Title Guarantee and Trust Company Building, 5th & Hill St., downtown Los Angeles, 1933

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Description

Photograph of the Metropolitan Water District Building (Title Guarantee Building) in Downtown Los Angeles at the corner of West Fifth Street and South Hill Street. The building stands 255 feet tall. "Take the Title Guarantee Building, 86.3 feet on Hill Street, 111.9 feet on Fifth Street and 150 feet high, with a setback tower 75 feet above that, making an overall height of 225 feet. Now in your mind's eye add 45 feet to the tower and fill in the rest of the building to make it 270 feet tall all around. Imagine this a solid mass of concrete and you will have an idea of the amount of concrete that will have been poured on Boulder Dam during all of July -- 100,000 cubic yards!" -- Examiner clipping attached to verso, dated 25 July 1933(?).; Streetscape. Horizontal photography. Additional information: The Title Guarantee and Trust Company Building was designed by John and Donald Parkinson. They were prominent architects who designed quite a few buildings in downtown Los Angeles (and on the USC campus). The building was finished in 1930 and opened in 1931.
There is a reason as to why it boasts of the height of the building. In 1904 Los Angeles institute a height limit (repealed in 1957) of 150 feet, approximately 12 storeys. The Title Guarantee building was one of the exceptions. Developers and architects argued that the height limit applied to "occupiable" spaces. Commercial Art Deco buildings added "unoccupiable" spaces (often decorative "beacons"), making the buildings much higher. The most notorious example of this was the Pacific Richfield building that stood on Flower street opposite the central library - it was more than twice the height limit.

Asset Metadata

Title Title Guarantee and Trust Company Building, 5th & Hill St., downtown Los Angeles, 1933

Subject Los Angeles -- City -- Buildings -- T (file heading), Metropolitan Water District (subject)

Tags OAI-PMH Harvest

Place California (states), Downtown Los Angeles (city or populated place), Los Angeles (city or populated place), Los Angeles (counties), Metropolitan Water District Building (manmade features), South Hill Street & West 5th Street (roadway), USA (countries)

Temporal Subject 1933-07-25

Type images

Format 1 photograph : photoprint, b&w (aacr2), photographic prints (aat), photographs (aat)

Source Los Angeles Examiner Photographs Collection, 1920-1961 (collection), Los Angeles Examiner Prints Collection, late 1920's - 1961 (subcollection), University of Southern California (contributing entity)

Date Created 1933-07-25

Creator Parkinson, Donald (architect), Parkinson, John (architect)

Publisher University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu

Repository Name USC Libraries Special Collections

Repository Location Doheny Memorial Library, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0189

Rights For uses other than private, please contact the USC Digital Library at cisadmin@lib.usc.edu

Access Conditions Contact: Special Collections, Doheny Memorial Library, Libraries, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0189; specol@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/examiner-m2878

Identifier 3-1275-02806-0367 (barcode), EXM-P-S-LOS-ANG-CIT-BUI-386 (filename), examiner-m4404 (legacy collection record id), examiner-c44-90136 (legacy record id), examiner-m2878 (legacy record id), EXM-P-S-LOS-ANG-CIT-BUI-386 (original filename), Subjects 319 (print box)

IIIF ID [Document.IIIFV3ID]

DM Record ID 90136

Unique identifier UC11732898

Legacy Identifier EXM-P-S-LOS-ANG-CIT-BUI-386.tiff

Type Image

Internet Media Type image/tiff

Resolution 5.2 in × 10.2 in at 300dpi
13.4 cm × 26.1 cm at 300dpi

Inherited Values

Title Los Angeles Examiner Prints Collection, late 1920's - 1961

Description The Los Angeles Examiner Photographs Collection consists of approximately 1.4 million prints and negatives from the Los Angeles Examiner newspaper. It was a daily newspaper, published in the afternoon on weekdays (Herald-Express) and in the morning on weekends (Examiner). The afternoon and morning papers merged in 1962 (Herald Examiner).

? 1903-1989: Los Angeles Examiner (founded 1903)
? 1931-1962: Los Angeles Herald-Express (formed from the 1931 merger of Los Angeles Evening Express and Evening Herald)
? 1962-1989: Los Angeles Herald Examiner (formed from the 1962 merger of the Los Angeles Herald-Express and the Los Angeles Examiner)

Almost every event and individual receiving news coverage in Los Angeles during the period late 1920's to 1961 is represented in the collection. Coverage is broad including crime, sports, society, art, and entertainment. The collection forms part of the Hearst Collection and was a gift from the Los Angeles Herald Examiner Division of the Hearst Corporation in 1978.

The Los Angeles Examiner Negatives Collection (1950-1961) consists of approximately 215,000 4x5-inch negatives from the Los Angeles Examiner newspaper.

The Los Angeles Examiner Prints Collection consists of approximately 1.2 million photoprints from the Los Angeles Examiner newspaper.

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