7th and Figueroa Streets
The Foy's on Figueroa
From this intersection emerged much of Los Angeles' history. Early on, the junction was on the outskirts of town; later, it became a fashionable residential area and then the center of business and commerce for the burgeoning city.
7th and Figueroa (first known as Grasshopper Street, then Pearl Street) was on the very edge of the city in 1872, when Mary Emily Foy's parents built a two-story Victorian Italianate-style home on the northwest corner. By the time Foy was 18, she was the city's first full-time female librarian. She went on to become a teacher and principal at her alma mater, Los Angeles High School, while also participating in the California suffrage movement and Democratic politics.
The Foy family sold the home in 1919, and it was moved first to Wilshire Boulevard and later to South Witmer Street. In 1962, the house was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument (only the eighth one at that time) and was moved a third time, to 1325 Carroll Avenue in Angelino Heights, where it still stands today.
A Luxury Hotel for a Growing City
For the next couple of decades, the area was a hub for car companies. Gleaming showrooms, service departments, parking facilities, and bustling offices served the city's growing obsession with the automobile. Then in 1946, Statler Hotels Inc. chose the site of Paul G. Hoffman's massive Studebaker dealership (the site where the Foy residence had stood) for its first West Coast hotel, the Statler Center. The $25-million, 1,275-room modern luxury development was the talk of the town when it opened in 1952. Hilton Hotels acquired Statler Hotels in 1954 and changed the name to the Statler Hilton.
That same year the hotel plumped its pillows for a visit from President Dwight D. Eisenhower. What probably meant more to Angelenos, though, was that, from a suite in the hotel, Walter O'Malley negotiated the Brooklyn Dodgers' move to Los Angeles.
In later days, the hotel operated as the Los Angeles Hilton and the Wilshire Grand Hotel. The building was demolished in 2013 and replaced with the towering Wilshire Grand Center, designed by A.C. Martin, which opened in 2017 and is the tallest building west of the Mississippi River.
A Holdout Pioneer and a Pioneering Grocers
7th and Figueroa is unrecognizable today as the rural crossroads of more than a century ago. In 1870, when Abigail Stark was 11, her father bought the parcel between Figueroa and Flower streets and 7th and 8th streets for $450. After her parents died, Stark was forced to sell off bits of land to pay property taxes. But at the start of the Depression, she still owned her faded green house; before she died there in 1939, it was worth an astounding $8,000 per frontage foot.
In 1906, next door to Stark's house, a Danish immigrant named Charles T. Von der Ahe invested $1,200 to open the first of his markets that became the Vons chain of grocery stores. He opened 87 stores by 1928, all with his innovative system for a "cash and carry" business suited to Los Angeles - an alternative to the old "charge and deliver" method.
A business college took over the former Vons Groceteria, and the Barker Bros. home furnishings store moved into its new home next door, a grand Renaissance Revival gem built to house "the most beautiful furniture store in America."
In 1896, the 30-bed Hospital of the Good Samaritan opened on the southwest corner of 7th and Figueroa streets. "The first impression received by a visitor is that of sunshine, fresh air, and exquisite cleanliness," a Los Angeles Herald reporter wrote in lavish praise. After the hospital moved in 1911, the original building became the Glencoe Hotel. Then, in 1922, the growing Ralph's Grocery Company opened a new store and executive offices there. Patient wards became storage for dry goods, operating rooms were turned into offices, and the morgue refrigeration in the basement was handy for storing perishables.
Skyscrapers and Shopping Malls
Financial giants and developers alike eventually set their sights on this bustling intersection. In 1985, the Ernst and Young Plaza and Seventh Market Place opened. The three-level retail mall supplanted many chic 7th Street stores shuttered in the early 1980s. The soaring 41-floor tower was designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, who also designed the Wells Fargo Center towers on Grand Avenue. Now known as EY Plaza, the building and its neighboring open-air shopping and entertainment destination, renamed FIGat7th, are operated and managed by Brookfield Properties. If you're ever watching the 2004 disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow, keep an eye out for the building's unexpected East Coast cameo in the New York skyline.
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At just 18 years old, Mary Foy became the city's first full-time female librarian; she worked in that role from 1880-1884.
The Foy house sits on the busy northwest corner of 7th and Figueroa streets. The Foy family sold the home in 1919; the sign reading "This Property - For Sale or Lease" can be seen in the front yard, along with a placard advertising "5,000 Oregon Xmas Trees Here Dec. 15."
The original clapboard Stark House on Flower Street is dwarfed by neighboring businesses, Kizer Business College (formerly Vons Grocerteria) and the Barker Bros. building, c. 1929.
Looking east down 7th Street at the intersection of Figueroa, with the nearly opened Barker Bros. building at right, c. 1927. The furniture store moved from 724-728 S. Broadway in 1926, with all contents transferred in just 60 hours, including a clock that Charles H. Barker hand-carried five blocks to the new location. . This historical marker was erected in 2005 by City of Los Angeles. It is in Downtown Los Angeles in Los Angeles County California