Things to do / Travel Guide
Address:304 S. Broadway
Los Angeles, California
Find yourself in downtown Los Angeles with a few hours to spare? Head over to the Bradbury Building for a fantastic architectural tour!
The Bradbury Building was built in 1893 and was designed by architect George H. Wyman for Lewis Bradbury, a mining millionaire. (As legend has it, Wyman originally turned down the deal, but then agreed after having a dream in which his dead brother wrote him a note saying that if he built the Bradbury building, he's be successful.) The outside of the Bradbury Building is of the Italian Renaissance style, with brown brick, sandstone, and terra cotta, but it is the inside of the building that attracts flocking architecturally inclined guests to the building. Skylights bring in floods of natural light that show off the marble, wood panel, and wrought iron decoration of the inner court. Because of the natural light, dramatic shadows and accents change throughout the day, adding more mystique and beauty to the building. The geometrically placed staircases at each end of the building, each with wrought iron railings add to the grandeur and with ironwork from France, the marble from Belgium, and the floor tiles from Mexico, the Bradbury Building becomes a quintessential melting pot of international textiles!
The top few floors of the Bradbury Building is comprised of offices (including the headquarters for the Los Angeles Police Department's Internal Affairs and the Marvel Comics headquarters), but guests are welcome to walk around the bottom floor, where they can marvel at the architecture, do a little shopping, and enjoy eating at the Subway sandwich shop. Is this building starting to look familiar? You may recognize it from Blade Runner, Lethal Weapon 4, Quantum Leap, or Pushing Daisies, among many other television shows and feature films.