The corner lot of 100 E Ocean Boulevard is not mythic. It’s a small patch of scrubland, rubble and grass, graffitied wall panels, a couple of vertebral palms. Round the back, a parking lot, asphalt bleached and sickly under the Los Angeles sun, and a chain-link fence, easily scalable. It wasn’t always like this. Built in 1919, the Jergins Trust Building used to stand on the site, its square-jawed conformity tempered by the carved pillars that used to adorn the top of its ten storeys, straight-backed against the blue sky. The office block was demolished in 1988, despite the modest efforts of government officials to save it – the owners claimed a hotel would be built on the grounds and blocked all attempts to add it to the heritage register. The Jergins Trust Building exists now only in a couple of archived newspaper reports, a local history blog and the memories of some older LA residents. And that is it: a blip, an interesting anecdote, a piece of little-known local history.
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