The Secret Lives of Bricks

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We never knew that bricks and Arizona sandstone from the old City Hall, built on Broadway in 1888 and demolished after the current Hall was completed in 1928, were then recycled to erect other buildings still standing today, miles away from where the material sat for 40 years. A building for the Heinsbergen Decorating Company designed by architect Claud Beelman went up that same year at 7415 Beverly Boulevard. The owner, muralist Anthony Heinsbergen, had done work on the current City Hall and is said to have taken some of the old bricks as partial payment. Another bidder was banker Emery Roscoe Yundt, who would haul tons of old Arizona sandstone to a lot in the Chevy Chase section of Glendale eight miles to the northeast to build the house standing today at 2965 St. Gregory Road.

 On January 20, 1889, just as City Hall was being completed, the Herald reported that the building committee of the city council had been concerned for some time that the building's tower was rising dangerously high; on February 5, the paper reported that cracks had been found at various locations, defects explained by the architects, Eugene Caukin and Solomon Haas, if somewhat unconvincingly, as being part of the normal settling of materials. There appears to have been serious discussion as to decapitating the tower of the brand new building immediately, though it wouldn't be until after the San Jacinto earthquake of April 21, 1918, when tiles were shaken to the ground, that action was taken, with work completed in early 1919.


Loftier portions of many masonry buildings in Los Angeles were removed or lowered
after or in anticipation of seismic activity; after damage sustained in a quake
centered at San Jacinto on April 21, 1918, it was deemed necessary,
20 years after initial concerns, to cut down City Hall's tower.
The first remodeling proposals would have eliminated the
pyramidal top. The building is seen here not long
before total demolition in 1928, when the
current hall opened in a new tower.


An auction in January 1928 divvied up the pieces


Demolition began later in the year, with one high bidder or barterer for the bricks
being the builder of a new structure going up six miles to the west and another
earmarking them for a new house eight miles to the northeast in Glendale.


7415 Beverly Boulevard: Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #275




The City Hall sandstone of 2965 St. Gregory Road in
Glendale appeared in the Los Angeles Evening Express on
April 12, 1930, after banker Emery R. Yundt, his wife Grace, and
and their children Daryl and Arlene had moved in. In a recent
rendering, the house hides the mountains behind it.



Moving to a modest house in Hollywood, The Yundts had left their Glendale landmark
several years before it was offered for sale in a display advertisement in the
Los Angeles Times on July 13, 1941. "Designed in England" and
"executed by a stonecutter brought from England" are
are no doubt real estate sales-speak.




INDEPTH READING on the 1888 City Hall on The Homestead Blog is here


Illustrations: Private Collection; LAPL; Wikipedia; newspapers.com; LAT