Built at the corner of Sixth and Spring Streets in downtown Los Angeles, Hotel Hayward opened in 1906 and was one of the California city’s earliest high rises, its location a stone’s throw from the city’s growing business district. In 1926, the property was expanded with the opening of an adjacent 14-storey tower.

An advertisement held by Los Angeles Public Library, urging people to ‘Get the Hayward Habit,’ and become regular guests, reveals that the hotel had a cocktail bar, a stag bar ( men-only), a barber shop, a beauty salon, a travel bureau, private dining rooms, conference rooms and a’ Rhythm Room’ where live music was played.

It was, according to the advertisement, only ten minutes from the ‘new Union Station’ that opened in 1939.

A single room cost from $2 a day, up to a two-room suite with bath for $6 a day.’Ladies, as well as men, have made this hotel their permanent home for many years because of the comforts and spirit of friendliness which predominates. There are 550 choice rooms with service second-to-none,’ notes the advertisement.

This 1964 menu cover for the hotel's Hayward Grill that would have been located on the ground floor features a quote from the Irish novelist, poet and literary critic James Joyce.

Regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the twentieth century, it paraphrases the quote in Joyce’s masterpiece of modernist literature Ulysses: ‘God made food; the Devil the cooks.’

Published in 1922, chronicling a single day in the life of Leopold Bloom in Dublin and using stream-of-consciousness and rich, experimental prose, the saying references the duality of food.

It is necessary as sustenance and is a gift from God/nature, but when it is cooked, food can also be a source of temptation and gluttony, traits associated with the Devil.

No doubt the chefs in the kitchen of the Hayward Grill had a good laugh at that...

The Hayward was converted into apartment residences and is now one of the city’s affordable housing projects.