Forgotten Places: Warehouse No. 1
Municipal Warehouse No. 1 opened in 1917, and for nearly fifty years acted as a liminal space between Los Angeles and the rest of the world.
In its early days, Los Angeles was not the obvious location for a port that would eventually move more cargo than any other in the Western Hemisphere – the shoreline has no natural harbor. But by 1881, when construction began on the Panama Canal, industrialists and local politicians were already trying to remedy that problem. Their efforts, combined with a population boom in Los Angeles later that decade, meant that the city was poised to take advantage of an unexpected but promising future. Once San Pedro was chosen as the site of an official port, mud and silt were dredged from some areas and redeposited into others, deepening the harbor and creating landfill for docks and shipyards. In 1914, the same year that the Panama Canal opened, the first wharf was nearly ready, but its planned operations were derailed by the outbreak of World War I. Still, officials spent the war years believing in the return of free movement, preparing for it by building a centerpiece for their harbor complex, an intermediary point for all manner of goods between their journeys from far-flung lands and their destinations in American homes and businesses.
Municipal Warehouse No. 1 opened in 1917, a six-story behemoth of reinforced concrete, the largest building of its kind west of Chicago. The nearly twelve acres of space inside were divided into a warren of lofts, freight ushered along through them by elevators and rail tracks and electric hoists. All kinds of things passed through the warehouse – even camels, who upon arrival were strapped into harnesses and dipped in giant vats of insecticide before carrying out quarantines in a designated animal pen. In the mid-1920s, another sort of operation took up residence at the warehouse. Workers at the Marine Exchange would climb six flights of stairs to the roof and settle into a small structure equipped with telephones, radios, and a wheeled telescope, which could be turned to look out in any direction. For decades, they kept a careful watch on all incoming and departing ships, noting down their movements, giving updates to any interested parties, and helping prevent collisions. The warehouse couldn’t keep up with the development in shipping technology that took over the industry by the 1970s. Containerization became the gold standard, a highly mechanized system of uniform, multi-ton boxes moved by crane or forklift from sea to land transport. Municipal Warehouse No. 1 was designed for break-bulk cargo, smaller crates that could be hauled – with some engineering assistance – by human workers.
By the mid-1980s, the warehouse was a relic, cavernous and mostly empty, a ghost town. The construction methods that were so impressive when it was built were also what saved it from demolition at this point, as the hulking concrete block would have cost an enormous amount to tear down. A decade and a half later, the most notable activities at the crumbling warehouse, which had endured long enough to achieve historical status, were the visits of a local woman feeding stray cats along the wharf. More recently, city officials have made hopeful noises about redevelopment and tourism opportunities, but nothing has yet come to fruition. A water tower sits on the rooftop, printed with welcomes in many languages. Maybe one day there will be visitors to match.
(Written by Kyra Lunenfeld)