Beverly Theater may be doomed

That Moorish-themed building on Beverly Drive just off Wilshire that used to house Fiorucci—and most recently bore an Israeli Discount Bank sign—was the first movie house in Beverly Hills. It's vacant these days, and plans for a big hotel complex would require it be torn down. The L.A. Conservancy is trying to save it, Patricia Biederman reports in today's Times. The Beverly Theater's 1925 design charm is mostly hidden by a cheap modern facade, but the news makes me wonder about the more visually compelling Art Deco former California Bank tower around the corner on Wilshire (photo, below, is on the L.A. Public Library site).

Donald Sterling keeps offices in there, but the story doesn't say if it too would be razed. That would be a shame, since it has been a skyline marker in Beverly Hills since 1929. That stretch of the boulevard has already lost the gorgeous S. Charles Lee-designed Warner Bros. Theatre and a Brown Derby. The bank tower was designed by the architecture firm of John and Donald B. Parkinson, the father-and-son team that gave Los Angeles the magnificent Bullock's Wilshire building, the Coliseum, Union Station and had a hand in designing City Hall.