See also https://wilshireboulevardhouses.blog...lease-see.html

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-K...terrev.bmp.jpgJulius Shulman/Getty

This would have been soon after opening in May 1951--that's a '51 Lincoln in the corner, along with some new Mercurys.

Sad day for Western Swing music....
 

Donnell Clyde Cooley(December 17, 1910 – November 23, 1969), better known as Spade Cooley, was an American Western swing musician, big band leader, actor, and television personality. His career ended in 1961 when he was arrested and convicted for the murder of his second wife, Ella Mae Evans. He was a long time resident of the Los Angeles area and was very popular on LA TV station, KTLA and Paramount Productions starting in 1948.

The mix of too much alcohol and jealously drove Spade way over the edge. After he had served eight years, the state of California agreed to parole him on February 22, 1969. In November 1969, he received 72-hour furlough to play a benefit concert for the Deputy Sheriffs Association of Alameda County at the Oakland Auditorium, now known as the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, in Oakland. After the performance, on November 23, Cooley suffered a fatal heart attack in the backstage area. He was only 58... a sad end to a very talented musician.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcmEj8LtdJI

another tune by Spade.

http://youtu.be/pgzeLlBjD6Q

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ps74e08e8e.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ps35ac0e0d.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ps065bc2a9.jpg
Images ~ private CD

4321 Magnolia Boulevard, Burbank CA
http://imageshack.us/a/img841/7044/a5yi.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7976130...pool-vintagela


Sands Cleaners offered delivery service to customers in Magnolia Park in the early 1950's. The Sands panel trucks and the Helm's Bakery trucks were seen all over Magnolia Park back then. Look at the opening scenes of Pushover (1954, with Fred MacMurray and Kim Novak) to see some beautiful shots of Magnolia Boulevard with the Vega, the Magnolia Theatre and more.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-6...2520PM.bmp.jpghttps://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-G...2520PM.bmp.jpg


It seems that Walter Leimert thought that with all the new bridges over the the LA River, people would start moving east of Main Street, evening out the westward population trend. Apparently after only a few years he gave up on that idea and opened Leimert Park to the southwest, providing a resting place of sorts for Our Lady of Noir. I knew Mr. Leimert was a major developer, but never knew his full story, which is well-told here:

http://www.kcet.org/socal/departures...mert-park.html

If anyone has time. Can someone look into the lot just south of the TWC tower in Downtown on Fig, between it and the Figueroa hotel and show me what was there before it was a parking lot? Really need to figure this out.

The Chemosphere House
 

I'll bet this is the first Noirish submission ever posted from Yangon, Myanmar! I've been an Asia travel freak for most of my life and come here at least once a year. On this trip my wife and I have done a little adventuring in Mon State in Southern Myanmar.

Normally L.A. architecture is the furthest thing from my mind on a trip like this but south of here, in city of Bago, I came across a magazine article that tied in with a little exploration I did in the Hollywood Hills last month. So I thought I'd break tradition and post from here.

I had long been curious to see the so called Chemosphere House at 7776 Torreyson Drive; off Mulholland just east of Laurel Canyon. It's been featured in lots of TV shows and films, but I remember it best from Brian De Palma's Body Double.

A few Sundays ago I rode my bike up to Torreyson Drive to have a look. Views of the house are largely blocked by trees, but below are are a couple of shots.

http://wwww.dkse.net/david/Chemosphere/DSCN2775.JPG


http://wwww.dkse.net/david/Chemosphere/DSCN2777.JPG


I was surprised by the small "pod" house on the lot, and wondered what the story was. My hotel in Bago had a January 2012 Vanity Fair that was lying around, and in it I was surprised to see a beautiful photo of this structure, which apparently is called a Futuro.

http://wwww.dkse.net/david/Chemosphe...hip-photo1.jpg
http://www.vanityfair.com/100-years-of-vanity-fair


The text states:

Designed by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen, the 500-square-foot Futuro House was introduced in 1968. These ovoids were intended for quick placement (some were simply transported via helicopter) as ski cabins of vacation saucers. A circular fireplace sat in the center of the living lounge. A small bathroom, bedroom, and kitchenette completed the futuristic floor plan. About a hundred were made; only 18 are known to survive in the U.S> today. This one, owned by Mark Hadday, designer and co-owner of Resurrection, the resale-fashion showroom, was purchased in 2009 at auction for $50,000. Haddawy has placed his restored fiberglass Futuro House precariously on a Hollywood hillside just above his own, John Lautner-designed masterpiece of a home, the 1956 Harpel House.


