First new blog post in years!
 

Hello all.

I know I haven't been very active on this thread lately. I left L.A. seven years ago, and California four years after that. I'm now in Eugene Oregon.

At long last, I am publishing another blog post concerning the old New Macy Street School building still standing near Union Station. This was in draft status for about five years, and I have a few others I plan to finish writing and release in the near future. After that we'll see. I don't have the same access to LAPL that I used to. And while I used to have access to the L.A. Times archive through my alumni association, that doesn't seem to be available anymore, either.

This Is Probably The Oldest Intact School Building In L.A.

Seriously?

No activity in nearly a whole day?

I suppose it had to wind down some day.

:previous:

Excellent new blog, Those Who Squirm. Congratulations! :) You put a lot of work into it.

It took me awhile because I was busy looking for information on the wooden Macy Street School. . .

. . .like where the wood came from to build it. . .(see below)

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/0X2fgJ.jpg
USC

. . .implying that the wood came from the east coast of the United States, right?



And here's the earliest photograph of the wooden Macy St. School I could find.


"Sisters School on Macy Street, ca.1876"

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/XGNEDk.jpg
USC


So were all the wooden buildings in early L.A. built from imported timber because the indigenous trees in Southern California were too scraggly?

I'm looking at you odinthor.
.

:previous:

Hmmmmmm e_r . . . Off the top of my head, I think the problem was that they couldn't depend on obtaining the amount they needed locally. Chapman (the ex-pirate) brought timber down from the local mountains for the beams of the Plaza church, and its pews; and I believe he did the same for whatever wood the mill be helped build at San Gabriel needed; and maybe for the ship he helped build too. But my guess is that the difficulty of obtention, and the uncertainty of the quality of the lumber obtained, made getting the lumber from elsewhere the more prudent choice for big projects, even if it took longer to arrive. Even the famous wooden flagpole for the U.S. Hotel on Main St. was brought down--or indeed floated down, if memory serves--from hmmmmm Oregon I believe.

Ships began moving wood to San Francisco in the 1840s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_lumber_trade) but the trade doesn't seem to have made it down as far as Los Angeles until the 1880s (per a quick scan of Newspapers.com).

Sailing around Point Conception with a deckload of lumber in 1856 was not for the faint of heart (https://yankeebarbareno.com/2014/02/...rn-california/) so bringing a wooden building around the Cape Horn in a large ship actually made sense.

Cheers,

Earl

Edit: Correction per JScott's posting, thanks.

The movie capital has long needed a fitting museum of the film industry. It may not be perfect, but it is very good, and will get better. The gold half cylinder deco entry is a classic. However, the facade of the rest of the building looks a bit industrial, especially the windows, and the color is bland. These can be improved eventually. The attached "death star" theater is an instant landmark. Best of all, the deco May Co. was preserved and repurposed. I would give the project an "A-" at least. I agree with the critic that more attention needs to be paid to the people of Hollywood, especially the big stars and people behind the camera, arranged in historical order. Maybe a "Hall of Fame" series of plaques and some interactive video screens and exhibits. More is needed, going beyond the stars on the sidewalk on Hollywood Blvd. Hollywood is its people. I haven't visited yet, so if some of this has been done, great.

However, I don't care for the new art museum design. A "C-" at best. I could have done a better design myself. And the money saved could have been used to purchase more art.

There were no towns or ports anywhere in Humboldt County prior to 1850, at least none built by people of European descent, and no redwood lumber was shipped out of Humboldt Bay until 1855.

I do believe some of the timber used during the early era was locally cut in the San Gabriel Mountains, where conifers are abundant in spots above 3500-4,000 feet in the front range. Of course lugging this timber down to the flatlands would have been a chore, given the lack of roads beyond primitive trails. Like you say, much could have come down from the north on ships, at least after 1870. I don't know if the oak trees or other trees in the lowlands were used much for building, since they tended to be on the small side in most cases, and oak wood is hard and not uniform in texture like conifers tend to be.

The eucalyptus planting boom in the 1880s and after was intended to obtain a local source of timber, but alas, euc wood turned out to be mostly unsuitable for building purposes, or even for RR track ties, since it tended to warp and crack, and was hard to cut. But the eucs made excellent windbreaks and acceptable park and landscape trees tolerant of our dry summers, so they stayed.

Hello all, first time poster, long time lurker.

I was wondering if anyone might be able to help me track down any images of the building that used to stand at 5657 Melrose Ave. Up until the early 90's it was a Greek restaurant called the Grandia Room, before that it was the Melrose Tavern, and was plenty of other things before that. It has quite a storied history in LA punk and hiphop and I'd like to see as many shots as I can of it.

It was torn down in about 2010.

