MGM, then, was catching up to development in surrounding Culver City. Like MGM, Paramount purchased a functioning studio plant and renovated it. Paramount explored moving to the urban fringe to build a brand new studio plant, but canceled the plans and sold the land for single-family housing when it determined that the film industry’s turmoil in the 1940s would not end any time soon. Instead, Paramount planned to buy as much of the adjoining property in its neighborhood in order to incrementally expand the studio to meet demands. In this way, Paramount was led by development. Paramount had the smallest of the three studios by the end of the studio system, but its prudent planning demonstrated that it was sufficient to sustain operations. In the 1950s and then under Gulf & Western in 1967, Paramount purchased facilities for television production—including the adjoining former RKO studio and facilities in Culver City—anticipating its growing demands. After the Justice Department brought antitrust action against Paramount for accumulating too much production space, Gulf & Western made and unmade plans to redevelop the newly combined lots in Hollywood and then the original Paramount portion, even moving production offices to Beverly Hills while the plans were sorted. Those later property strategies were not well executed, compared to Paramount’s earlier management. Indeed, Gulf & Western nearly destroyed the result of Paramount’s earlier management’s prudent planning efforts. Today the studio remains and has continued expansion, most notably acquiring the Melrose development originated by United Studios in the 1980s. Paramount was the only studio in 186 the study to purchase, expand, and retain its landholdings after the collapse of the studio system. MANAGEMENT All three studios’ management was based in New York City, but the distance between the management and production played out differently in each case. Fox exhibited the clearest example of the constraints of the film industry’s influence on Los Angeles due to its reliance on New York capital. While Fox hired a local firm to master plan Century City, it was ultimately developed and financed through President Spyros P. Skouras’s New York contacts. To MGM the distance seemed indifferent, and the sale of the studio land coincided with management’s move to the Culver City studio. Paramount’s management consisted of prudent planners for the Hollywood studio until Gulf & Western purchased the company. Gulf & Western’s rash plans to redevelop the studio after expansion plans were challenged by the Justice Department on antitrust grounds nearly upended the studio’s careful planning. Gulf & Western’s purchase of Paramount also ushered in the era of conglomerate ownership of film studios as the economics of film shifted. Fox’s headquarters remained in New York City until December 1972. In New York, President Skouras took an active interest in the landholdings for the Los Angeles studio. Skouras was instrumental in the 1943 land purchase and the Century City development. He hired his Beverly Hills-based nephew-in-law, Edmond E. Herrscher, as Fox’s Director of Property Development after Herrscher suggested Skouras hire Welton Becket to master plan the redevelopment. While Becket’s firm in Los Angeles authored Century City’s master plan, ultimately its development and financing relied on Skouras’s 187 New York connections rather than developers or financiers in Los Angeles. With Skouras’s invitation to New York’s William Zeckendorf, who then enticed Pittsburgh’s Alcoa into the deal, Century City’s creation relied on Eastern resources. In this way, Fox’s comprehensive development was the one case study to clearly demonstrate the direct influence of New York’s networks on Los Angeles’s urban development. MGM’s early management, under presidents Marcus Loew and then Nicolas Schenck, followed a business model that advocated the owning of land for its operations so that should the entity go bust, the land could be sold for capital. This strategy with the studio’s associated theater chain made the company solvent during the Depression when others struggled and may explain the accumulation of land in Culver City. Film historian Douglas Gomery noted that MGM’s overall business strategy was designed to maximize profits in the short term and lacked long-term vision, which was evident in the handling of the land in Culver City. 1 The company’s management in the 1960s, when it mulled what to do with its studio land, changed multiple times. While the land-use decisions were made in New York, the distance ultimately had a much smaller impact than in the case of Fox. MGM committed to selling the bulk of its land at the time of the management’s transfer to the studio in 1970. The distance between the New York headquarters and the Hollywood studio did not create difficulty for Paramount through most of the era examined. Indeed, Paramount was a prudent planner and manager of its land, much more so than the other two studios. After Gulf & Western purchased the company in 1966, however, the management, especially of land-use decisions, became erratic and hasty, nearly undermining the previous land management regime. 188 Examining the film studios’ management issues welcomes comparison to Pittsburgh’s steel industry and Detroit’s automobile industry. Urban historian Edward K. Muller observed that Pittsburgh’s steel companies had production-management separation and capital from elsewhere like the film industry. 