Blackstone Building
United States
Blackstone's Department Store building, also known as Blackstone Apartments and The Blackstone, is a historic six-story building located at 901 South Broadway in the Broadway Theater District in the historic core of downtown Los Angeles.
Nathaniel Blackstone (brother-in-law of department store magnate J. W. Robinson) opened Blackstone's Dry Goods in 1895 when J.W. Robinson Co. (commonly known as the "Boston Store" at that time) vacated its 171–173 Spring Street location. In 1898, the company moved to the Douglas Building (then known as the "New" Stimson Block) at the northwest corner of 3rd and Spring streets, where it occupied the entire basement and 20,000 sq ft (1,900 m2) on the ground floor. In 1907, N. B. Blackstone Co. moved into the A. P. Johnson Building located at 318–322 S. Broadway. This building, also known as Blackstone Building, was listed as a non-contributing property in the National Register of Historic Places-listed Broadway Theater and Commercial District in 1979. Blackstone's Department Store moved into its flagship building in 1917, where it would remain until the company was bought by Famous Department Store in 1939.
In 1916, developer Arthur H. Fleming hired John B. Parkinson to design a modern department store for his new tenant, Blackstone. The location, at the southwest corner of 9th and Broadway, would serve as the company's flagship. The building cost of $500,000 ($14.8 million in 2025) and contained six above and two below-ground levels. It opened on September 20, 1917. Blackstone's had vacated the building by 1939, at which point Famous Department Store renovated and expanded it to 90,000 square feet (8,400 m2). Famous Department Store featured a department store, lunch counter, and beauty shop in the building. Blackstone's Department Store was not listed in the National Register of Historic Places's Broadway Theater and Commercial District when it was first created in 1979, but it was included when the district was expanded in 2002. Additionally, the building was listed as Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 765 in 2003. In 2010, Blackstone's Department Store was converted to 82 apartments with ground-floor retail space a
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