This article is a personal narrative written by FM Amy Parker about the Los Angeles County Hall of Records, and the County Archives. It is designed as an investigative piece, and may be updated as time goes on with more information.
LOS ANGELES, California. (OIC) A few months ago, I took a personal trip to Downtown Los Angeles to visit County government buildings. I didn’t think much would come of my visits, and in most cases, nothing did. But one building was surrounded in mystery: the Hall of Records. From what I had researched, it was supposed to be this massive building – eight stories above ground, and three below – that was designed to store all the vital records for County agencies. I decided to venture toward it, with a goal in mind: to find intra-office and inter-office correspondence between County government agencies during April and May 1992, the time of the Rodney King protests.
As I walked into the building, I was immediately confronted by a security guard, who demanded to know why I was there. He was the only one on the floor, and from what I could tell, one of the few people in the building at all. I explained what I was looking for, and he immediately directed me to the “archives”, which were on the underground floors. Despite me later learning access was available from inside the building, I was forced out into feces-laden steps next to Grand Park. A small elevator kiosk was present, and I started riding down the floors.
I first went to the first sub-level, where I discovered the presence of absolutely nothing. Nothing was there on the third level. I checked the second level, which did have a sign past the fire doors, but I decided to check the third floor – which was much the same as the first. Returning to the second floor, I was greeted with two directions: go left, with no indication as to what was there, or go right, to court records. I’d later learn that the court records section, which required either an appointment or long paperwork and an identification card, was the only true source of records in the building.
Venturing left, my paths continued to split. Importantly, I found two tunnels immediately: one leading to the criminal division of the Los Angeles Superior Court, and the other leading to the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration. Neither of these had signs indicating that it was impermissible to travel through them; however, they were very decrepit and run-down, clearly unmaintained. Going the other way into another division of the building, I was supposedly re-entering the Hall, but there was nothing there. Continuing down, I found a tunnel connecting to the civil court, and yet more tunnelways. Past some internal maintenance offices and a concerning switchboard, and I found only exitways.
I went around to the other side, and found a small tunnel leading to some county recordskeeping offices. This included the County Assessor. Unfortunately, they had seemed long abandoned; no one was using them as real offices.
Eventually, I had to leave Los Angeles for the day. Recently, however, I came back in order to fully understand what was going on in the Hall.
When I returned, the security guard pointed me to the internal elevators. I was only to go down, as nothing was available above. It dumped me right back at the exits, although this time I found a (long-abandoned) LASD incident reporting station. This time, however, there were many more employees present. None of them had county identification badges, or gave any indication as to what they were doing. I went into the court records area, which had only two staffers: one at the desk, and a security guard. I was given access to the computers, which lacked any real records, and eventually told I needed to resurface to try and find any records. Continuing through, I just kept finding more and more tunnels and other pathways, without any clear end destination.
When I resurfaced, the security guard finally admitted to me the truth: there were no records. The only records were the court records, and all the vital records were in Norwalk. So what about the other county agencies? Well, as it turns out, there isn’t any central archive. The whole point of the Hall of Records was to be a central archive – and it isn’t one.
So what about the huge building? It’s all been turned into office spaces, even the areas formerly designated specifically for holding records. A random assortment of county agencies have offices there, such as the Mental Health Division and the District Attorney’s office. The building is in no way actually for records.
And that’s the real truth of the Hall of Records. What is supposed to be a beacon of transparency and a symbol for public access to knowledge is nothing but another downtown office building, and a lie to the public.