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Argues that hotels played a critical role in creating the urban form, identity, and experience of Los Angeles as the city grew to embody twentieth century U.S. urbanism.
Kendrick traces the evolution of hotels from the 1870s to the 1950s in the context of a rapidly transforming LA and looks at how hotels were sites of urban growth and transformation that mirrored and then hastened the broader 20th century patterns in creation, regulation, and eventual destruction of urban public space. From the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, hotels were central to the efforts of selling of Los Angeles as a national and global destination, serving as portals of access for visitors to the city's various districts and attractions. Once acting as sites that prioritized collective social tourist experiences, hotels and their architecture would come to mirror and even hasten broader twentieth century patterns in the creation, regulation and eventual destruction of urban public space. Despite this narrative of urban transformation, hotels in Los Angeles functioned as places where outsiders navigated the social, political and cultural landscapes of the city to chart a path toward becoming insiders, it only for a transitory moment. The book reveals how hotels shifted from communal experiences which prioritized luxury, location, and social interactions, to highly individualized experiences which prioritized convenience, mobility, and privacy, reflecting cultural shifts.