noirish Los Angeles

[rick m]

Originally Posted by FredH

1957 - Looking east on 1st Street, through the intersection at Olive Street. The Gladden Hotel entrance fronts Olive Street.
Olive Court to the right has been cleared; the Moore Cliff building can be seen behind the trees undergoing demolition.


http://cdm16003.contentdm.oclc.org/c...id/6257/rec/60


http://cdm16003.contentdm.oclc.org/c...id/6257/rec/60

This shot besides showing the Moore Cliff in demolition (address 121 S.Hill) also has rear of El Moro Hotel (address 109 S Hill) in view to immediate right side of the Gladden. So it was razed following the Moore Cliff. They both had similarly boulder assembled many tiered stairways up to their lofty entrances - the largest portion left on the hillside after the 2 demolitions were on the El Moro site.

[bighen]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

www.westadams-normandie.com

I wish we could see the blade sign at far right better. It does say Blue Bird Laundry.

Here is a photo of BlueBird Laundry taken in 1925. It was located on the NE corner of Crenshaw Blvd and Exposition Blvd. I remember the building but not the signs from the 1960's. The area is now a church.



Source: Los Angeles Public Library

Another photo looking south on Crenshaw Blvd from Jefferson Blvd from 1935:





Source: USC

[Retired_in_Texas]

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

Sometimes though I wonder how long it will be before the pendulum swings back and the younger professionals in the district get older and wonder where the outdoors went.

Interesting musing that easily raises the same question about every aging city in the country with a more than aging central business districts and nearby housing areas. From personal observation and feeling I would somewhat liken today's "urbanists" to not being too unlike sewer rats that never see the light of day. They, like the rats will have adapted to the environment they are in and will remain until something forces them out. I view them as a throw back to the thinking of the horse and buggy days where the idea of being able to sustain life to a level acceptable to them is based on work place access and access to some level of shopping on foot and/or via public transportation. The Urbanist types are running headlong into the problem of major retailers and food retailers have chosen to leave and will certainly not be returning as the population density necessary for generating a profit will likely never return. They are also running headlong into no schools for their children, schools that will be impossible to economically build. Eventually most of the employers will be gone as they come to realize employees commuting from suburbs into a central business area is no longer beneficial in this day of advanced communications and very efficient movement of goods to less congested areas. The cost of doing business in old central business districts has become excessive due to lost man hours, taxes, and insurance. New buildings in old central business districts do not fix the problems.

Just as the Freeways and Interstate Highways made it possible for people to commute and materials to enter and exit the old central business districts, they are ultimately the same vehicle that is resulting in the resurrection of many of the small communities they laid waste to sixty years ago. I would point out that many of L.A.'s distribution warehouses are now located far from the old central business district where there is easy access to I-10, I-15, and I-5. The same general trend can be found around every older city in the country, and is not likely to change.

Of course L.A has a unique factor shared only with San Francisco and that is it being 99% certain that within the next 30 years there will be a major Earthquake that may well challenge all the foundation fixes and improvements that have been done since the last Earthquake.

[Sonny☼LA]

For all you Allah fans out there, the Dorothy Parker Society LA will be hosting a little visit to the WeHo home of the current curator of the Garden of Allah scale model.

RSVP by today for the 4pm Saturday event!

http://lavatransforms.org/allahvisit

[ethereal_reality]

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

GSV

Can't help but speculate that the wooden Western Market might still stand under stucco. The massing is the same.... It also appears that the building to its left may be the same--note the horizontal detailing; and behind it from the corner perspective in the then and the now shots there seems to be another survivor. If anyone is driving by the corner of Western and 36th, perhaps you'll stop by and check out the interior of the market for clews (as the papers used to spell it).

Good find GW! The building looked like it was ready to fall down back in the 1920s, so I didn't even bother to check and see if it was still there.

Interesting photograph of the Blue Bird Laundry showing the blade sign bighen. -thanks for posting it.

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[ethereal_reality]

the location today


If this is the same building it appears to have lost the second floor (barely seen on the postcard)
...as well as the arched doorway, partially hidden behind the utility pole in the vintage pc.
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Thanks for deciphering that Patterns Maker banner prophetM.

[Flyingwedge]

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

Great series of Bunker Hill shots, FredH--perhaps one of the most important gathering of photos ever on NLA. Thanks for posting, and don't stop until you can't find any more.