2 However, the steel industry matured to place Pittsburgh at the center with satellite production facilities around the world. Similarly, Detroit dominated the country with its auto industry, opening production plants in regional locations, including Los Angeles. Film, steel, and automobiles all had a sort of colonial management-production structure. Pittsburgh and Detroit were the command centers for their empires while Los Angeles was, in some sense, colonized by New York film executives until the 1970s. While common sense tells us that these oppositional power structures would differently influence the urban development driven by these divergent paths of industrialization, further study is needed to understand those subtleties. URBAN POLITICS In terms of urban politics, the distinction among the case studies had more to do with municipal jurisdiction and location than studio management. The City of Los Angeles was accommodating to Fox’s plans to build its West Los Angeles studio and then effectively rubber-stamped plans for Century City and requests for zoning changes. When Fox planned to redevelop another portion of its studio to expand the Century City development, neighbors in Beverly Hills and Cheviot Hills objected over increased traffic concerns. The City and the courts approved the plans over these objections, but Fox did not follow through with the redevelopment. Los Angeles was slower to approve Paramount’s street vacation requests, but that may have had to do with balancing the 189 needs of residents who were being displaced by Paramount’s incremental expansion plans. In the end, Los Angeles granted Paramount those requests. I have found no evidence of complaint from Paramount’s residential or commercial neighbors who were displaced by the studio’s purchase and demolition of property to expand its plant. In contrast, Culver City welcomed MGM to its city and approved its expansion plans, but exercised much stricter oversight of MGM’s redevelopment. Culver City did not challenge the studio, but instead negotiated with the new owners and developers of the former MGM backlots. Concerned Culver City residents also pressured the City to approve single-family houses rather than multifamily homes in a fit of NIMBYism, which the City then made a requirement for development of Lot 2. Meanwhile, Culver City denied residents’ requests for a park on the former Lot 4, which was instead leveled for an office park. The actions of both Los Angeles and Culver City conform with Logan and Molotch’s assertion that governments, especially local ones, give preference to increasing exchange values rather than use values. 3 WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? This study has contributed to several literatures, including planning history, urban history, Los Angeles history, business history, and planning and urban development. This project has highlighted the private planning efforts that are often overlooked despite claims of public and private interdependence in the world of planning and urban development, where there is much more work to be done. Similarly, as a ground-level study of a particular industry in a specific metropolis with few comparable studies, I would like to read other studies that investigate industrial environments and industrial planning not just in Los Angeles but also across the globe. 190 In terms of the film industry, countless questions remain regarding the connection between its land use and business models. For example, how does Warner Bros. fit with the other Big Five major studios? What about the Little Three? What of the independent studios and their production facilities over time? What would we find different about land use and urban development if this study were extended to the present, focusing on the role of conglomerate ownership of the studios and their land? How has the recent heightened globalization of film finance, production, and distribution shaped land-use decisions in Los Angeles and elsewhere? Finally, as a dissertation of the past, I do hope it informs our understanding of the present and contributes to our planning for the future. The project is ripe to inform the film industry and its prognosticators as well as planners and developers. But with a personal and professional interest in historic preservation, there are issues instigated in this study that I intend to continue to research regarding the preservation of film studios and their related sites. The preservation of film studios, as active industrial sites, poses different challenges than retired industrial sites. 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C1. “New Buildings Planned By 20 th Century-Fox.” Los Angeles Times. 19 Feb. 1946. 20 th Century Fox Film Corporation (1946-1948) Core Collection File. Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. “New Para. Studio Plans Laid Away.” Hollywood Reporter. 24 Oct. 1940. Paramount Studios (1940-1949) Core Collection File. Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. “New Studio Plant.” Los Angeles Times. 13 Sept. 1928. “News of the Screen.” New York Times. 5 Oct. 1937. 29. Nicolaides, Becky M. “The Quest for Independence: Workers in the Suburbs.” In Sitton and Deverell, Metropolis in the Making, 77-95. Ordinance No. 38750 (New Series). Box B-1413. Los Angeles City Archives. Ornstein, Bill. “MGM Moving Home Office Here.” Hollywood Reporter. 29 Oct. 1969. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Sept-Dec 1969) Core Collection File. 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Creator Frank, Stephanie Barbara (author)

Core Title The film industry and urban development in metropolitan Los Angeles, 1920-1975

School School of Policy, Planning and Development

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Policy, Planning, and Development

Publication Date 02/01/2015

Defense Date 09/28/2012

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Century City,Culver City,film industry,Hollywood,Los Angeles,OAI-PMH Harvest,planning history,urban development,Urban Planning

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Sloane, David C. (committee chair), Deverell, William F. (committee member), Hise, Greg (committee member), Schweitzer, Lisa (committee member)

Creator Email sbfrank@gmail.com,stephabf@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-131799

Unique identifier UC11292353

Identifier usctheses-c3-131799 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-FrankSteph-1422.pdf

Dmrecord 131799

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Frank, Stephanie Barbara

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA