J. E. Carr Building
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J. E. Carr Building, also known as the Joseph E. Carr Building and Brooks Building, is a historic eight story high-rise located at 644 S.
Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street ** Broadway Theatre (53rd Stre ...
in the Broadway Theater District in the historic core of
downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) is the central business district of the city of Los Angeles. It is part of the Central Los Angeles region and covers a area. As of 2020, it contains over 500,000 jobs and has a population of roughly 85,000 residents ...
.


History

J. E. Carr Building was designed by Robert Brown Young and built in 1908. The building opened in 1909, at which point it housed a furniture company. In the 1940s, the building housed
Brooks Clothing Brooks may refer to: * Brook (small stream) Places Antarctica *Cape Brooks Canada *Brooks, Alberta United Kingdom * Brooks, Cornwall * Brooks, Powys, a location United States *Brooks, Alabama * Brooks, Arkansas *Brooks, California *Brooks, Geo ...
, for which the building was later renamed Brooks Building. Other clothing stores were located in the building in the 1970s. In 1979, the
Broadway Theater and Commercial District The Broadway Theater District in the Historic Core of Downtown Los Angeles is the first and largest historic theater district listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). With twelve movie palaces located along a six-block stretch ...
was added to the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
, with J. E. Carr Building listed as a
contributing property In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic dist ...
in the district. By 2017, the building was mostly empty, with the upper floors vacant since the 1980s. Plans to convert the building to residential with a ground floor
bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar ** Chocolate bar * Protein bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a laye ...
were announced in the mid-2010s. Previous plans for the building included converting it into an automated parking system.


Architecture and design

J. E. Carr Building was built with steel reinforced concrete and an enamelled
terra cotta Terracotta, also known as terra cotta or terra-cotta (; ; ), is a clay-based Vitrification#Ceramics, non-vitreous ceramicOED, "Terracotta""Terracotta" MFA Boston, "Cameo" database fired at relatively low temperatures. It is therefore a term used ...
and
brick A brick is a type of construction material used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a unit primarily composed of clay. But is now also used informally to denote building un ...
facade. It features a
Renaissance Revival Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th-century architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range of ...
design that includes heavy
cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...
, arched windows, and an unusually high amount of
plate glass Plate glass, flat glass or sheet glass is a type of glass, initially produced in plane form, commonly used for windows, glass doors, transparent walls, and windscreens. For modern architectural and automotive applications, the flat glass is ...
for its time period.


See also

*
List of contributing properties in the Broadway Theater and Commercial District The properties on this list are contributing properties to Los Angeles's Broadway Theater and Commercial District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979 and expanded in 2002. The following properties were original ...


References

{{LABTCD Commercial buildings completed in 1909 Buildings and structures in Downtown Los Angeles Historic district contributing properties in California 1900s architecture in the United States Broadway (Los Angeles)