Famed Venue is Destroyed

March 11, 2008
Barbra Streisand was received like royalty when she performed at the Cocoanut Grove in 1963. Her shows in the venerable showroom of the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Blvd. were some of the most important appearances of her career. They formally introduced Barbra to the elite of west coast show business and helped catapult her to national stardom. Everyone in Hollywood came out to see Barbra, from Lucille Ball to Natalie Wood to Judy Garland. In 1994, Barbra commented that she "was the least known person in the room," an accurate assessment on her opening night. But by the time she closed her engagement at the Grove on September 8th, her standing among the ranks of major celebrities was forever changed.

The Cocoanut Grove opened in 1921. Not only was the Cocoanut Grove a showplace for many of the major performers of the day, but it was also the home of the Oscar award ceremonies during the 1930s and 1940s. The first ever Oscar award statue was handed out at the Grove.

The Ambassador Hotel, which housed the Grove, was the focal point of one of the darkest days in American history when Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in the hotel's kitchen following a campaign appearance. This June will mark the 40th anniversary of that tragic event in American history.

The Los Angeles school district purchased the land on which the Ambassador Hotel and the Cocoanut Grove stood. Preservation activists, led by such luminaries as film star Diane Keaton, tried for years to prevent the demise of the hotel. Their efforts proved futile. The Ambassador Hotel was razed last year. The Cocoanut Grove, however, managed to escape its inevitable fate a bit longer as plans were made to incorporate the former night club into a new school campus to be constructed on the site. Years of neglect at the boarded up Cocoanut Grove ultimately dashed any hopes for its salvation. Deemed structurally unsound, the Cocoanut Grove was demolished on February 12, 2008 (right).

So the question remains. Why are we as a society so neglectful of our own rich cultural history? The demise of the Cocoanut Grove is just one of countless examples of the "build 'em up and tear 'em down" policy Americans take for granted. When it comes to cultural and historic preservation, we need to take pause before commissioning a wrecking ball.

The New York Times got it right in a 1963 editorial: "We will probably be judged, not by the monuments we build, but by the monuments we destroy."

As for Hollywood, anyone with an interest in its glorious history will have to rely on photographs in historical archives to get any sense of what life was really like during its golden age.