Spring Street Financial District (Boundary Increase

Two downtown Los Angeles bank-related buildings were added to the Spring Street Financial District at Fourth and Main Streets. The Farmers and Merchants Bank Building, built in 1904-1905 to designs by Morgan and Walls, is a granite-clad, reinforced concrete Neoclassical bank with paired Corinthian columns and pediments on both street facades. It served as the bank's headquarters until a 1956 merger. Wrapping around it is the Isaias W. Hellman Building, a six- and seven-story Beaux-Arts structure faced in terra cotta and built in three phases between 1905 and 1914. Hellman, a pioneering Los Angeles banker, had sold the corner lot to the bank and then developed the surrounding property, again using Morgan and Walls. Both buildings fit the district's period of significance, 1903 to 1931, and sit beside existing contributing buildings. Their exteriors remain largely intact, with changes mainly at ground level and the Hellman interior.