51�Թ�

Hope is a rare commodity on the struggling and hardened streets of downtown Los Angeles, and since 1910, Third Church of Christ, Scientist has extended this promise to passersby without interruption.

The church was built in 1924 as the Second Church of Christ Scientist.

Dunham’s buildings for Church of Christ, Scientist congregations in Portland, Victoria and Seattle borrow from formal Greco-Roman classicism with a vocabulary of decorative capitals and pilasters and the extensive use of terra cotta, combined with a wealth of leaded and colored glass.

Instead of that grand vision, the First Church of Christ, Scientist, built in 1905, has tumbled into apparent abandonment by its owner, an affiliate of Z&L Properties, which is based in China but has a Bay Area office in Foster City.

Operating out of the former home to the Fourth Church of Christ, Scientist on Eighth Avenue and Seneca Street on First Hill, Town Hall opened to the public on March 17, 1999, as a music performance venue and community center.