BREAKING NEWS: The Ambassador Is Gone (Updated with Pictures)
The Cocoanut Grove is all that remains of the Ambassador Hotel. Jan. 16, 2005 -- 1:30 p.m.
The same view from Wilshire Boulevard in September, as demolition had just begun.
Just came from the Ambassador Hotel site, and documented the final demise of the once mighty structure. It's all gone. All that's left is a heap of rubble, and the Cocoanut Grove building (which will be incorporated into the new school on the site).
Some shots from Catalina and 7th, as I face west:
The same view, as taken in 2002 by the folks behind TheAmbassadorHotel.com:
RIP, The Ambassador Hotel and your many, many ghosts. Stay tuned for details on an Ambassador wake we hope to throw, perhaps at the HMS Bounty next week.
posted by Mike at 2:07 PM
10 Comments:
I can't believe it's actually over. It's hard to believe that it's actually gone. Please keep this blog running...I'd love to keep in touch with everyone and their opinions even through the opening of the new school.
I saw the final destruction from my lunch room window.
Wow!! What a site!! I feel sorry for the production crew that was stationed off Mariposa, they got all the dust from the destruction.
Fuck you LA! I hope your happy tearing down landmarks. While we're at it, lets tear down some more!! >:(
jeez.
yep, hard to believe.
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I cant believe its gone. After 17 years the hotel stood after being closed there was always some type of hope that it would be saved. I guess if this landmark can go down in ashes so can the rest of them. Thanks alot LAUSD
i say AMEN! it's about time this piece of soon-to-be-landfill-debris was gone. and while you are crying about how LAUSD tore it down, please remember to thank all the film crews that pilfered and raped the hotel during the 16 years it was a designated filming location. THEY were the ones that made this landmark nothing more than a used and abused studio lot. I'm with Tristen!!! Fuck LA and you sorry lot of 'historic preservationists.' Cry me another river.
Now that the grand lady is gone the only thing that we have left as far as what the Ambassador looks like is the Huntington Ritz-Carlton. The Huntington was designed by the same architect as the Ambassador and beautifully restored by Ritz-Carlton.
Thanks,
Scott
Disclosure: I worked as a temp in the LAUSD real estate department when the whole Ambassdor thing was still being decided. I toured the site and, frankly, the people who wanted to preserve it were pissing in the wind. It was a dinosaur 30 years ago; to even use the front bit of the hotel as part of the schools was unworkable.
Sure, Los Angeles gets rid of old, interesting buildings with undue haste, but the Ambassador died when Donald Trump failed to buy it (I was a file clerk and read the paperwork). The rest was just the burial.
Who do you know has information regarding the change from The Ambassador Golf Club to Rancho Golf Club in late 1921, months after the hotel opened?
Any pictures of hotel guests playing the course?
My condolensces
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