The Tamale Could Soon be no More

Tucked in between two nondescript buildings on Whittier Blvd. in East Los Angeles is a building known as The Tamale because it was built to look like one. It is one of the rapidly disappearing pieces of Programmatic Architecture. Whittier Blvd was once lined with buildings shaped like oil cans and air planes but they are long gone leaving just the old tamale
The Tamale was built in the 1920's to house a restaurant that served you guessed it tamales. The building right now houses a hair salon but still looks like a tamale. Because the tamale is in an unincorporated section of Los Angeles it is not covered by the architectural preservation laws now in force. The building and a separate building containing a two bedroom house on the property is up for sale and unfortunately is what is known in LA as a tear down. Unless some ponies up the $459,000 needed to save the building The Tamale could be no more. It will have gone the way of the "Tail o' the Pup" and "The Brown Derby".