Editor’s note: Given limited travel opportunities these days, I decided each Thursday to post travel stories I’d written prior to starting this blog. The following is from a short trip I made into downtown LA before the Corona pandemic. I hope you might vicariously enjoy this trip while we’re all hunkering down at home.

Editor’s other note: Special prize to the first reader who identifies the reference in this blog’s title.

Today I headed into downtown Los Angeles to find a historic theater. But this story requires a little background:

My Dad used to watch a lot of TV (although the line between “watching” and “napping” was somewhat blurred). After Warriors basketball and the Solid Gold dancers, dad’s favorite television fare centered on a cranky, white-haired televangelist with a penchant for quirky headgear. Dr. Gene Scott began broadcasting from southern California in 1975. Unlike the better-known televangelists of the era, such as Oral Roberts and Jerry Falwell, Scott wasn’t slick or even particularly adroit as a preacher. He could be profane, often smoked a cigar while he talked to his TV “congregation,” and could wait out television viewers during a fund drive with interminable pauses and endless repetitions of a single clip of a barbershop quartet singing a white man’s spiritual. His nightly programs usually contained some meditations on a biblical passage, but much of the program was filled with Scott’s meandering musings about his clothes, postage stamps, or, eventually, his battles with the FCC and the IRS.

Gene Scott used to broadcast from the historic (1927) United Artists’ theater building in downtown Los Angeles. He used the building’s auditorium to conduct worship services that were shown on TV stations across the country.

So this was my destination for today’s trip. I saddled up the Speedmaster and made my way to LA’s so-called fashion district. For the uninitiated, the fashion district isn’t really that fashionable. Here are a couple of the more respectable structures in the area:

Eventually I found the UA building on a gentrifying stretch of Broadway. After almost 100 years, it’s still looking good:

United Artists was founded in 1919 by D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and Mary Pickford. The four veterans from the silent era were reacting to efforts by Hollywood producers and distributors to tighten their grip on moviemaking. So they formed UA as a way to retain control over their own films. In 1927 they constructed this 13-storey building with a grand movie theater taking up the bottom three floors. Supposedly it was Mary Pickford’s love of Spanish castles that influenced the design.

United Artists underwent many changes over the years, including an odd period in the early 2000s involving Tom Cruise. But the building has been a constant presence in downtown LA. The theater was capable to accommodating over around 1,600 moviegoers, and played host to many UA premiers and red-carpet events in its day.

Of course, as movie palaces became less popular in the television era, the United Artists’ theater was leased for other uses. And then in 1989, Gene Scott began using it to conduct his televised worship services. Scott eventually bought the whole building and restored much of its opulence from the Golden Age of movies. After Scott’s death in 2005 his widow sold the building to a boutique hotel chain. It’s now known as the Ace Hotel, although the theater continues to operate as an entertainment venue.

One interesting feature from the Gene Scott era is a historic “Jesus Saves” neon sign that he had placed on the back of the building. I can’t speak to whether Jesus is directly responsible, but I’m glad that this landmark has been Saved.