General Cinema / AMC Beverly Connection 6

100 N. La Cienega Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90048 | map | 

Opened: June 6, 1990 by General Cinema. The Beverly Connection shopping center was on the east side of La Cienega between 3rd and Beverly. It's across the street from the Beverly Center. Thanks to Scott Neff for sharing his September 1997 photo on the Cinema Tour page about the theatre.

Architects: unknown. The shopping center had opened in January 1989.  

Seating: 2,000 in six auditoria on two levels. 

Projection: Three theatres were 70mm equipped, using Cinemeccanica Victoria 8 projectors. Those three had THX certification. The three 35mm-only houses had Victoria 5s.  

Thanks to Scott Weinfeld for sharing this opening day ad. 

 

The full GCC ad opening day. 

 AMC took over the operation in the spring of 2002 following the General Cinema bankruptcy. 

 

Thanks to Adam Adam Martin for sharing this May 2003 photo on the Cinema Tour page about the theatre.

Closed: AMC closed it in the summer of 2004. The competition was intense with Pacific's Grove nearby. Jerry Mahoney mourned the closing in "Good Grove/Bad Grove: BevCon Edition," his August 2004 story for LAist: 

"This week's installment of Good Grove/Bad Grove was going to focus on the impact the Grove shopping complex at Fairfax and Third has had on other local businesses, and as it turns out, our timing couldn't be more apt. As anyone who attempted to see the exclusive L.A. engagement of 'She Hate Me' this week (anyone?) discovered this past Sunday, the struggling AMC Beverly Connection cinemas breathed their last breath and, without any warning, closed their doors.

"Okay, so it's not like they bulldozed Mann's Chinese or anything, but a theater doesn't have to be historic for its demise to symbolize something sad. As corporate mall-based multiplex franchises go, the BevCon 6 was always a welcome respite from the crowds of Century City or the toenail-sized theaters at the Beverly Center. Before we got spoiled on stadium seating and Disney-fied outdoor plazas, the BevCon was the place to see new releases. But since the Grove opened in March 2002, the significance and prestige of the Connection's movie theater has plummeted rapidly. 

No longer boasting the nicest theaters in the Beverly Hills/WeHo area, they found themselves unable to compete for first-run engagements, and their marquee began to look more and more like a hotel pay-per-view schedule. (Spike Lee fans weren't the only people disappointed this week; so was anyone who waited two months to see 'White Chicks.') And now, like the enormous, showpiece retail space where Bookstar once stood, the AMC Beverly Connection cinemas will stand vacant, and the BevCon itself will be even more of a ghost town. But don't laugh too hard, Grove. 

"The BevCon was the Grove of its day, and its day was not long ago. Before you know it, maybe a mere twenty years from now, while you're still paying off your mortgage on the trolley line, there will be an even cooler shopping mecca in town. It'll hover in space one mile over the city, somewhere around Crescent Heights and Melrose. We'll park our floating cars in their fifty-story garage and see 'Spider-Man 12' in their eighty-screen multiplex. And somewhere, in that new mall's Banana Republic, a little boy will be heard to say, 'Daddy, what's the Grove?' At that moment, maybe you'll understand why we're sad to watch the Beverly Connection dying before our eyes. On some level, one mall devouring another may be poetic justice, but it's also one more representation of the Bad Grove."

Status: The lower level of the complex was demolished and rebuilt as a loading dock area facing onto Beverly. The upper level was rebuilt as a Home Goods store. It's now part of Target.  The demo work was done around 2007. 

 

Level 1 in 2026

 

Level 2 in 2026 

 

 More street views: 

2003 - The theatre was under AMC management at the time of this photo Adam Martin took in May. Thanks to Adam for sharing it on the Cinema Tour page about the theatre. It also makes an uncredited appearance in a post on the blog It Rains...You Get Wet.

 

2004 - A post-closing view that appeared with "Good Grove/Bad Grove: BevCon Edition," Jerry Mahoney's August 2004 story for LAist. 

 

 

c.2025 - Looking south from Beverly and La Cienega. It's a photo from a Loopnet listing.  

 

 

c.2025 - Looking north with 3rs St. across the bottom of the image. It's a photo from Loopnet.   

 

2026 - Looking west on 3rd toward La Cienega. Photo: Bill Counter 

 

2026 - The 3rd St. garage entrance. Photo: Bill Counter 

 

2026 - The southwest corner of the development. Photo: Bill Counter  

 

2026 - North on La Cienega from 3rd St. Photo: Bill Counter 

 

2026 - Middle of the block. Photo: Bill Counter 

 

2026 - The La Cienega garage entrance. Photo: Bill Counter 

 

2026 - South on La Cienega. Photo: Bill Counter  

 

2026 - The former Rexall store at Beverly and La Cienega. Photo: Bill Counter  

 

Vintage views at Beverly and La Cienega:

1930s - Looking north on La Cienega toward Beverly. Thanks to mystery writer J.H. Graham for including this photo as well as another view from the Los Angeles Public Library collection with "The Oil Well on La Cienega," a post on her website. She notes that this well had been pumping since 1907. 

