Navy and Marine Corps Reserve Center

The WPA put this up between 1938 and 1941, an Art Deco drill hall designed by Robert Clements and Associates. The state register calls it the largest enclosed structure without walls in the world, which is an awkward way of saying the drill floor carries no interior supports. More than 100,000 sailors have been inducted, trained, or separated here since the Second World War, and film crews have borrowed the room for decades to stand in for somewhere else. It is the second-oldest Navy reserve center in the country.

What the plaque says

Designed as the largest enclosed structure without columns in the world by noted California architects Robert Clements & Associates, this Art Deco building, constructed between 1938 and 1941 by the WPA, is the largest and second-oldest Navy Reserve Center in the United States. It has served as the induction, separation, and training center for more than 100,000 sailors since World War II, as well as the filming site for countless motion pictures and television shows.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Colorado Street Bridge — 7.0 mi
  Beaux-Arts concrete arches curving 150 feet above the Arroyo Seco, opened in 1913 and later a link in Route 66.
• Mission San Gabriel Arcangel — 8.0 mi
  The fourth Alta California mission, built on Tongva land with Tongva labor, rebuilt after arson and now telling that story straight.
• Santa Monica Pier — 15 mi
  Where the Mother Road runs out of continent, and where the End of the Trail sign gives the drive somewhere to finish.

More markers nearby

• First Jewish Site in Los Angeles — steps away
• Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles — 0.9 mi
• Avila Adobe — 0.9 mi
• Los Angeles Plaza — 0.9 mi