What
is it about Los Angeles that infuses the visitor with
a sense that this place in the sun is somehow different
than others? Driving down the city's boulevards there
is tangible, if subconscious, evidence that this is
not Phoenix. This is not San Diego. This is not even
Las Vegas. That's because the Los Angeles area has
its own unique architectural style that while popular
in the middle of the 20th century, never caught on
quite the way it did here. Call it "Streamline." Call
it "Pre-modern." Call it "Post-Deco." As long as its
sleek, streaked, and bone white in the California
sun, it's instantly recognizable. It is the architectural
equivalent of those massive 1950's cruisers with flaring
fins and bulging tail lights. The architectural firm
of The Morgan, Walls and Clements built many of the
area's heritage buildings in a similar fashion. From
the El Capitan Theater downtown to Malibu's Adamson
House, an architectural legacy was left across this
valley giving it a sense of cultural identity. This
building, known as the The Morgan, Walls and Clements
building, was built as the studios and offices of
KEHE radio (780 AM). Its call letters derive from
the fact that it was owned by the Hearst newspaper
company, and was the radio voice of the Evening Herald
Express. In 1939 Earl C. Anthony, the owner of KFI
radio (640 AM) bought KEHE, took it off the air and
moved his existing station, KECA (1430 formerly KPLA)
onto the 780 frequency. KECA was named after its owner's
initials. Several years later Anthony then moved the
two stations from their building on South Hope Street
into the old KEHE building on
North Vermont. KFI carried
NBC's Red Network, and KECA carried the Blue Network.
By 1944 the federal government decided that competition
was a good thing, and prohibited ownership of multiple
radio stations in the same market (a practice it encourages
these days). Anthony had to sell KECA to NBC Blue,
and the station moved out of its original home. NBC
Blue eventually became ABC. Today KECA exists as KABC
(790 AM). KFI stayed in the building until 1975. The
Morgan, Walls and Clements building is another victim
of the region's insatiable appetite for land, and
innate urge to reinvent itself. It was torn down in
2003 by the Los Angeles Unified School District to
make way for a basketball court, part of the US$12,900,000.00
Belmont Elementary School Number Six built to serve
Koreatown. The children can take comfort in the irony
that the same people trying to drill history into
their minds is the same organization that destroyed
an irreplaceable piece of their history.