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Santa Monica City Jail, 1685 Main Street, Santa Monica, Los Angeles County, CA

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Santa Monica City Jail, 1685 Main Street, Santa Monica, Los Angeles County, CA

description

Summary

Significance: The Santa Monica City Hall, including the jail facility in the northwest wing, was designed in a PWA Moderne style popular in the 1930s by prominent Los Angeles architects, Joseph M. Estep and Donald B. Parkinson. Contractors, Campbell and Kelly, built the structure in 1938-39 and the project costs totaled $168,000. Funds to pay for the building were drawn from the federal government's New Deal program, the Public Works Administration, as well as from city taxes and revenue generated from the property sale of the original City Hall on Fourth Street and Broadway. PWA projects, like the City Hall, typically incorporated many building and design trades into each project including masonry, woodwork, tilework, metalwork, sculpture and mural painting, employing the artists and artisans who practiced these crafts.

The jail is part of the original design, and it served as the local Santa Monica Police Department jail until 2002. Not only does the building represent an outstanding example of PWA Moderne style architecture, it has also played an important role in Santa Monica's political, social and civic history.

Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N1365
Survey number: HABS CA-2803
Building/structure dates: 1938-1939 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: 2002 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1958 Subsequent Work

date_range

Date

1939 - 1980
person

Contributors

Historic American Buildings Survey, creator
Estep, Joseph M
Parkinson, Donald B
Campbell and Kelly
Melstrom, H Harold
Price, Virginia B, transmitter
PCR Services Corporation, consultant
place

Location

Santa Monica34.01187, -118.49144
Google Map of 34.0118708, -118.4914357
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Source

Library of Congress
copyright

Copyright info

No known restrictions on images made by the U.S. Government; images copied from other sources may be restricted. http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/114_habs.html

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