描述
**Bullock’s Wilshire**
**Art by:** Chris Hytha
**Story by:** Mark Houser
Its copper-clad ornamental tower gleams "like a jewel of jade upon the breast of a Titan goddess," gushed one Los Angeles Times reviewer at the opening of this suburban retail temple. "It's almost sacrilege to call it a store," her colleague averred.
The five-story flagship was a grand gallery of modern design, displaying ladies' merchandise next to sophisticated murals, eye-catching clocks, and elevators straight out of a Kandinsky painting. Shoppers left their cars with a uniformed valet under a mural-adorned porte cochère to step into a sleek, pink marble hall redolent of perfume samples.
Store founder John Bullock drove a delivery wagon in his native Ontario before coming to Los Angeles alone as a teenager. He worked in a downtown department store and won over its owner, who encouraged Bullock to open his first store in 1907. Its success led to this establishment closer to Hollywood and other tony neighborhoods.
Later absorbed by Macy's, this Art Deco landmark closed in 1993 during the New York firm's bankruptcy. Southwestern Law School bought out the lease and extensively restored the property. It now houses faculty offices, a law library in the former sportswear department, and a mock courtroom where well-to-do women once shopped for purses and accessories.