The Eastern Columbia Building has been standing at the corner of Ninth and Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles since 1930, and its turquoise terra-cotta exterior still stops people mid-stride on what has become one of the busiest pedestrian stretches in the city.
You’ve probably walked past it without knowing what it was. That’s partly because the building was converted to condominiums in 2006 and doesn’t have a lobby you can wander into on a whim. But that doesn’t make it any less worth your time. The payoff here is entirely on the outside, and frankly, the outside is extraordinary.
Architect Claud Beelman designed it in Zigzag Moderne style — a subset of Art Deco that leans hard into geometric ornament and vertical emphasis. The facade is covered in chevrons, sunbursts, and stylized animal figures rendered in glazed turquoise and gold terracotta, all of it manufactured by Gladding McBean, the same California pottery firm responsible for detailing on dozens of significant West Coast buildings. The clock tower at the top reads EASTERN in large letters on two faces. At night, the whole thing is lit and you can see it from several blocks away.
What makes this worth a deliberate visit rather than a passing glance is Broadway itself. The blocks surrounding the Eastern Columbia are lined with other surviving 1920s and 30s commercial buildings — the Orpheum, the Tower Theatre, the Palace — and the stretch has been slowly reviving as a retail and entertainment corridor. The Million Dollar Theater at Third and Broadway anchors the north end. Street vendors set up on the sidewalks on weekends. The energy is genuinely urban in a way that parts of LA rarely are.
If you want context for what you’re looking at, the Los Angeles Conservancy runs walking tours of Broadway most Saturdays. The cost is around $15 for non-members and the guides are knowledgeable without being dry. You’ll learn more in two hours than you would reading about the district for a week. The tours typically start at the Bradbury Building a few blocks north, but they always pass the Eastern Columbia and linger there.
Going on your own is fine too. Take the Metro B Line or D Line to Seventh/Metro Center and walk north on Broadway. The Eastern Columbia is a five-minute walk. Plan your visit on a weekend afternoon when the streets are active and the light hits the turquoise tile at a low angle — the color shifts depending on the time of day, moving from blue-green to something closer to teal as the sun drops. Early evening before dark is the sweet spot if you want both the natural light and the building illuminated.
There’s no admission fee and nothing to buy. You’re just standing on a public sidewalk looking at one of the more visually arresting pieces of architecture in a city that tends to undervalue what it has from this period. The Eastern Columbia survived decades of Broadway’s decline largely intact. That alone is worth noting.
Grab a coffee from one of the cafes that have opened nearby on Broadway or Spring Street and take your time with it. The building rewards patience.