Those color shots are from the Conner Palmer collection at the Huntington Digital Library. You can view the collection as it currently stands here: http://cdm16003.contentdm.oclc.org/c...onn/and/page/1

It might be interesting to see some of these color photos matched with older photos of the same homes/buildings when they were new.

[ethereal_reality]

ebay




same view today

GSV

The Million Dollar Theater looks so much farther away in this contemporary google-street-view.
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[HossC]

Originally Posted by bighen

Here is a photo of BlueBird Laundry taken in 1925. It was located on the NE corner of Crenshaw Blvd and Exposition Blvd. I remember the building but not the signs from the 1960's. The area is now a church.


Source: Los Angeles Public Library

LAPL date the picture above as circa 1925, but the City Directories still list the Blue Bird Laundry at 3600 S. Western Avenue as late as 1929.

e_r, you'll be pleased to know that as well as the blade sign, they also had a large roof sign (just visible in bighen's 1935 picture).


Detail of picture at USC Digital Library

Zooming out a little, we can see that Ralphs built a store nearly opposite the laundry. USC date this picture at 1940, but I found a KCET article which says the Ralphs store opened on April 25th, 1942.


Detail of picture at USC Digital Library

This better picture of Ralphs was originally posted by sopas ej way back in post #304 (NB. the original image is now missing).


sopas ej/USC Digital Library

Going back to the picture of Ralphs and the Blue Bird Laundry, very few of the buildings survive. The Central Ice & Cold Storage Company at 3500 W 36th is long gone ...


Detail of picture at USC Digital Library

... but some of the houses on S. Bronson are still there. The one on the corner (behind the Packaged Ice sign in the picture above) is probably the most interesting. It looks to be intact, but in need of some paint.



Both from GSV

Finally, here's the full USC picture that the details above were taken from.


USC Digital Library

[ethereal_reality]

Excellent research HossC. It's always a good day when a roof-top sign is rediscovered.
I really like that house on S. Bronson, I hope someone eventually fixes it up.
Did you notice the rather unique wishing well? I've never seen one designed quite like that.
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[ethereal_reality]

Imageshack is having technical difficulties today (per their website). -Sorry for the inconvenience.
My recent photographs have been disappearing and reappearing all afternoon.
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It's fixed! 6:30pm

[oldstuff]

Originally Posted by HossC

There have been several posts over the last couple of days about all the buildings that have been demolished to make way for something "newer" and "better". I thought that might be the cue for this story with a surprise happy ending (sorry for the spoiler!).

The first picture below is from a season 4 episode of CHiPs called 'Karate', which originally aired in 1981. Ponch and Jon are pursuing a suspect in Ponch's own car when they're pulled over by an LAPD motorcycle cop outside this faded gem of a building.


Rosner Television/MGM Television

Using background buildings and the route they took, I managed to work out that it once stood on West 15th, just west of Figueroa, but the area was subsequently cleared to make way for the Convention Center Annex. Checking the City Directories, I found a listing in the 1969 edition which named it as the Otsego Apartments at 633 W 15th. That led me to a 1967 William Reagh picture on the LAPL website. Then, when I saw that the California State Library also has some William Reagh photos, I was able to find a larger version of the same picture. The cars outside appear to be an Avanti and a Peugeot 404 convertible.


California State Library

There was also a side view that LAPL don't seem to have.


California State Library

The LAPL's caption describes it as "A Victorian residence on 12th St. near Figueroa, now an apartment building, the Otsego Apartments." If anyone's in the business of emailing corrections to the right places, maybe you could tell the LAPL it was on West 15th (their reference is LAPL00017612).

My post was originally going to end here, because I assumed the building was demolished to make way for the Convention Center. Then I spotted the picture below while I was looking for info on the John Parkinson house moving that GW mentioned recently. The caption names the building as the Edward Strong mansion.


LA Times/Larry Davis

The LA Times article below, dated May 12, 1989, says: "After nearly 11 months of frantic efforts, the once-stately Edward Strong mansion, a reminder of downtown Los Angeles' Victorian past, was towed away from its site of 102 years on West 15th Street, where it stood in the way of a $390-million expansion of the Convention Center." They add that it "was declared a landmark in 1976 because of its unique Queen Anne architecture in the Caribbean style."

Mansion Moves Out Ahead of Wrecker's Ball

Best of all, the article names its destination as the 800 block of South Coronado Street, near MacArthur Park. That means we have a happy ending, because the house is still standing there today.


GSV

According to the 1900 Census, Edward Strong, his wife and various relatives lived at 635 W. Fifteenth. Edward was apparently a salesman, but the census does not say of what. He had a brother, who resided with him at that time, who was a physician.

