The Selig Retail Building

The Selig Clothing Store, built in 1931, is a small, one-story, black and gold Art Deco building on the corner of Western Avenue and Third Street. It housed a bank for several decades and is now being used as retail space again.
The street-level portion of the Selig Building is unremarkable, but the black and gold terracotta tiles, with their distinctive corn-cob pattern, are quite beautiful:



The Selig Building is of particular historical interest because it gives a sense of what the 12-story black and gold Art Deco masterpiece the Richfield Oil Building looked like before it was demolished in 1969 to make way for two modern office buildings in downtown Los Angeles. The demolition of the Richfield Oil Building, one of the most significant Art Deco buildings in the country, catalyzed the formation of the Los Angeles Conservancy which is dedicated to preserving L.A.'s historic buildings. To see more photos of L.A.'s many remaining Art Deco buildings, check out my posts on downtown L.A. Art Deco, the Wiltern Theater, and Bullocks-Wilshire.