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Crossroads of the World | |
 Crossroads of the World in 2005 | |
| Location | 6671 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, California |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 34°5′53.48″N118°20′8.27″W / 34.0981889°N 118.3356306°W /34.0981889; -118.3356306 |
| Built | 1936 |
| Architect | Robert V. Derrah |
| NRHP reference No. | 80000805 |
| LAHCM No. | 134 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | September 8, 1980 |
| Designated LAHCM | December 4, 1974 |
Crossroads of the World is an open-air mall onSunset Boulevard and Las Palmas inLos Angeles. The mall features a central building designed to resemble anocean liner surrounded by a small village ofcottage-style bungalows. It was designed byRobert V. Derrah, built in 1936, and has been calledAmerica's first outdoorshopping mall.
Once a busy shopping center, the Crossroads later became private offices, primarily for the entertainment industry with a variety of music publishers and producers, television and film script writers, film and recording companies, novelists, costume designers, publicists, and casting agencies. The owner is planning a new development surrounding the site.
In 1931, afterCharles H. Crawford's death, his wife Ella decided to build a multi-national outdoor market that would feel like "a permanent world's fair with a cosmopolitan atmosphere" on the land where her husband was shot. She hired theStreamline Moderne architectRobert V. Derrah (who was finishing his work on theCoca-Cola Building) to design the complex.[1]
Derrah designed a ship-shaped structure in the center of the complex. The surrounding buildings represented different countries of the world. The complex originally held 57 shops and cafes, and 36 offices on the upper floors. The Crossroads of the World was inaugurated on October 29, 1936. The new shopping center was not a full-blown success, but it became an excellent model for outdoors malls across the world.[1]
In the 1950s, the Crossroads of the World was converted into an office complex. TheScreen Actors Guild,Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young,Jackson Browne andAlfred Hitchcock used to rent offices there. The property was purchased in 1977 by the real estate investorMort La Kretz and restored.[1] On June 1, 1985,Michael Perricone founded Interlock Studios, anaudio post production facility, which was located in Bungalow 1522 of the complex, until 1998, when it relocated to 6520Sunset Boulevard, and was sold to Rick Larson a few years later, who renamed it Larson Studios.
In January 2019, the Los Angeles City Council approved the project to revamp the Crossroads of the World in a move to revitalize the district.[2] Three high-rise buildings are planned to bring 950 apartments and condos, a 308-room hotel, and 190,000 square feet (18,000 m2) of commercial space. Preservationists called the redevelopment project a "Manhattanization of Hollywood".[3] Eighty-twoHollywood Regency garden apartments are to be demolished in the project.[4][5] These rent stabilized apartments are occupied by a decades-old, tight-knit community of largely low-income, predominantly Latino residents. Over 100 apartments in the project will be set aside for very low-income families.[6]
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A reproduction of Crossroads' iconic tower and spinning globe can be seen just inside the entrance toDisney's Hollywood Studios atWalt Disney World inFlorida.
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