An oil baron's playhouse became downtown LA's velvet-draped concert hall. The Belasco - the name is often misrendered, including as Balesco - stands at 1050 South Hill Street, commissioned in 1926 by petroleum magnate Edward Doheny alongside the neighbouring Mayan Theatre as a bid to pull Los Angeles's theatre district south. Morgan, Walls and Clements designed it in exuberant Churrigueresque Spanish style, and it opened on 1 November 1926 with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, named for Broadway impresario David Belasco and run by his brother Edward. The legitimate decades starred Helen Hayes and Tallulah Bankhead and housed Federal Theatre Project productions through the Depression, before a slide into burlesque and exploitation films ended with closure in 1950. A church occupied the building for thirty years; film shoots - Swordfish among them - used its faded grandeur after that. The 10-million-dollar restoration completed in March 2011 returned it as a multi-purpose live venue: main floor and balcony around a proper stage, with the 400-person ballroom behind the balcony operating as a separate event space, all under Live Nation's operation since 2020. Today the roughly 1,500-capacity room books touring rock, hip-hop, Latin and electronic headliners, club nights and award-show afterparties, its painted ceilings and carved plasterwork doing scenography no LED wall can. The South Park location puts Crypto.com Arena and the LA Live entertainment district three blocks west, with the Mayan - its 1927 sibling - still glowering next door. The 1990 Historic-Cultural Monument designation protected the interiors through the vacant decades, which is why the restoration had original ceiling murals, wood panelling and the basement speakeasy-era rooms to work with rather than recreate. The venue's event trade leans on that fabric - film premieres, brand launches and fashion shows book the ballroom for the architecture alone - while the concert calendar's range, from metal to reggaeton to house, reflects a room whose 1,500 capacity and downtown address hit the sweet spot between club and theatre.

Type: Theater / Concert Hall

Address: 1050 South Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA, United States, 90015

Website: https://www.thebelasco.com

Capacity: 1500

Opening Date: 01/11/1926