Here's what I've been able to find so far:

https://i.imgur.com/kpWUjeX.jpg

Mid 1990's
CaseNet

https://tessa.lapl.org/utils/ajaxhel...XT=&DMROTATE=0
Early 1980's
Gary Leonard - LAPL

And a variety of shots on Street View of course. I've tried the Getty/Ruscha collection but I'm either reading all the streets wrong or he missed this particular block.

Any help would be much appreciated - thank you!

Thanks for answering my question so thoroughly, odinthor. ...I appreciate it. :)



Here is the ex-pirate, Joseph John Chapman with his wife, Maria Guadalupe Ortega.. c.1847

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/5eT8is.jpg


He built one of the first ships in California, a schooner that he named after his wife.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...924/thwOWH.jpg

"Chapman didn’t just build the mill and the dam, he helped frame all the other new buildings, and even the famous Indian-crewed schooner, the “Guadelupe,” out of San Pedro, the perfect coasting-vessel to market their produce."

valleyvillage








And, if I remember correctly, his relatives built the Chapman Park Hotel and Chapman Court. ..(correct me if I am wrong)



Speaking of which. . . . .

there's a renovation of Chapman Court that I wasn't aware of..

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/rkDhkj.jpg
chapmancourtoffices



https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...924/zj0lFk.jpg
chapmancourtoffices

I like this. . .alot.
.

.
How about a mystery location.


"1930s PANORAMIC VIEW ORIG PHOTO LOS ANGELES 7-UP SODA PLANT & -FLEET of TRUCKS"

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/Wj3wrN.jpg
eBay





Here's the same photo cropped and a bit more clear. (unless my eyes are playing tricks on me)

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/cI9gU1.jpg
eBay





And a few 'closer looks'

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/GQx6jL.jpg
detail









https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/pgewdv.jpg

Note that it says 'Los Angeles' below the 7Up logo on the car.




The reverse.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...924/g19OGU.jpg



.

.
Here's another mystery location for tonight.


George & Margie's Slauson Ave. Cafe

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...922/4UtGv5.jpg
eBay


I'm going to go out on a limb and say the cafe is somewhere on Slauson Ave. ;)


.

Start here and click "next object" seven times for Ed Ruscha's shots of the Grandia Room in 1975 -

https://www.getty.edu/research/colle.../object/1023G8


https://i.imgur.com/VaGPUIY.jpg
getty.edu




Could not find a picture so I tinkered with this sign permit sketch from 1963 when it was the Melrose Cavern.

https://i.imgur.com/FunpcEL.jpg
ladbsdoc.lacity.org

:)

Thank you - I knew I was looking at that Ruscha page incorrectly!

And you would indeed be correct, ER. There seems to have been a café at 726 W Slauson since at least the mid-'30s, at least into the early '70s. George and Margie Condon were the props.


This seems to be the building--the vintage image taken toward the west side of the building, looking east on Slauson. Note the windows of the brick warehouse east across the street--round opening over one of the arched windows....


https://i.postimg.cc/3xcNmv3s/slauso...25x587-bmp.jpg


https://i.postimg.cc/0QpyTX7v/slauso...25x587-bmp.jpg

GSV let me into the parking lot...

https://i.postimg.cc/L8jnncSc/slauson3-1026x586-bmp.jpg
GSVx3

A "5" in the address...

According to the CDs, the Seven Up Bottling Company of Los Angeles was at 5101 S Alameda Street from 1938 until at least 1987. There's just an empty lot there today. The building records have a demo permit for a warehouse at that address dated this day (10/13) in 1998.

Wikipedia says that the original formula for 7-Up was developed in 1929, although the original name of "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda" isn't that catchy. It was known as 7-Up by 1936, which fits with the large liveried fleet of cars a year or two later.

Good afternoon. I have reviewed almost the entire history of your posts in this forum about Los Angeles and am very surprised at how much work you have done. I do part of a similar activity, but my hobby is that I search for real-life locations from a video game about the events of 1992, but this game was developed in 2003-2004, when it was photographing city buildings to create textures to recreate the recognizable cities of time, among which there is also Los Angeles. I have already managed to find many sources and addresses, mainly using Google Street View, but there are those that I have been looking for for a long time but cannot find.

Can you please tell me if I can get help identifying some buildings or images of architectural details? If so, what should I do better? Can I create a separate thread on the forum or can I show the material here?

I found only interior photos

Dez Cadena checking out the Minutemen at the Grandia Room, 1982
https://i.postimg.cc/vH7R2w1K/Screenshot-13.png
JORDAN SCHWARTZ - buzzfeed

The Minutemen, Grandia Room, Hollywood, CA, 1982
https://i.postimg.cc/qvQP0cxX/Screenshot-14.png
JORDAN SCHWARTZ - buzzfeed

San Andreas? :)