The Bradbury, inside! Up the elevator into an office!!

The lobby of the Bradbury building is open during business hours and people are welcome to enter. These days they pay attention, if it looks like you are taking more than the normal amount of pictures, or if you have massive camera equipment – they will stop you. Otherwise, visitors are welcome. But that is it, you can go to the first landing of the stairs, no more.

I took the elevator in the Bradbury to the top floor
I took the elevator in the Bradbury to the top floor
Standing right under the amazing atrium in the Bradbury building, Los Angeles
Standing right under the amazing atrium in the Bradbury building, Los Angeles
Details of tiles only seen from the top floor of The Bradbury building.
Details of tiles only seen from the top floor of The Bradbury building.
A rare treat, being on the top floor of The Bradbury building
A rare treat, being on the top floor of The Bradbury building
Two fireplaces, inside and office in The Bradbury Building.
Two fireplaces, inside and office in The Bradbury Building.
View through massive doors out to the atrium of The Bradbury
View through massive doors out to the atrium of The Bradbury
Old fire hose in The Bradbury Building
Old fire hose in The Bradbury Building

On Friday I was lucky to lead a tour of Seismic Engineers who were in town for a conference. The last stop was the Bradbury.We had a special treat, the opportunity to go up in the open cage elevators and then slowly walk down the stairs.  When I give tours, I don’t normally take pictures, this time I had to, it’s not often one gets to go in the elevator and get a closer look at the amazing glass atrium ceiling.I only had my phone, although it does take good pictures, the distortion is much greater than a good solid camera.  In the middle of this photograph is the mechanism to open up the clerestory windows to get air circulation.The details!!! The glass is so well reinforced that in 120 years they have never replaced a pane. The decorative terra-cotta has an interesting design up here as well.What an engineering as well as design marvel this building is! As we walked around, Rachel approached us, she is director of Public relations for Berggruen Institute, a Think Tank that now occupies the whole south side of upper floor. She graciously invited us in.The office is still very sparse, they only recently moved in. I had heard of fireplaces in the offices. Here is one.How cool is this, with a wall between, these two are simply a two sided fireplace. Not functional anymore, but oh so beautiful.Another room had this beautiful exposed brick one. There were a few employees, as well as a lovely Golden retriever, sorry I didn’t get his picture.One of the office doors, looking back out to the landing. These are strong massive wood and literally, go from floor to ceiling.Another tall window, it may be a little hard to see how wavey the top pane of glass is. Glass isn’t a solid, it’s somewhere between solid and liquid and this 120 year old pane is getting the wave look old glass gets. This is because gravity is slowly dragging it down.Out on the landing, more wonderful details. Look at this firehose reel. Although it is no longer functional, they have kept these on display – once again, design and function working so well together. In the 1950’s one of the elevator operators was in the building late at night and fire did break out, she called the fire department and saved so much of this building.

Modern amenities have been added and are hidden in plain sight in these ducts, for the building to be used today, it needed modernization.

Beautiful woodwork, newel post, staircase, The Bradbury building
Beautiful woodwork, newel post, staircase, The Bradbury building
Looking down on the Lobby of the Bradbury Building
Looking down on the Lobby of the Bradbury Building
View from midlevel, The Bradbury Building
Vew from midlevel, The Bradbury Building

Ahh, the details! This staircase goes up to the roof and is off limits. More wonderful terra-cotta.Another newel post, this time cast iron.The floor, another beautiful element.
An angle only workers and visitors to the offices get to see.From one of the midlevel landings. This really is one of Los Angeles’ treasures.  One of the big payoffs for these years of volunteering was the ability to see more details of the wonderful landmark.

Leah

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