Victor Clothing Company Building
Victor Clothing Company, formerly City Hall North, also known as Hosfield Building and Victor Clothing Lofts, is a historic five-story building located at 242 S. Broadway in the Broadway Theater District in the historic core of downtown Los Angeles.
History
The Victory Clothing Company building was designed by Robert Farquhar Train and Robert Edmund Williams for Mr. & Mrs. J.F. Hosfield and built in 1914. The building was originally built as a City Hall annex, but by 2002 it contained ground-floor retail, second-story mezzanines for storage, and lofts on the third through fifth stories.In 1964, Victor Clothing moved into the building and made it their headquarters.
The Victor Clothing Company building was not listed in the National Register of Historic Places's Broadway Theater and Commercial District when it was first created in 1979, but it was included when the district was expanded in 2002.
The building was put up for sale in 1995 and sold to Nathan Korman in 2001. All tenants, including Victor Clothing, were evicted following the sale, after which the building's upper floors were converted to live/work lofts. Korman said that he bought the building in part because of its murals, which he wanted to preserve.
In 2009, the building was rehabilitated at a cost of $8 million. In 2014, the building was awarded $20,788 through the Bringing Back Broadway initiative to accent its decorative roof eaves.
Murals
From the mid-1970s to 1984, three large murals were added to the building's exterior. They are:The Bride and Groom by Kent Twitchell,, northern wall, commissioned by second-floor tenant Carlos Ortiz for $5000- Anthony Quinn in The Pope of Broadway by Eloy Torrez,, eastern half of southern wallNino y Caballo by Frank Romero,, western half of southern wall
In 2014, The Pope of Broadway was restored at a cost of $150,000, spearheaded by the Los Angeles Mural Conservancy and paid for by Greenland USA.
Architecture and design
Victor Clothing Company is made of reinforced concrete with a brick facade, and was designed in the vernacular style with Beaux Arts elements in its massing and detailing. Specific designs in the building include:- a flat roof surrounded by a parapet
- a base-anchored facade
- non-original large, plate glass windows inside thin metal frames
- a continuous white brick stringcourse that separates the base and the remaining facade
- a brown brick body that includes three bays of paired wood-framed windows with white brick windowsills
- an ornamental ironwork fire escape affixed to the central bay
- an overhanging cornice punctuated by four corbels that correspond to the divisions of the three bays.
The condition and integrity of the building is considered good.