On foot one day in downtown LA, I noticed a dilapidated old neighborhood movie theater with a cracked marquee featuring a kimono-clad geisha. Linda Lea Japanese Films, read the marquee. Up top, I noticed the Toei Studios logo, familiar from so many yakuza and samurai flicks that I have been unearthing over the past few years on DVD.
I usually make my way to the Egyptian for their annual Japanese Outlaw Masters series, which is a great way to get your fix of chanbara and yakuza films on the big screen. But seeing the Linda Lea marquee there on the edge of Little Tokyo kind of blew my mind. For one thing, there is only one operating movie theater in downtown now; chalk that up to a small residential population and the plethora of other movie/shopping "destinations" around the city. But for another, even considering the number of former theaters demolished, decrepit or being used for other purposes in downtown, I was startled to see one that specialized in Japanese films. 
The theater sits on Main Street, which is not the bustling metropolitan thoroughfare that the name might suggest. The street on this block (and stretching several blocks south) is populated mostly by homeless people who are corraled into Skid Row by an unofficial and controversial policy of containment. Standing on the desolate street before the cracked marquee, I could imagine this place as it must have been in the late 1960s or early 1970s, with the words GRAVEYARD OF HONOR or SWORD OF DOOM stuck in red plastic letters to the marquee.
In fact, the theater's history is much older than that. I found a great site called Cinema Treasures, on which users submit data about old theaters dug up from public records. The history of the Linda Lea is a little patchy and hard to follow. It seems to have gone by several different names, and there are records of different kinds of businesses inhabiting the address. As far back as 1890, there are conflicting city records documenting the existence of (variously) a saloon, a furniture store and the Los Angeles Floral Society, all at 251 S. Main. Confusing matters slightly is the fact that, apparently, another theater existed at 255 S. Main (next-door), which was known at different times as the Union and the New York. Clearly, from looking at newspaper articles and directories, Main Street in the early 1900s was a booming entertainment district with many bars, burlesques, shops and theaters. The first real historic thread for the Linda Lea appears in 1924, when a construction contract was put together to build a 500-seat theater at 251 S. Main, the site where she currently stands. 
A photo of Main St taken c.1925, showing the Arrow Theater, later to become the Linda Lea. Note the distinctive upward slope on the roof and the sign proclaiming "All Seats 10 cents." This is where the Linda Lea/Toei logo would later be mounted. From LA Public Library. Click to enlarge.
In 1925, right around the time the Arrow (as it was then known) was opening for business, another theater was built just up the street at 324 E. 1st St, in the heart of Little Tokyo. It was called the Fuji-Kan and screened Japanese movies exclusively. Wikipedia* states that "At its peak, Little Tokyo had approximately 30,000 Japanese Americans living in the area." That's about the estimated population of all residents in downtown today. Clearly, there was enough patronage for an all-Japanese movie theater. But 16 years later, that would change with the attack on Pearl Harbor and Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066. In 1942, Little Tokyo became a ghost town. The doors of the Fuji-Kan were boarded up.
The Fuji Kan Theater at 324 E. 1st St. Left: 1939. Right: 1941.
With many white American men in military service, African-Americans from the South moved to California in numbers to work in the shipyards, where bosses temporarily put aside their discriminatory hiring practices to meet the demands of the war. People came to the coast cities in such numbers, there was a lack of housing. In addition, in most of the city, restrictive housing covenants were in place that prohibited African-Americans from buying or renting. The empty buildings of Little Tokyo soon became home to a thriving African-American community with an identity of its own. Few people that I've met have heard of LA's Bronzeville, as its tenure lasted only about three years. But it forms an important part of the city's history, extending the African-American corridor of Central Avenue into the heart of downtown. Music critic RJ Smith recently wrote a very interesting book on Central Avenue's cultural significance, and includes an entire chapter on jazz and rhythm-n-blues in Bronzeville.
Perhaps a former restaurant, a sign over the door reads Bronzeville Arcade. Through the glass, a neon sign written in Japanese is still visible, reading 料理, or "cuisine." One of many Little Tokyo buildings that served Bronzeville residents. c.1945 (From the Bronzeville site.)In 1945, the Fuji-Kan, now sitting in the heart of Bronzeville, re-opened as the Linda Lea. At its gala opening on Sat Feb 10, there was a double-feature of Minstrel Man and Brazil, as well as an orchestra, tap dancers and other stage performers. Meanwhile, the Arrow Theater back on Main was undergoing its own changes. Sometime around 1940, it changed its name to the Azteca and began showing Spanish language films. A news photo from Nov 20 1940 shows the building's marquee (minus the geisha of today), with the titles El Vuelo de la Muerte, and Bajo el Cielo de Mexico.
