Los Angeles Conservancy | Preservation Issues

Los Angeles Conservancy, 523 W. 6th Street, Suite 826, Los Angeles, CA 90014
tel: 213-623-2489, fax: 213-623-3909

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FORT MACARTHUR UPPER RESERVATION

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has agreed to retain and/or relocate eighteen World War I-era barracks on the site of a new school campus proposed at San Pedro’s Fort MacArthur. This agreement is a significant revision
to the project, which originally called for the demolition of all thirty-three WWI and WWII-era barracks on the site. The remaining fourteen structures fated for demolition date from World War II.

The U.S. military used Fort MacArthur for coastal defense from World War I until its closure in 1975. Most of the buildings were built in 1941 to provide housing and shelter for soldiers manning its fortifications.

LAUSD has proposed to build South Region High School No. 15 on fifty acres of the fort’s Upper Reservation, in order to relieve overcrowding at San Pedro High. On October 10, the Conservancy submitted comments on the project’s draft EIR, calling for maximum preservation and reuse of the historic barracks in the site’s transformation from military fortification to educational campus.

We will continue to pursue preservation of these historic structures and will keep you posted on our progress.

Wilshire May Company
1939, A.C. Martin and Samuel Marks

This Streamline Moderne department store with its prominent cylindrical gold tower signals the western entrance of Wilshire Boulevard's Miracle Mile district. The Conservancy swung into action when the May Co. building was threatened with demolition for office towers and a hotel during the early 1990s. After successfully nominating the building for City Historic-Cultural Monument status, the Conservancy worked with County officials to ensure the building's reuse by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Now LACMA West, the May Co. had a splashy reopening in 1999 when it played host to a blockbuster Van Gogh exhibit.

Photo courtesy of Julius Shulman

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