Flames Destroy L.A.’s Historic Pan Pacific Auditorium

I am 40 years old, and grew up in Los Angeles, and I remember: City Hall as the tallest building in Los Angeles; the San Francisco Opera at Shrine Auditorium; the Angels playing at Wrigley Field; Angel’s Flight; the Bunker Hill Victorians; the Pacific Red Cars . . . Pan Pacific Auditorium.

City Hall and the Shrine are all that’s left of those childhood and early-adolescent memories, and City Hall’s beautiful dominant height has been subsumed by a helter-skelter skyline.

And now, the Pan Pacific is gone. Somehow, I feel that something important is forever lost. I saw these wonderful elements that made this city unique; I see them still.

DOUGLAS JONES

Culver City