It's interesting to me seeing how the names of the theaters, and the titles of the films programmed, reflect the changes in the area demographics. In addition to the creation of Bronzeville, one of the other side-effects of the Japanese internment was an increase in Mexican immigrants. LA has always had a large Mexican population, but during the internment, there were more people coming directly from Mexico to work. Japanese-Americans played a large role in farming and agriculture, operating their own farms, or working for other growers. In Hawaii for instance, where Pearl Harbor actually ocurred, the Japanese-Americans were not interned, because the government recognized that their labor in pineapple and sugarcane fields was too indispensible, and could result in economic collapse if lost. Just as the war industry was willing to look the other way when it came to hiring African-Americans in the factories, some Japanese were released from the detention camps in order to help harvest crops. "They literally saved the beet harvest in '42 and '43, because so many of the men were away for the war," said Patricia Wolfe, treasurer of the Heart Mountain, Wyoming Foundation.(USAToday*). America was facing a shortage of labor of crisis proportions, so Mexicans were brought in by train to downtown LA Union Station, under the Bracero Program.
From 1945-46, with the war still on, but Japan in retreat, the internment camps began to close and release Japanese-Americans. They had lost farms, houses and shops, and would find it difficult to resume life as before. Nevertheless, there were those who returned and downtown landlords returned their leases, beginning a transition that ended the Bronzeville era. In 1947, the Linda Lea on 1st St (the former Fuji-Kan) closed down and re-opened at 251 S. Main, replacing the Azteca (the former Arrow). I have not yet found information on whether the theater switched its programming to Japanese films at this time. One can only speculate as to why the name remained Linda Lea once Japanese programming resumed.
After the internment, Little Tokyo would never fully recover, as most families moved to outlying suburbs like Torrance and Gardena instead of returning to downtown. From the "30,000" believed to have lived there prior to 1941, there are now "about 1000," most of them retirees (Wikipedia*). Although the Japanese-American community became politically active in the 1970s and 80s, seeking restitution for the internment and attempting to restore Little Tokyo through community development projects, a new residential base never took hold. In the years following the war, the city of LA claimed property under Eminent Domain laws for the construction of city projects (including the Police headquarters) and the New Otani Hotel, with other portions being plowed under for industrial warehouse space. As an ethnic enclave, it became characterized by an assortment of ramen shops, video rental and bookstores, and Japanese grocery markets. Despite a recent surge in popularity of Japanese pop culture, and the resultant influx of dollars from visiting shoppers, Little Tokyo seems to be steadily assimilating into the generic downtown backdrop, as businesses like American Apparel, Office Depot and Starbucks replace storefronts previously occupied by Japanese businesses.
A friend of mine commented that Little Tokyo today is "like Disneyland," presenting a dressed-up, tourist version of its former self. Would preserving the Linda Lea only add to that sense of the artificial? Many people that I've talked with, even LA history buffs, have never heard of Bronzeville. Does the preservation of buildings like the Linda Lea automatically raise our awareness of our city's history?
Right now, downtown LA is experiencing one of the largest urban makeovers anywhere in the country. The NY Times reports that over 15,000 new residential units have been completed or are in the process of construction in downtown since 1999. There are numerous loft/condos in converted warehouses surrounding Little Tokyo with selling prices starting around $670 per square foot. Proponents of urban redevelopment can point to conditions on Skid Row and argue that change in downtown is a good thing. But few people can afford to buy in to the condos and lofts that are being built. And LA has a particular habit of destroying historic buildings, only to memorialize them later out of some pious regret. The current wave of development is just one of many changes in the downtown neighborhood over the decades, but it is the most large-scale and expensive. Is there anything wrong with asking whether downtown will be better served by franchise clothing stores, coffee shops and luxury lofts than by family-run LA institutions like Fugetsu-Do, the Japanese confectionery which has been here since 1903?
Recently, some Angelenos have banded together to slow the development of the area. After being petitioned with over 5500 public signatures, Councilwoman Jan Perry has expressed concern over the potential loss of Little Tokyo's "distinct characteristics."
Mulling over these things, I have watched the Linda Lea sit in disrepair for months while plans for its renovation were discussed. Finally, work is underway, although at the moment it looks like it is being completely demolished to make way for the new project. Leased by the ImaginAsian Entertainment company, the site will host a theater programming Asian films from all over the world. I'm happy to see another theater occupy this spot where, for over 80 years, people have been watching movies. That's a span of time that is almost as old as movies themselves. Hopefully the new theater will connect with an audience, and movies will continue to live on Main St. It may be interesting for some armchair history sleuth to discover the lineage of whatever building faces demolition eighty years from now.History is a white elephant sale: what's meaningless to one may be dear to another. Unfortunately, as with so many things, the value is often determined by the highest bidder.
My Sources
Bronzeville
Cinema Treasures
Articles on Downtown Development
Little Tokyo Motion Highlights Downtown's Lack of Specific Plans
Downtown development spills into rebounding ethnic enclave
In Los Angeles, a Gehry-Designed Awakening
Articles on the Linda Lea and the ImaginAsian
ImaginAsian Center Will Add Modern Life to Main
The Linda Lea Sequel - Rundown Theater to Be Recast as One-Screen Specialty Cinema
Curtain Comes Back Up on Historic Japanese Theater
Articles on Skid Row
Desolation Boulevard
Escape from L.A.'s Skid Row Can Prove Difficult
