# Victor Clothing Company Building

Victor Clothing Company, formerly City Hall North, also known as Hosfield Building and Victor Clothing Lofts, is a historic five-story building located at 242 S. Broadway in the Broadway Theater District in the historic core of downtown Los Angeles.

## History
### Beginnings

The Victory Clothing Company building was designed by Robert Farquhar Train and Robert Edmund Williams for Mr. & Mrs. J.F. Hosfield and built in 1914. The building was originally built as a City Hall annex, but by 2002 it contained ground-floor retail, second-story mezzanines for storage, and lofts on the third through fifth stories.
In 1964, Victor Clothing moved into the building and made it their headquarters.

### Murals

From the mid-1970s to 1984, three large murals were added to the building's exterior. They are:
* The Bride and Groom (70 feet (21 m) by 70 feet (21 m), northern wall) by Kent Twitchell, commissioned by second-floor tenant Carlos Ortiz for $5000 ($30,891 in 2023), 1973-1976
* Anthony Quinn in The Pope of Broadway (70 feet (21 m) by 60 feet (18 m), eastern half of southern wall) by Eloy Torrez, 1984
* Nino y Caballo (A vision expressing freedom and joy) (40 feet (12 m) by 70 feet (21 m), western half of southern wall) by Frank Romero, 1984
A fourth mural was added to the building sometime between 1985 and 2001.
In 2014, The Pope on Broadway was restored at a cost of $150,000 ($193,056 in 2023), spearheaded by the Los Angeles Mural Conservancy and paid for by Greenland USA.

### Historic designation

Victor Clothing Company was not listed in the National Register of Historic Places's Broadway Theater and Commercial District when it was first created in 1979, but it was included when the district was expanded in 2002.

### Recent events

The building was put up for sale in 1995 and sold to Nathan Korman in 2001. All tenants, including Victor Clothing, were evicted following the sale, after which the building's upper floors were converted to live/work lofts. Korman said that he bought the building in part because of its murals, which he wanted to preserve.
In 2009, the building was rehabilitated at a cost of $8 million ($11.4 million in 2023). In 2014, the building was awarded $20,788 ($26,755 in 2023) through the Bringing Back Broadway initiative to accent its decorative roof eaves.

## Architecture and design

Victor Clothing Company is made of reinforced concrete with a brick facade, and was designed in the vernacular style with Beaux Arts elements in its massing and detailing. Specific designs in the building include:
* a flat roof surrounded by a parapet
* a base-anchored facade
* non-original large, plate glass windows inside thin metal frames
* a continuous white brick stringcourse that separates the base and the remaining facade
* a brown brick body that includes three bays of paired wood-framed windows with white brick windowsills
* an ornamental ironwork fire escape affixed to the central bay
* an overhanging cornice punctuated by four corbels that correspond to the divisions of the three bays.
The building faces west, and its north and south exterior walls are covered with large murals, while the west and east exteriors are not. The building's original sign and clock remain in place.
The condition and integrity of the building is considered good.

## In popular culture

This building is featured in the Enlightened episode 'All I Ever Wanted.'