Ninth & Broadway Building

Ninth & Broadway Building, a thirteen-story concrete high-rise in Zig Zag Moderne style with terra cotta facade, exudes 1920s architectural trends. It's most striking feature is its two-story, eye-catching entrance archway The building symbolizes the booming economy of the 1920s and the perception of its continued growth prior to the 1929 stock market crash; it was built in 1929 to attract future tenants to its lofts and offices. 

The historic Ninth & Broadway building, built in 1929, sits within the broader historic Broadway Theater and Commercial District, a six-block thoroughfare containing the vestiges of the Los Angeles theater and commercial center that developed from the early 1890s to the early part of the 1930s Great Depression. The district's growth accelerated after the turn of the twentieth century, starting with the Lankershim Hotel in 1902, followed by notable buildings such as Hamberger's (one of L.A.'s most renowned retailers) in 1905 and the Yorkshire Hotel in 1909. By the time Ninth & Broadway opened in 1929, Broadway supported numerous shops, hotels, restaurants, theatres, and various other commercial enterprises.

Moreover, Ninth & Broadway arose at a time when the nation saw an immense acceleration of commercial and residential construction, notably high-rise buildings. The economic optimism after World War I helped fuel a demand for office space, stimulating more than 150% rise in commercial rents between the war and the mid-1920s. In short, building high-rise office buildings appealed greatly to builders looking to cash in on the profitable endeavor. The over-saturation of the real estate market and the debt incurred by commercial properties in building high-rise buildings contributed to the Great Depression of the 1930s.

However, during the 1920s, when optimism, artistic freedoms, and technological advances dominated, architectural designs grew innovative and stylish. 1920s architecture represented the era's new technologies, construction practices, and modern production of materials. 1920s styles proved eclectic, breaking from the classical approaches that dominated the field before World War I.  

Ninth & Broadway's architect, Claud Beelman, who designed many Beaux-Arts, Art Deco, and Streamline Moderne buildings in California, created several of L.A.'s landmark buildings. His plan for the thirteen-story Ninth and Broadway embodied much of the architectural trends of the 1920s. The historic building features a dramatic, ornate, two-story arched entrance. Tan-colored terracotta encases the steel-reinforced concrete to resemble a stone exterior (trimmed with decorated elements).

"California: Broadway Theater and Commercial District." National Park Service. Accessed April 20, 2025. https://www.nps.gov/places/broadway-theater-and-commercial-district.htm.

Goetzmann, William N. and Frank Newman. "Securitization in the 1920s." National Bureau of Economic Research. January, 2010. http://www.nber.org/papers/w15650.

"Ninth and Broadway Building." LA Conservancy. Accessed April 21, 2025.. https://www.laconservancy.org/learn/historic-places/ninth-and-broadway-building/ 

Shepard, Roger. Skyscraper: the Search for an American Style, 1891–1941. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003.

Sitton, Tom. "Nomination Form: Broadway Theatre and Commercial District." National Register of Historic Places. nps.gov. 1979. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/d41bca98-3f44-45c2-b049-ad3bce5f4c01/.