After seeing Grant's photo of the pantry where Kennedy was shot, I thought I would send you my photo of the same site.
If you look at my photo and the photo of the original police investigation just below Grant's Photo, I think you can confirm that this is indeed the spot. Note the open doors on the right side of the frame in both the police shot and my shot.
As for the spot where the "X" was painted, I was told by the people that were managing the Ambassador as a film location that the "X" was painted by Ambassador employees after the shooting because so many people wanted to see the place where the crime occurred. The "X" is in a spot that is easily accessible, and would have made for a quick tour (for a tip, I suspect), while the actual location is much deeper in the Ambassador, and made for a much more involved trip.
Also as a curious aside, many people have described seeing a sinister face in the lower center of my picture (it takes a minute to see it), and they have also noted that the white shape you see to the right of the face is positioned similar to Kennedy as he lay on the floor in (the famous) photo.
Spooky, huh?
A couple years ago I managed to get a tour inside the Ambassador Hotel from one of the security guards that were on the grounds 24/7. He took me inside to see the kitchen where Kennedy was shot. He showed me an 'x' on the ground where he said his head was when he fell. I found his story to be a bit fishy for some reason. So I went and did some research and found pictures of the actual pantry where he was shot. I then went back in the hotel with my camera and found the actual pantry. Strangely enough it was barricaded by a plywood wall and was locked up. He let me in and I took this picture. The peach colored doors in the middle of the picture are the doors he came out of from the hallway leading to the ballroom. He was shot right next the the sink, basically where that broom is leaning.
I thought it would be a good one to put up because it shows where Kennedy actually got shot. I think my picture was taken in late 2001 or early 2002.
The other picture I found is a police picture taken after he was shot in 1968. I just did that to compare them.
Keep up the good work with the site!
Gran
One weekend last March, a team of Hollywood location managers and teenagers from the Jefferson High School Academy of Film and Theatre Arts slipped in and mounted one of the last photo shoots at the 84-year-old landmark building that was once the belle of Wilshire Boulevard.
Using donated cameras, the 60 students and their mentors from the Location Managers Guild of America prowled the bedraggled property, which hadn't seen a paying overnight guest in 16 years. (The Los Angeles Unified School District, owner of the property, prevailed this year in a battle against preservationists and announced plans to demolish the hotel and put up schools on the site.)
The eerie results of that shoot will hang in a 38-image exhibition outside the City Hall office of City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo through mid-January. It's called "Last Looks: The Ambassador Hotel," and the imagery includes an empty swimming pool, a room full of dust-caked porcelain sinks and a patch of carpet sprouting mushrooms.
As I watch the Ambassador come down, I’m reminded of a scene in an old Astaire-Rogers movie -- Top Hat, I think, from 1935. Astaire is in white tie and tails, Rogers in a feathered dress. They are in a night club, sleek and brilliantly lit, with white walls and a polished black floor.
They dance. In the beginning, they are suspicious and reluctant. The next phase is a suave seduction, followed by rapid, joyful movements and brilliant leaps. In the last phase, the mood is downbeat again – the lady separates from her partner and vanishes off-stage. The lights dim, leaving the partner disconsolate in the shadows.
The mention on LAObserved steered me to your site to gander at the pics of Sammy Davis' suite at the Ambassador.
What her pics fail to convey (thankfully) is the hideous purple the place was once painted, and the heavy black wood shutters which encased the windows. It also had dark, fuzzy velour type wall-paper of the era on some walls. It truly was a decorating fiasco (which Sammy oversaw). The room was dark and dank even in the daytime - perhaps to ensure a sound sleep even after the sun came up for a night-owl such as an entertainer.
When Sammy no longer was involved in the Grove, he removed anything personal from the suite, and the room was rented as an "A" suite (akin to the Presidential Suite down the hall), or given to VIPs who performed downstairs. The paint was lightened up a bit by the hotel to make it less morose.
But the saving grace of the suite was a black baby grand piano which sat under the windows on the Wilshire side of the room. One could only imagine who else sat at the bench during the hotel's heyday and played the piano (besides me lol). (In the pic of the gutted suite with the brick arches, you'll see the wall/window where the piano sat.) Thanks for the trip down Memory Lane.
Officials were planning to replace the long-shuttered grande dame of Wilshire Boulevard with a school big enough for 4,000 students, many of them immigrants and minorities, who would otherwise have to keep riding buses across town. One of the project's backers was Ethel Kennedy, the senator's widow, who saw it as a fitting tribute to her husband. So she asked her friend Mr. Sheen - who has played Robert Kennedy in a mini-series, narrated a collection of his speeches, and done voice-overs for a number of Kennedy-family productions - to make some calls on her behalf.
Mr. Sheen had been only too happy to oblige, he told his family over dinner.
To which they all but choked on their food. As Mr. Estevez reeled, he recalled in an interview, his mother snapped at his father: "Are you insane?"
Mr. Estevez, as Mr. Sheen knew, had been plotting for several years to make an independent film he had written about the day Robert Kennedy was shot. It was to take place over 16 hours on June 4 and 5, 1968, entirely within the Ambassador. And he was desperate to film his movie there before the hotel was razed.
Michael:
Many thanks for your website, I find it quite interesting. I never stayed in the hotel but in the early seventies my parents took me to see Sammy Davis Jr. and on a subsequent trip Diana Ross. I have grown increasing interested in the outcome of the hotel, being I’m in So Ca every other week on business. After viewing Chris Kraus’ tour on March 1st, I was able to convince one of the security guards to take me on a tour at about 7:00 PM on April 13th. I purchased a disposable camera and flashlight, unfortunately the photo quality is substandard.
But I was able to tour the Palm Bar, Embassy Ballroom, Pantry Kitchen, Lobby, the guards keys we unable to unlock the doors to the Grove. I drove my wife and 12 year old son by to see it in August, while we were vacationing in So CA; they think I have lost my mind being “obsessed with on old hotel.” Thanks for the site.
Regards,
Randy/Danville, CA
+++++
Regarding architectural plans for the Ambassador Hotel, Kurt Helfrich, Curator of the Architecture and Design Collection, University Art Museum, UC Santa Barbara wrote that their Hunt and Chambers Collection contains over 40 working drawings (elevations, plans, sections, details) for the Ambassador Hotel, as well as an articles and clippings file and a file of historic photographs. The plans can be viewed by appointment. Thanks to the Conservancy, your photographic website, Dr. David Gebhart and the curators of the UCSB collection of architectural drawings, and all others who are advocates for saving the historic structures of California."
Barbara/San Diego
I have been aware of your website for several weeks now, but am amazed at the photos you are now showing on the site. I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to do this service for others who love the Ambassador Hotel, not only for myself (I live in San Diego) but for others who cannot easily get to the site to witness the sad, sad destruction that is going on there at this very time.
Two times in the last year, I came to photograph the Ambassador Hotel, and was able to take photos of it from the Wilshire Boulevard side and from what I believe to be the north side of the building. The hotel sat a half block up a street on the north side with a parking lot on the left, and the bungalows were still there on this side. Sadly, I apparently discarded the roll of film which had these photos on it, and am thus very appreciative of your work...
Do the Ambassador Hotel architectural drawings still exist, and if so, who has them? If not, has someone gone into the hotel and measured the most important rooms (the Grove, lobby, check in area, the largest suites, a sample of the smaller suites, the dimensions of the hallways, etc.) This measurement process could so easily have been done (and it indeed may have been done) but if not, it is too late to do it now.
