The building originally looked like [this](https://i.imgur.com/kjFTzgL.jpg) (I like it more). Two additional stories were added in 1902 which necessitated the removal of a distinctive “candle-snuffer” roof covering the corner turret.
More info:
> Two highly influential figures in 1880s Los Angeles, John Bryson, Sr., (1819-1907), the 19th mayor of LA who presided over the city between 12/10/1888-02/25/1889, and Major George H. Bonebrake (1838-1898), President of the Los Angeles National Bank and the State Loan and Trust Company, commissioned Joseph Cather Newsom (1857-1930) to erect this 126-room bank and office building. It’s cost was projected to be $224,000, a staggering sum at the time. Bonebrake was one of the richest men in the city at the time, and he could afford making such an investment. He located the main headquarters of his bank in the Bryson-Bonebrake Block.
>An notice in the Los Angeles Herald of 03/28/1886 indicated that a brick mason by the name of A. McNally worked on the building: “Mr. A. McNally, one of the best contractors in the city, who has the brick work for the Bryson block, begins to lay brick to-morrow.” (See “Local News Notes,” Los Angeles Herald, vol. 25, no. 21, 03/28/1886, p. 1.)
>This ornate Romanesque building originally had five stories with a tall basement level that provided extra room for shops on its shorter, 2nd Street facade. Streetfront shops were on grade with South Spring Street and had ample clerestories to admit as much light as possible into the backs of these commercial spaces. (The below-grade 2nd Street retail storefronts lacked clerestories.) Bonebrake’s Los Angeles National Bank occupied the prime corner space on the first floor. The bank had its arched entrance just to the southwest of the main arched entryway trimmed by two nested archivolts. More or less uniform rustication of the first-floor masonry differentiated it from the four upper floors.
>In the original design, each facade had two sets of bay windows projecting out from the building. The skin of the building had an intense degree of ornamentation, an irregular and asymmetrical array of colors, materials, textures and projecing and receding surfaces, meant to dazzle the eye. The upper five stories featured a remarkable variety of brickwork, quoins, and ornamental columns as well as windows of various shapes and sizes. Architect Newsom mixed trabeated windows with those topped by segmental and fully round arches. His composition even included thermal windows, absorbed from ancient Roman baths. The building had the feeling of a wedding cake, with each story delineated with discontinuous but strong horizonatal moldings. Only the corner turret and stacked window bays rose in straight lines vertically contrasting with the prevalent horizontality.
moose098 says
The building originally looked like [this](https://i.imgur.com/kjFTzgL.jpg) (I like it more). Two additional stories were added in 1902 which necessitated the removal of a distinctive “candle-snuffer” roof covering the corner turret.
More info:
> Two highly influential figures in 1880s Los Angeles, John Bryson, Sr., (1819-1907), the 19th mayor of LA who presided over the city between 12/10/1888-02/25/1889, and Major George H. Bonebrake (1838-1898), President of the Los Angeles National Bank and the State Loan and Trust Company, commissioned Joseph Cather Newsom (1857-1930) to erect this 126-room bank and office building. It’s cost was projected to be $224,000, a staggering sum at the time. Bonebrake was one of the richest men in the city at the time, and he could afford making such an investment. He located the main headquarters of his bank in the Bryson-Bonebrake Block.
>An notice in the Los Angeles Herald of 03/28/1886 indicated that a brick mason by the name of A. McNally worked on the building: “Mr. A. McNally, one of the best contractors in the city, who has the brick work for the Bryson block, begins to lay brick to-morrow.” (See “Local News Notes,” Los Angeles Herald, vol. 25, no. 21, 03/28/1886, p. 1.)
>This ornate Romanesque building originally had five stories with a tall basement level that provided extra room for shops on its shorter, 2nd Street facade. Streetfront shops were on grade with South Spring Street and had ample clerestories to admit as much light as possible into the backs of these commercial spaces. (The below-grade 2nd Street retail storefronts lacked clerestories.) Bonebrake’s Los Angeles National Bank occupied the prime corner space on the first floor. The bank had its arched entrance just to the southwest of the main arched entryway trimmed by two nested archivolts. More or less uniform rustication of the first-floor masonry differentiated it from the four upper floors.
>In the original design, each facade had two sets of bay windows projecting out from the building. The skin of the building had an intense degree of ornamentation, an irregular and asymmetrical array of colors, materials, textures and projecing and receding surfaces, meant to dazzle the eye. The upper five stories featured a remarkable variety of brickwork, quoins, and ornamental columns as well as windows of various shapes and sizes. Architect Newsom mixed trabeated windows with those topped by segmental and fully round arches. His composition even included thermal windows, absorbed from ancient Roman baths. The building had the feeling of a wedding cake, with each story delineated with discontinuous but strong horizonatal moldings. Only the corner turret and stacked window bays rose in straight lines vertically contrasting with the prevalent horizontality.
The [source](http://pcad.lib.washington.edu/building/2658/) has even more info.
[This site today](https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0517733,-118.2456675,3a,73.4y,103.07h,96.98t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sXWA4eAn9uwMOOP9sV0DfgA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656). I think this is the corner, but I can’t be sure. The area looks very different now, there’s nothing recognizable.
MasterFubar says
It looks like the team manager assigned a different architect to design each floor.
hinault81 says
That floral parade and chariot race sounds next level.
szczerbiec says
Interesting that even with the added on part, it still looks like it would belong there, as if made by similar designers
Petrarch1603 says
Those are some nice spots for corner offices.