Downtown's elaborately-decorated Millennium Biltmore Hotel (née the Biltmore Hotel) turned 90 yesterday, and with its marble walls and crystal chandeliers and fabulous Art Deco pool, it's still just about as classy as ever (its surroundings, less so). The tri-towered hotel was designed by Schultze & Weaver, who went on to design the nearby Jonathan Club and Subway Terminal Building; it was built in 1923 for about $10 million and has hosted the Oscars nine times, the first in 1931 (and it's where members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences came up with the idea for the awards show in 1927); the 1960 Democratic National Convention nominated John F. Kennedy at the hotel; and the Beatles stayed there in 1964, on their first trip to the US. It's also the last place Black Dahlia Elizabeth Short was seen, in 1947, shortly before she was found murdered in Leimert Park. If you haven't been, please go wander around (the LA Conservancy has tours every Sunday!), or at the very least watch it in Chinatown, Ghostbusters, Mad Men, National Treasure, or one of the many many other movies and TV shows it's played in. And scan through this gallery of the hotel getting up to hijinks through the ages.
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