Here's more on the Chemosphere House from a Wikipedia article (which cites a different owner of the property):

The Chemosphere, designed by American architect John Lautner in 1960, is an innovative Modernist octagon house in Los Angeles, California. The building, which the Encyclopædia Britannica once called "the most modern home built in the world", is admired both for the ingenuity of its solution to the problem of the site and for its unique design.

The building stands on the San Fernando Valley side of the Hollywood Hills, just off of Mulholland Drive. It is a one story octagon with around 2200 square feet of living space. Most distinctively, the house is perched atop a 5-foot-wide concrete pole nearly thirty feet high. This innovative design was Lautner's solution to a site that, with a slope of 45 degrees, was thought to be practically unbuildable. Because of a concrete pedestal, almost 20 feet in diameter, buried under the earth and supporting the post, the house has survived earthquakes and heavy rains. The house is reached by a funicular. Chemosphere is bisected by a central, exposed brick wall with a fireplace, abutted by subdued seating, in the middle.

The lot had been given to a young aerospace engineer by his father-in-law; despite his own limited means, the engineer, Leonard Malin, was determined to live there. Malin had $30,000 to spare. The cost to build Chemosphere, $140,000, was subsidized partly by barter with two sponsoring companies, the Southern California Gas Company and the Chem Seal Corporation. Chem Seal provided the experimental coatings and resins to put the house together and inspired the name Chemosphere. (Lautner originally wanted to call the house Chapiteau.) In the end Malin paid $80,000 in cash. The Malins and their four children lived there until rising costs and the demise of the aerospace industry forced them to sell in 1972.
In 1976, the house's second owner, Dr. Richard Kuhn, was stabbed to death at his home in a robbery by two men, who were subsequently convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
By 1997, the interior had become run down; for over 10 years it had been rented out and used for parties and as a result the interior finishes had undergone major and anachronistic alteration.[1] Because of its unique design it proved to be a difficult sell and had sat on the market for most of its time as a rental property.

Since 2000, it has been the Los Angeles home of Benedikt Taschen, of the German publishing house Taschen, who has had the home restored; the only current issue with the home is the relatively high cost of maintenance. The recent restoration, by Escher GuneWardena Architecture, won an award from the Los Angeles Conservancy. Preservation architect Frank Escher wrote the first book on Lautner a few years after moving to Los Angeles in 1988, and oversees the John Lautner Archives. During restoration the architects added details that were unavailable 40 years before, as the technology simply did not exist. The gas company tile was replaced by random-cut slate, which could not be cut thin enough in 1960, despite Lautner's desire for such a finish. The architects also replaced the original thick framed windows with frameless glass. The owners commissioned a pastiche rug by German painter Albert Oehlen and a hanging lamp of bent plexiglass strips by Jorge Pardo, a Los Angeles artist.

The Taschen family planned to commission Rem Koolhaas to build a large new guesthouse at the base of Chemosphere on the site once owned by Leonard Malin's in-laws. The new house was intended to hold an art collection and library and to provide rooms enough for the four children the Taschens have between them. The plans were later cancelled due to fears the annex would visually compete with the main house. During the first few years the Taschens lived there, the house became locally famous for their parties, where photographer Bill Claxton and his model wife Peggy Moffett would carouse with porn stars, jazz musicians and director Billy Wilder.

