I was looking for pictures of Earle C Anthony's Packard dealership when I rediscovered a three-picture photoset at USC (I'm pretty sure we've seen them here before). The three views are looking west from Broadway and Eleventh Street on November 21, 1931. This detail shows the Pacific Desk Company at 1031 S Hill Street. It must've been a fairly new home for the business as they're listed at 420 S Spring Street in the several City Directories from the 1920s. The sign on the side says "Est. 1912", but I couldn't find a listing before 1921. The sign also says "T.F. Peirce Pres.", and the 1917 and 1918 CDs list a Theo F Peirce as a manager of the Weber Show Case & Fixture Company (one of references in the 1918 CD actually says "Shoe Case"). The Weber Show Case & Fixture Company was at 316-330 S Los Angeles Street, but seems to have been around before 1912 and well after the establishment of the Pacific Desk Company, so I'm still not sure where the 1912 date comes from. Just to confuse things, I also found a Pierce Desk Company (different spelling acknowledged) in CDs from 1915 to 1929. They are originally listed at 732 S Spring and 735 S Main, and later at 907 S Hill. Could the newer Pacific Desk Company have absorbed the older Pierce Desk Company before moving to the building below?
Detail of picture at
USC Digital Library
The Pacific Desk Company was still listed at 1031 S Hill Street right up to the 1973 CD. The picture below shows how the building looks today. It's lost its finials and original windows, and gained a couple of huge trees on the sidewalk, but the other details remain intact.
GSV
The building is nearly opposite the Mayan Theater.
GSV
When I tried to find the current occupier of 1031 S Hill, I got lots of results naming the YWCA and Job Corps. I also got loads of sites referencing the Ed Ruscha Monument, a 70-foot mural by Kent Twitchell, which used to adorn its wall. More info about the mural's abrupt disappearance in 2006 can be found in
this LA Times article. Nearly two years later, la.curbed.com published
a follow-up which covers Kent Twitchell's lawsuit against the U.S. Government and 12 other defendants and the subsequent $1.1 million settlement.
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