I've been getting tweets this morning from travel expert Don Nadeau (@donnadeau) on his family's historic roots in Los Angeles. It turns out that Don's ancestor, a French Canadian by the name of Remi Nadeau, was an early developer in Downtown Los Angeles. He built the first 4-story building with an elevator in our fair city in 1886 at 1st and Spring. The site has been home to the Art Deco Los Angeles Times Building since 1935.
While the hotel Nadeau is long since gone, it wasn't that long ago that you could tour the Los Angeles Times Building. After the tours ceased, the public still had access to the famed Globe Lobby, which is adorned with murals by Hugo Ballin (who also painted the murals at the Griffith Observatory). The LA Times building was put up for sale by the Tribune Company in summer 2008 and the Globe Lobby doors were closed for good in December 2008, when the building was restricted to staff and official visitors only. Sadly, the story of the Times and the Times Building has even been removed from the LA Times website.
Back to Remi Nadeau, the Nadeau family home was located on the property where the Millennium Biltmore Hotel now stands. I don't know if they'll mention Nadeau, but you can still tour the Biltmore with the Los Angeles Conservancy on Sunday afternoons. History buffs can also take a variety of other LA Conservancy Tours of Downtown LA on Saturdays. Some of Esotouric's bus tours also delve pretty deeply into Downtown history.
If you have a piece of your own LA history to share, feel free to leave it in the comments below, and/or Tweet me @LATravelWriter.
You can also check out these resources on Remi Nadeau and LA History:
- From Freight Wagons to Fine Hotels: Remi Nadeau's Contributions to LA
- A Visit to Old Los Angeles: Spring Street Part 1 by Brent Dickerson
- Curating the City Virtual tour of Historic Wilshire Blvd
- Los Angeles History on LosAngeles.com
- Downtown LA History: A Tour of the Subway Terminal Area
More:
Hotel Nadeau illustration from CSULB archives, Biltmore hotel photo © 2006 Kayte Deioma, courtesy of www.KayteDeioma.com