Before closing, I thought I'd post a photo of the interesting old building that I see from the window of my hotel room. This is the former Rangoon railway station, now in disuse. If you ignore the temple-like details around the windows (and lack of earthquake retrofit plates), it could almost pass for a 19th century L.A. building, don't you think? But Rangoon and L.A. have little in common except for palm trees, though this place has fewer, and tales of intrigue, which have abounded here for many decades. (Many make our L.A. stories seem like Disney fables by comparison!)

http://wwww.dkse.net/david/Old.Rangoon.RR.Stn.jpg

The most recent building to occupy that parking lot seems to have been the InnTowne Hotel at 913 South Figueroa. It's still there on the March 2006 aerial, but gone by October 2007.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...AInnTowne1.jpg
Google Earth

Ground level shots are hard to find. This was the best I came up with in my quick search:

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...AInnTowne2.jpg
cuboidal.org

If you want to go further back, the picture below was posted by BifRayRock in post #9393, and shows a church on the corner of 9th in 1941. I'm sure one of the other members can identify the church in seconds.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3254/3...45a8f1b4_o.jpg
USC Digital Library (original link broken, and I couldn't relocate the picture)

3940dxer, thanks for your story and research. This kind of researched and legendary makes LA way more interesting than any current plastic fake 'megaproject' that's under construction.

GW, the photograph you posted of the recently discussed bank in Long Beach answered a question for me.

I had wondered what this metal bracket was. (below)
Well now I know from looking at your photo, it's a sign for a dentist on the second floor.
http://imageshack.us/a/img580/8966/fovf.jpg



Westcork
"When I think of Long Beach, I think of the 1933 earthquake. I wonder if this building suffered damage and was remodeled in 1934?"

I think there's a good chance that you're correct Westcork. One thing is almost for certain, the ornamental 'urns' on the roof-line would have been the first elements to come crashing down onto the sidewalk below.
__

Welcome to the thread Apollodorus!
That's a wonderful soundtrack (Benny Carter and his Orchestra Malibu) with some intriguing images.
There are several images of a pool under construction. At first glance I thought it was Marion Davies' pool,
but in several of the photos it looks like it's situated in the shadow of Palos Verdes.

http://imageshack.us/a/img708/3722/6qgd.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img822/7191/k8vf.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img823/8227/w26l.jpg

Does anyone know where this is?
__

May I use this if I ever decide to write a pulp novel? ;)
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that is the Palos Verdes peninsula, Malaga Cove, and Haggerty's, a well known SO CAL surfing spot. Rat Beach there in the back ground.

http://www.surfline.com//travel/surf...s/cad_hags.jpg
Torrance beach/Haggerty's http://mobile.surfline.com/m_travel.cfm?id=4910

http://oursouthbay.com/core/includes...jpg&w=627&q=85
Rat Beach Photograph by Jeff Berting http://oursouthbay.com/Summer-2013/RAT-Beach

Palos Verdes Beach and Athletic Club:

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...alosVerdes.jpg
Google Maps

Thanks HossC & ralph60. -pleasant surprise that it's still there...and still in business!
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slide/found on ebay
http://imageshack.us/a/img703/9917/m40s.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img841/5236/4evb.jpg

Nice, lots of triangles...white triangle in the logo and triangles holding up the canopy, as well stylized Ts on the ends of the florescent lights.
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-very brave of Mayor Shaw to sport that mustache in 1936.

http://imageshack.us/a/img42/7159/f29l.jpg
ebay

I don't know what's worse, Shaw's mustache or Aimee's spit-curls.
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:previous:


MS could have been courting the Chaplin-O.Hardy block of voters. Don't know much about toothbrush mustache popularity, but it probably went into infamy overdrive by '41.


Once source reports 3 days of mourning and 7000 visitors.
http://173.196.26.171/virgal/extra/images/00034788.jpg http://173.196.26.171/virgal/extra/images/00034788.jpg

First and Hill - related.

Undated panorama, Street Car gone wild. (Biggest version I could locate.)
http://173.196.26.171/virgal/extra/images/00034811.jpghttp://173.196.26.171/virgal/extra/images/00034811.jpg

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/6138/sloa.jpg


The picture actually looks older than 1941, but here's a streetcar accident at First and Hill in 1941--

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-_...2520AM.bmp.jpgLAT June 13, 1941

:previous:

gsjansen originally posted that picture with some details of the crash back in post #2502.