"Sexy" iconic 60's hotel in Los Angeles endangered, says historical group

[Bluebear]

Actress Diane Keaton, a trustee of the preservation group, said the hotel is worth saving. "It's curvy, it's this beautiful kind of crescent shape," she said. "It's a sexy building."



(L) The Century Plaza...(R) Proposed development

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The Century Plaza Hotel hosted President-elect Ronald Reagan's victory celebration, a welcome home gala for the Apollo 11 astronauts and Bob Hope's celebrity-studded Century Ball.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation sees that history and the hotel's mid-century architecture as reasons to stop the wrecking ball. The group names the hotel on its annual list being released Tuesday of historic places it considers endangered by neglect or development.

Also listed are the Utah hangar that housed the Enola Gay B-29 bomber that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan; the Hawaiian town of Lanai City featuring plantation-style homes built by 1920s pineapple baron James Dole; and Miami Marine Stadium, which along with the Century Plaza is an example of 1960s modernist architecture that preservationists say is increasingly under threat of redevelopment.

It's hard for a generation that has grown up with such architecture to recognize it as historically significant, said Richard Moe, director of the trust.


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