It was 1929 when the prestigious Bullock's department store opened its doors on Wilshire Boulevard. Property owners wanted to attract other classy shopping establishments. They decided their target audience was ladies who shopped. Matt Roth, historian with the Automobile Club of Southern California, says property owners set about making Wilshire "female friendly."
"They contribute money for special lamp posts, for trees, they're effectively making it into a kind of refined park-like atmosphere. Which is specifically geared to women shoppers. This is a gendered environment. And they actually take, consciously take elements of park design, as it evolved in the 19th century, which was able to kind of stipulate areas for middle class women, white women, by the kinds of plantings and carriage roads – as opposed the areas set aside for the noisier pursuits of middle class park uses. So they create refined areas as a procession of consumption."
Today, the only thing consumed at the Bullocks Wilshire building is legal knowledge. What used to be L.A.'s most elegant department store is now the law library at the Southwestern School of Law.
(Airdate for this story: 12/22/07)
Comments (2)
It was John G. Bullock, who inspired and envisioned this design and evolved it into the 19th century most elegant department store.
Please pay attention to the Cowboy vs. San Diego game.
Cowboy's #50...Justin Bullock Rogers, Born in Santa Rosa, California 8/31/83 ...Great, great grandson of John G. Bullock and Grandson of Felix Chappellet!!!!!
Posted by Bridget Trenary | on August 7, 2008 10:17 PM
My friend told me that when she was a little girl Bullock's had a polished solid oak slide on either the second or third floor that you could slide down. I do not remember that slide. My Mother's Uncle Ernest Bradford worked at Bullocks for thirty years before he passed. Can you tell me what Bullocks Department Store had the oak slide in it. She said it was in Los Angeles, so it is either the one on Broadway and Seventh or the one on Wilshire Blvd. Also whatever became of the oak slide. Thanks
Posted by Linda Sherrow | on May 17, 2009 7:38 PM