2920 Wilshire Boulevard

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The five houses of similar size and somewhat tardy Victorian character on the south side of Wilshire between Hoover and Commonwealth were all built within a few years of each other by developer S. Tuston Eldridge. The team of M. Paul Martin and Neal D. Barker designed all five; 2920 was the first to go up, building permits for it issued on August 3, 1905. Eldridge built 2914 the following spring and then his own residence at 2932 in 1908. Dr. Edward Rickey Bradley, his wife Virginia, and their 10-year-old daughter Gertrude were living in the house by 1907 and would remain for 22 years. Virginia died in 1922, at which point Edward retired from practice and Gertrude and her husband Nicholas Gay moved in. Dr. Bradley died suddenly at home in 1928; the Gays stayed another year before moving to Long Beach. During the '30s, the house at 2920, as with most Wilshire Boulevard houses out toward Western Avenue, was given over to commercial uses. In the case of the Bradley house, this included a chiropractor and an antiques dealer. A permit for its demolition was issued by the city to Simon's Restaurants Incorporated, which had expansion in mind, on July 27, 1945.


Though the commercialization of Wilshire Boulevard had
been underway for over 20 years, the Depression and the war years
slowed the progress of its turn from residential use on some stretches; a
view taken from the Town House at the northwest corner at Commonwealth
in 1945 shows the replacement of 2902 and 2914 with a Simon's
drive-in at Hoover Street and the Bradley house, empty and
soon to be razed, its days as an "OVER NIGHT STOP" ending.