American Legion celebration at the Hall of Justice, 1950. Dad is 3rd from left in the back row. Bill Conroy stands to my dad's left. Armando Cruz stands in tie and police hat in the middle of that back line. Nora Pfaffle is standing at the far right in her polka dot dress. An extremely dear and generous woman who cared about Dad a lot. Is that the city hall across the street? Here is a terrific shot of it from 1928.
The County Court House was built on a rise known to the pioneers as Pound Cake Hill.
The Red Sandstone Courthouse on Pound Cake Hill, completed in 1891, was damaged beyond repair by the Long Beach earthquake of 1933 and demolished in 1936. It is now the site of the Foltz Criminal Justice Center, constructed in 1972.But what is that building to the right of the LA County Courthouse? It's the Hall of Records.
The Hall of Records, built next door to the Red Sandstone Courthouse in 1911, was used along with other buildings as the courthouse from 1934 until 1959, when the current courthouse was occupied. It was demolished in 1973.HALL OF RECORDS BUILDING, 1927.
HALL OF JUSTICE
The Hall of Justice is the oldest
surviving government building in the Los Angeles Civic Center, that collection
of city, county and federal buildings stretching for several blocks along
Temple and First Streets in downtown Los Angeles. The Los Angeles County Board
of Supervisors authorized construction of the building to consolidate the
County’s courts and jail facilities in one location. The result was a grandiose
new facility housing all levels of the county criminal justice system. The Hall
of Justice played a significant role in the criminal justice history of Los
Angeles, housing such notable arrestees as “Bugsy” Siegel, Robert Mitchum,
Charles Manson, and Sirhan Sirhan. The autopsies of Marilyn Monroe and
Robert Kennedy were also conducted there.