[GaylordWilshire]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

www.westadams-normandie.com

I wish we could see the blade sign at far right better. It does say Blue Bird Laundry.

Times June 10, 1928

(Angeles Mesa Drive = continuation of Crenshaw)


The 3600 S Western Ave location was expanded the year before:

Times Sept 4, 1927


The 1939 CD lists these and locations at 4330½ and 5721 S Crenshaw and 4701 W Pico--none seems to have survived.

I guess you knew, ER, that the 3600 S Western plant was directly across the street from the Western Public Market...

[ethereal_reality]

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

I guess you knew, ER, that the 3600 S Western plant was directly across the street from the Western Public Market...

I didn't GW. -purely serendipitous.
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Surprise! It's still there and in business.

GSV




The tower must be especially nice at night...notice the special lighting.

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[HossC]

Originally Posted by oldstuff

According to the 1900 Census, Edward Strong, his wife and various relatives lived at 635 W. Fifteenth. Edward was apparently a salesman, but the census does not say of what. He had a brother, who resided with him at that time, who was a physician.

Thanks for the extra info, oldstuff. Edward A Strong is listed in the early City Directories which give his address as 637 W 15th, but there's no mention of him being a salesman. The 1926 CD lists him as proprietor of the Otsego Apartments (which are listed at 633 W 15th). Edward's wife, Mary A Strong, doesn't get included in the CDs until 1929. The last mention of the Strongs seems to be 1938.

After I made my original post, I found the Otsego Apartments in the middle of a downtown aerial that USC dates as circa 1970.


Detail of picture at USC Digital Library

[Tetsu]

Originally Posted by belmont bob

So I’m not sure if the very old buildings of Bunker Hill could have weathered long enough to where their value as a structure was as important as the value of the bare land. Having seen some of those places first-hand as a teenager, I’m not convinced that in their dilapidated state they could have survived. Perhaps if the hill had remained a viable residential area the buildings would have not deteriorated so fast.

You make a good point, and in fact, I have to agree (although I never saw the original BH with my own eyes, it was destroyed before my time). My only issue lies in the complete and total obliteration of the area. I've heard it said that part of why Downtown as a whole declined was because an entire neighborhood of people who came down from the hill to shop and work were uprooted. Wonder if there's any truth to that?

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

As for lamentations over the loss of Bunker Hill-- as has been pointed out on the thread before, the silver lining in the demolition may be what escaped the wrecking ball: the 1900s/10s/20s business district to its east. L.A. had long wanted to get rid of Bunker Hill because of the barrier it presented to westward expansion--the neglected wooden houses were easy to tear down, if the hill itself presented more of a problem. While I like many others fantasize about some sort of Victorian residential paradise in a preserved BH, we might then have lost what today is roaring back as an urbanist's dream--loft living. Sometimes though I wonder how long it will be before the pendulum swings back and the younger professionals in the district get older and wonder where the outdoors went.

I definitely see that silver lining. Maybe it wouldn't feel like such an unfortunate loss if the new Bunker Hill was a thriving, bustling community instead of, well...a concrete wasteland.

[ethereal_reality]

Imagine my surprise when I came across this today.



-he borrowed my title.

gsjansen was one of our top contributors in the early years of NLA.

Here's the link.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/3345511...7623814467768/
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[ethereal_reality]

Since we've been discussing the Blue Bird Laundry, I thought it would be a good time to post this photograph of a Valeteria Dry Cleaning Store.


ebay

I'm unfamiliar with the word 'Valeteria', but the seller of the photograph seems to think it was a chain store.
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[Krell58]

Does anyone have photos of the intersection of Court St. and Figueroa?

[CityBoyDoug]

Originally Posted by Tetsu

You make a good point, and in fact, I have to agree (although I never saw the original BH with my own eyes, it was destroyed before my time). My only issue lies in the complete and total obliteration of the area. I've heard it said that part of why Downtown as a whole declined was because an entire neighborhood of people who came down from the hill to shop and work were uprooted. Wonder if there's any truth to that?



I definitely see that silver lining. Maybe it wouldn't feel like such an unfortunate loss if the new Bunker Hill was a thriving, bustling community instead of, well...a concrete wasteland.

The new ''loft-livers'' might well become the new Bunker Hill....fifty years from now.

In the year 2060, downtown LA could become decayed, rundown and blighted beyond recognition.


Blade Runner ~ Warner Bros., 1982