Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 03/07/2026 02:04:00

An oil baron built it for the legitimate stage, a church saved it from the wrecking ball, and a nightclub renovation gave it a third century of work. The Belasco at 1050 South Hill Street opened on November 1, 1926, with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes - one of two theaters oil pioneer Edward L. Doheny commissioned side by side, the Belasco for drama and the neighboring Mayan for musicals. Stiles O. Clements of Morgan, Walls and Clements designed the Spanish Renaissance and Moorish interior under a huge shallow domed ceiling, and the playhouse hosted stars of the calibre of Helen Hayes and Tallulah Bankhead before sliding into burlesque and a final movie-house stretch that ended in 1950. The church years preserved it: the Immanuel Gospel Temple bought the building in 1950, and from 1973 the Metropolitan Community Church - a landmark LGBTQ+ congregation - worshipped under the gilded dome until the mid-1980s, after which the theater sat mostly dark, appearing occasionally in film shoots including Swordfish. A nearly $10 million restoration by Christina and John Kim reopened the building on March 19, 2011, as The Belasco - the raked floor levelled, the balcony re-terraced with banquettes - and Live Nation took over operation in January 2020. The venue now runs 1,500 standing or 900 seated in the main room, with a separate 400-capacity upstairs ballroom above the lobby, hosting global touring artists, electronic nights and downtown LA special events. Designated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument number 476 in 1990, the Belasco pairs with the Mayan next door as a surviving matched set from the moment downtown LA believed it would be an American Broadway. The 2011 restoration deliberately kept the scars visible - original plasterwork and gilding sit beside modern rigging and LED walls - so a sold-out electronic show now plays under ceilings that heard Tallulah Bankhead, one of the more vivid time-collapses available anywhere in downtown Los Angeles nightlife.