 

 

c.1940 - An Ansel Adams photo in the Los Angeles Public Library collection. Also see a 1937 photo in the collection. They have many La Cienega shots. The well was capped and the derrick removed in 1946. 

 

1946 - An item announcing the project that was to include offices for Rexall as well as the "World's Largest Drugstore." Thanks to mystery writer J.H. Graham for including it in her 2017 article "The World's Largest Drug Store." She notes that it appeared in Life on August 5, 1946. Alison Martino also included it in a 2019 post on her Vintage Los Angeles Facebook page. 

 

 

1947 - A four page article in the October issue of Architectural Record. Thanks to Alison Martino for sharing it in a 2025 post on her Vintage Los Angeles Facebook page. She comments: 

"Here’s an old article announcing the new Rexall Drugs opening at Beverly Blvd and La Cienega in 1947. Look how gorgeous and HUGE it was back then. Great content for historical perspective. It features rare photos of the Fountain Room. And look at the surrounding areas in the first photo. You can see Beverly Park on the right. And what looks like to be a drive-in or a gas station on the north west corner. Article says…'this building is primarily an office building, housing headquarters of the Rexall firm, but nevertheless much of its space is devoted to a sort of test store for company products, and as such must depend virtually entirely on automobile traffic -something almost unheard of for a drug store.'"

 

 

1947 - This wider version of the aerial shot that leads the AR article was included by J.H. Graham in her article "The World's Largest Drug Store." Beverly Center would rise decades later on that lot in the lower right. Here it's Beverly Park, aka Kiddieland. 

 

A version of the shot from Marc Wanamaker's Bison Archives appears with "How Celebrity News Empire TMZ ('Thirty Mile Zone') Got Its Name," Michelle McPhee's 2025 article for Los Angeles Magazine. She notes: 

 

"The thirty-mile zone radiated from the offices of the AMPTP, which moved into the Rexall drug building at 8480 Beverly Blvd. (at La Cienega) in 1949, when the org was known as the Association of Motion Picture Producers."

 

1947 - A larger version of one of the photos that appeared with the Architectural Record article. Thanks to Alison Martino for locating it.  

 

1947 - Another Life shot that was located by Alison. 

 

c.1948 - A postcard view of the new building. This one was on eBay.  

 

 

c.1950 - Thanks to mystery writer J.H. Graham for including this photo in her 2017 article "The World's Largest Drug Store." 

 

c.1950 - J..H. Graham also includes this detail from the previous photo in her 2017 article. Alison Martino shared it in a 2019 post on her Vintage Los Angeles Facebook page. She commented: 

"The sleek, huge, ultramodern drugstore with its curved facade opened in the fall of 1947. It WAS one of the most the glamorous pharmacies in the world including Art Deco cosmetic displays, a food counter, a separate liquor and cigar section, and wooden phone booths. In April 1952, Marilyn Monroe shot photos here for Life Magazine. The structure was also double the size back in the day. It was referred to by residents as the 'big giant drug store.' It was also the best place to find funky items and gifts and old show biz encounters was an every day occurrence. Tragically, all the original features were removed when CVS took over. Now it looks like any other drug store across America."

 

1952 - A Life Magazine photo of Marilyn. Thanks to Alison Martino for locating it for her 2019 post about the Rexall store on the Vintage Los Angeles Facebook page.

 

1950s - J.H. Graham includes this photo in her article "The World's Largest Drug Store." Alison Martino shared it in a 2019 post on on her Vintage Los Angeles Facebook page.  It was back again in a 2022 post. This image also appears with "Owl Rexall Drugs," Alison's 2023 article for her Martino's Time Machine blog.  

 

1970s - Thanks to Alison for sharing this photo in a 2025 Vintage Los Angeles post.  She comments: 

"La Cienega looking north towards Beverly Blvd. in the 1970s. That’s Rexall Drugs on the right when it was called Dart Square. The block on the left is where the Beverly Center is now. It was an amusement park called Beverly Park, aka Kiddieland. But there were also several stores up and down this street such as Standard Shoes and Victory Furniture."

More information: See the Cinema Treasures page about the Beverly Connection. The Cinema Tour page has eight photos from Scott Neff and Adam Martin. There's a website for the Beverly Connection shopping center.

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