There are several No Parking signs in this street scene as well.
Here the signs are square as opposed to the diamonds in the above photo.

http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/4...locationjo.jpg
BrerHair on j_journal


There was no date or location provided with this photo. Anyone?

Three parking lots over the years. No dates or locations were given.


http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/182...urnalbrerh.jpg
BrerHair j_journal








http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/7...tsjjournal.jpg
BrerHair j_journal






http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/3...sjjournal2.jpg
BrerHair j_journal


After looking at this photo more closely, I believe it is the same parking lot as seen in photo #2.
You can tell by the 2 story Security First National Bank building far left.

:previous:
Those last two photos are of Wilshire and Grand downtown. It's clear in these shots where buildings were knocked down to extend Wilshire east of MacArthur Park. For decades there were just parking lots after the extension. And of course this section of Wilshire was never the prestigious section of Wilshire.

Thanks for the explanation sopas_ej. :) I appreciate it.




below: USC caption "Looking north on Hill Street from 2nd Street, ca. 1932"
The 4 story building in the center of the photo is the Moore Cliff Apartments.

http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/7...northonhil.jpg
usc digital archive

Can anyone tell me what the sign in the middle of Hill Street is? It looks as if lanterns are hanging on each side of the sign.
Perhaps it's nothing more than "Open Manhole".

Also notice the man on crutches getting ready to board the approaching streetcar.



below: Here is another photo of the Moore Cliff from LAPL.

http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/8...shillstlap.jpg
lapl

This has a very San Francisco look to it.

No idea the date but couldn't you just see Phillip Marlowe walking up to these guys and asking them if they had seen a missing girl or something similar? Great noir shot!:banana:

My guess is this one was in 1946 as the campaign sign says re-elect Earl Warren and he was re-elected the first time in 1946. He actually won third term in 1950 but the cars look too old for that.

Thanks for your input kanhawk.....much appreciated.

When I was a teenager in the 1970s the pace of recent change was so fast that we didn't have a lot of buildings left that were 90 years old, let alone a century old. Now, though, one of the most encouraging signs is that the architectural fabric isn't being changed at nearly the same pace. As a result, we can now point to a great many pre-war buildings which now remain in active use, or have been repurposed, like the old financial district. And it isn't just downtown, but the same is true in many smaller commercial centers--Santa Monica, Sawtelle, Culver City, and Palms to name a few

For better or worse, the great pulling force which contributed to the rotting away of much of Downtown--exerted by cheap houses in nearby suburbs--has vanished.

this image is from 1945, looking westerly from the long gone intersection of bellevue and n. spring street towards the intersection of broadway and sunset boulevard. that's the northern side of fort moore hill in the distance. bellevue avenue was a one block street at this time located between sunset bouelavard to the south, and macy street to the north.

here's a then and now

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4098/...c3df71eb_b.jpg

note the orange building. the only structure that still survives in both images.

here's a then and now of the intersection of broadway and sunset looking south, that puts it into good perspective. the image you posted E_R was looking at this spot, taken from a vantage point at a right angle to the left

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4080/...291567cd_b.jpg

it is somewhat astonishing, that the Colima Restaurant building is the only structure in almost all of downtown that is not considered historical in nature, somehow still survives

this an image looking south from the intersection of n. spring and bellevue. pico house is in the distance. the buildings on the left are the spring street side of the sentous block which was located at 617 . main street.

http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics09/00014324.jpg
Source: LAPL http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics09/00014324.jpg

Ah OK, I thought that area looked strangely familiar, from previous posts and comments.

this 1948 image is of the block of buildings being demolished on bellevue between n. spring and broadway. the sidewalk overhang for these buildings is visible in the image posted by E_R. Fort moore hill is visible on the left side for location reference

http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/ima...caleFactor=1.2
Source: UCLA Digital Collections http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/ima...caleFactor=1.2


another image that i had seen previously but didn't know quite where it was until i did research on the lugo house and old chinatown.

