Vintage 1950s Lost Buildings

Vintage 1950s Lost Buildings

The Ambassador Hotel

formally 3400 Wilshire Blvd

Los Angeles

          The Ambassador Hotel was popular for celebrities, some of whom resided there. From 1930 to 1943, six Academy Awards ceremonies were performed at the hotel. Seven U.S. presidents were guests at the Ambassador, from Hoover to Nixon, along with chiefs of state from around the world.  For decades, the hotel's famed Cocoanut Grove nightclub hosted well-known entertainers.

          In the pantry area of the hotel's main kitchen, soon after midnight on June 5, 1968, and after a brief victory speech in the Embassy Room ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel, the winner of the California  Democratic presidential primary election, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was fatally shot along with five other people who survived their injuries.

          The death of Robert F. Kennedy coincided with the beginning of the hotel's decline, hastened by the decline of the surrounding neighborhood. By the 1970s, gangs and illegal drug problems in the area near the hotel worsened.

          The Ambassador Hotel was closed to guests in 1989 but remained open for filming and private events. A liquidation sale of the hotel's contents was conducted in 1991.

          The hotel was a popular filming location and backdrop for movies and television programs, starting with Jean Harlow's 1933 film Bombshell to the

2003 film SWAT recreated the shots at the hotel.

          From 2004 to 2005, the Ambassador Hotel was closed completely and became the topic of a legal struggle between the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), which wanted to clear the site and build a school.  Sirhan Sirhan, who, through his lawyer the late Lawrence Teeter, wanted to conduct more testing in the pantry where Robert F. Kennedy was shot; and the Los Angeles Conservancy and Art Deco Society preservationists, who wanted the hotel and its various elements saved and integrated into the future school.

       

           After a great deal of litigation, a settlement was attained at the end of August 2005, allowing the demolition to begin in exchange for the establishment of a $4.9 million fund, reserved for saving historic school buildings in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

         On September 10, 2005, a final public auction was held for the remaining hotel fittings and work soon began on demolition of the Ambassador Hotel.