3538 Wilshire Boulevard

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Seen above in an enhanced version of architect B. Cooper Corbett's rendering, 3538 Wilshire was built at the southeast corner of Ardmore Avenue after the Department of Buildings issued its permit on March 3, 1910. Originally from Boston, James P. Burns was doing very well in shoes; his 10-room house sat on a lot with 75 feet of frontage on the boulevard. Burns spent the rest of his life at 3538, dying there in 1928. A demolition permit for his house was issued by the city on March 2, 1956; one of the Tishman buildings, a number of which were being erected on this stretch of Wilshire in the 1950s, would be taking the Burns lot past the boulevard's low-rise commercial period and directly into its more permanent and current high-rise era. Known as 3540 Wilshire Boulevard, it opened on May 14, 1957.


James P. Burns opened a store at 525 South Broadway around the time
he built his house on Wilshire Boulevard, seen below to the right of the first
first lamppost on September 19, 1941. It would stand another 15 years.





Seen just as it was being completed, with the vertical
aluminum sun shields with which it was originally equipped
on its east and west sides still in place, 3540 Wilshire Boulevard
lost the distinctive feature in a remodeling. Below, the building
was employed as a symbol of the modern boulevard in an
episode of Perry Mason that first aired in March 1959.



 Illustrations: LAT; USCDL; LAPL; CBS