this looking across los angeles street from in front of the garnier building, (the portion that will be demolished to make way for the 101 freeway), looking towards calle de los negros between aliso street and ferguson alley. the image is dated 1949. the billboard that i had posted earlier that proclaimed chinatown was here to stay is on the right

http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/ima...caleFactor=1.2
Source: UCLA Digital Collections http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/ima...caleFactor=1.2

northwest corner of 5th and grand 1927. the building that has the baronne sign on top is our old friend the engstrum. the edison building, (or if you prefer, one bunker hill), will be sitting exactly where the parking lot is

gsjansen...thanks so much for clarifying the photos.

I searched and searched for more information on the Baronne and came up with nothing. It hadn't occurred to me that it was the Engstrum.

a really cool 1943 photograph of people on top of the old courthouse retaining wall along spring street to view a parade honoring Madame Chiang Kai-Shek's visit to Los Angeles.

http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics41/00055473.jpg
Source: LAPL http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics41/00055473.jpg

Many surface parking lots. If you look at the Plaza neighborhood in Google Earth, you'll see that the dark asphalt of Lots 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 covers most of the area. When I first became interested in this topic around 1978, there were still several turn-of-the-last-century structures in the block where the old Plaza Church is, unlike today when nearly all that space is a huge parking lot except for the Church itself, and the Brunswig Drug building.

Most people don't seem to know that a considerable remnant of Old Chinatown persisted until about 1950, wedged between Alameda and the Plaza. There was a villain in this piece and her name was Christine Sterling. Because of her "success" in transforming Olvera Street into a faux "Mexico-Land", with the backing of the L.A. Times she became a sort of dictator of the Plaza preservation efforts. In effect she decreed that the Lugo House and everything else in those blocks--the old buildings and the businesses and lodgings they contained--were eyesores and had to go. Moreover, she specifically wanted the Plaza area to preserve--as it were--the Hispanic heritage of the neighborhood only, and allowing Old Chinatown to remain adjacent to the Plaza itself would have detracted from that. As we all know, "China Land" had already been prepared for the Chinese.* This is why today, instead of several blocks of historic buildings east of the Plaza, we now have the aforesaid parking lot, plus a bit of landscaping that serves only to emphasize the rush of auto traffic on Alameda and the row upon row of parked cars on either side of Alameda.

ETA: I don't mean to be critical of the desire to preserve and celebrate the city's Latino/a heritage, which is how my statement above might have come off. In and of itself that's a worthy goal. However, before the neighborhood was wrecked, the Plaza was where several ethnic neighborhoods converged, and it was actively used by all of them--Japanese in Little Tokyo, Chinese on the eastern edge, and Hispanics (mostly Mexicans) to the west and north. There was even an Italian section to the north, about whose only traces now are the remains of Little Joe's Restaurant and St. Peter's Church, which is still active and still offers Mass in Italian, last I checked.


*See for eample: William D. Estrada. The Los Angeles Plaza: Sacred And Contested Space.. University of Texas Press, 2008. p242ff

a great color image of the amestoy building taken from city hall. i don't believe i have ever seen a color photograph of this building before!

http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics19/00019077.jpg
Source: LAPL http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics19/00019077.jpg

Thanks for bringing up the old Brew 102 plant. I attended UC San Diego between 1975 and 1980, and used to come up to L.A. on Amtrak (only three round trips a day back then). On the way to the train station to go back to SD, I always noticed the big BREW 102 sign from the off ramp. I had no idea the plant was as old as it was until years later.

GSJansen....

Amazing! Your knowledge is encyclopedic. And your ability to take street scenes from different eras and link them.....remarkable.

BTW - Anyone notice that brick paving in the WB First @ Grand/1931 shot that Ethereal posted!

Hey Triton!

I went to Revelle from '72-'77, so we were at UCSD at roughly the same time.

-Scott