Columbia Square

Architecture and dedication

Columbia Square opened April 30, 1938, with a full day of special broadcasts culminating in the star-studded evening special, "A Salute to Columbia Square" featuring Bob Hope, Al Jolson and Cecil B. DeMille. Crowds thronged Sunset Boulevard and a blimp bathed in searchlights hovered overhead as the program was carried coast-to-coast on the Columbia Broadcasting System, beamed to Europe via short wave, and carried across Canada on the CBC. On that premiere broadcast, Hope joked that Columbia Square looked like "the Taj Mahal with a permanent wave." Jolson quipped, "It looks like Flash Gordon's bathroom."