Million Dollar Theatre/Grand Central Market

Million Dollar Theatre/Grand Central Market. . , Grauman's Million Dollar Baby , In a city that makes landmarks out of coffee shops, two truly venerable landmarks, opened within a year of each other during World War I, still stand, still thrive, and still draw applause. Before the Sunset Strip, there was Broadway. Downtown Los Angeles' jazziest entertainment district was a bustling thoroughfare aglow with bright lights and lined with glitzy motion picture and vaudeville palaces. And at the top of the street, the Million Dollar Theatre , named for its then-exorbitant price tag. , In 1917, showman Sid Grauman commissioned architect Albert C. Martin Sr. to design a theatre for the ground floor of what would become the Edison building, a theatre worthy of a city that was the film capital of the world. , When the Million Dollar Theatre opened on February 1, 1918, it was hailed as one of the first great motion picture "palaces," a model for its future sister theatres, the Egyptian and fabled Chinese. , Silent stars Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish and Charlie Chaplin walked under its ornate Churrigueresque terra-cotta arch to attend the opening-night premiere, the Mack Sennett comedy, "The Silent Man." Its success was instant, and durable. , At exclusive after-hours screenings, Grauman entertained his private guests, among them Chaplin, Gloria Swanson, and comedian Harold Lloyd. , Water Wars and Latin Stars , After Edison moved to different quarters a dozen years later, several of the building's dozen floors were leased by the powerful Metropolitan Water District, and in its boardroom, the City Department of Water and Power's legendary engineer William Mulholland worked with his somtimes-rivals in the region's water wars to bring water to the city. , By the lean 1930s, movies were hugely popular but movie palaces had become more common and less ornate. For more than four decades beginning in 1939, the theatre began showing Spanish language movies and inviting stage acts. Stars from Latin America , Javier Solis, Cantinflas, Vincente Fernandez and Lola Beltran among them , performed over the years. The sidewalk in front bears plaques honoring Latino performers, among them Mexican screen idol Jorge Negrete. In 1954, as he prepared for a week long engagement at the theatre, he died. Hundreds of disbelieving fans showed up at the Million Dollar, hoping to hear that it wasn't true. , The Saga of Grand Central Market , But even as the theatre struggled, its next-door neighbor, the Grand Central Market, thrived. In 1898, Homer Laughlin Sr., a Civil War veteran who made a fortune manufacturing fine dinner wear that carried his name, had commissioned architect John Parkinson to build the city's first reinforced steel and "truly fireproof" six-story building. It housed the Coulter Dry Goods Co., and eventually the ground floor was extended to Hill Street and two stories were added overhead, where the Central Library took up residence for two years. , By 1908, Coulter's store had moved, and the City of Paris department store set up shop. But an entrepreneur from Seattle had other ideas for the space. Chester A. Goss partnered with Laughlin's heir to open a huge ground-floor food hall. So in 1917, the City of Paris moved out and Grand Central Market was open for business, beginning a run of popularity that only the movies could rival. , The twinned buildings, market and theatre, were purchased in the 1980s by Ira Yellin, a lawyer-turned-developer with a penchant for urban preservation who had them restored with the Community Redevelopment Agency's assistance and private funds as a staging ground for revival of a downtown residential and shopping district.