As we mentioned back here, a Hollywood landmark building — the current home of the Old Spaghetti Factory — is soon to be demolished and replaced by a combination of condos and retail outlets. It's not the only one. According to this article, similar fates await the CBS Sunset-Gower TV studio, the Hollywood Palladium and the structure that was once the Earl Carroll Theater and is currently the Hollywood home of Nickelodeon.
I love old Hollywood and old buildings but I sometimes find it hard to work up a great sense of loss about such structures. Or at least, I don't have enough to think that my tax dollars should go to keep them intact and/or that the present owners should be pressured to forgo what they think is the most profitable use of their property. That CBS complex has a grand and glorious history…and that's pretty much why it's obsolete. It was built to house radio programs of the kind Jack Benny once did and was later retooled for the needs of early television. For years, the local CBS affiliate did its local shows and news from there but there are no more local shows and they finally decided it wasn't even practical for news any longer and that operation moved out. Part of me would like the place to remain there in perpetuity so that when I drive by with outta-town friends, I can point and say, "See? That's where they did The Burns and Allen Show." But I don't think that's reason enough.
The Nickelodeon Theater is probably even less practical. Just in my lifetime, that building has been a half dozen things, passed from owner to owner like a Christmas fruit cake. I remember when the one-time Earl Carroll Theater was all painted up in psychedelic decor and renamed the Aquarius to house the Los Angeles company of the rock musical, Hair. (The current Nickelodeon decor is even more garish.) It was remodelled back to a more sedate theater after that for musicals like Ain't Misbehavin'. Chevy Chase did his short-lived talk show there and it was the place where anyone who had to produce an awards telecast on a low budget would go.
Or if they were really tight on bucks, they'd go across the street to the Palladium. It opened on September 23, 1940 with a performance by Frank Sinatra and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra…and last time I was in there, it didn't look like it had been cleaned since then. No, that's a cheap joke. But it's fair to say that the day is long past when the Palladium would host events like The Emmy Awards or top-name rock concerts. I think it mostly subsists these days as a location for movie shoots, and if/when it goes away, I won't miss it a whole lot.
There are old buildings and parts of Hollywood that ought to be saved for reasons of heritage and history. But of the four venues named in the above article as soon to be razed, the one I think I'll miss the most is the Old Spaghetti Factory. At least, it's the only one that I might have had a reason to go into…though now that I've pretty much given up pasta, even that's not likely.