Late one night I delivered some heavy 35mm film cans to the MGM gate after we had a movie preview at the Pasadena theater where I worked. This was 1962 and it was a long drive home after that trip.
That was in my first car and being a teenager, I felt like an adult. I was amazed they trusted me with the cans of raw film.

The name of the movie was never announced before the Previews. It was all a surprise for the audience. The studio chiefs and a few ''stars'' would attend
the previews to gauge public reaction. Many months later the edited film would be released.

A few times the ''preview'' film was never seen again.....ever. But the public was always hoping to sneak-preview the next "Gone With The Wind".

Broadway Central Building/Judson C. Rives Building
 

Hi, I just wanted to introduce myself. I'm new to this forum, and I'm currently getting acquainted by poring over this thread from top to bottom. It's engrossing and consistently amazing. I spend a lot of time browsing around the USC Digital Library, the LAPL Photo Collection, Historical Society, etc. But never have I seen such a well curated selection with such passionate and informative input from all of you!

So thank you! What treasures...

I don't want to show up empty handed, so to offer something that is hopefully new here (I searched for previous posts but came up empty): I'm a resident of "The Judson," one of those adaptive-reuse loft developments in Historic Core, Downtown Los Angeles. It's in the former Broadway Central Building, later known as the Judson C. Rives Building (a name perhaps familiar to folks on this thread).

The lovely structure--the tallest on the block--sits on Broadway between 4th and 5th, across the street from the old Broadway Department Store, and a block south of the Bradbury. It was built in 1906-07. I'm still studying its history, but I have a few terrific old photos of the place that I think would fit nicely in this thread. The first is from 1906, still under construction. Looking north on Broadway toward 4th. It's the tall building in the center of the shot:

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3784/...6f092de1_h.jpg

http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/re...coll65/id/1694

The next is from 1928, looking south on Broadway from 4th. It's the tall building on the left:

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/478/1...63eb8006_h.jpg

http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/re...coll65/id/1801

The retail space on the ground floor is still occupied by a shoe store today! The Broadway Theatre was also located in this structure, and you can see its sign here. (The theatre space is no longer there, although what appear to be elements of the lobby remain inside our entryway).

Finally, a Dick Whittington view of the bustling intersection of 5th and Broadway from 1939, with the Judson C. Rives Building in the top center:

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/287/1...ea10ba4a_b.jpg

http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/re...ll170/id/20477

All images are from the USC Digital Library's collections.

Anyway, just wanted to share these photos and say hello. Hope you enjoy them! And thanks again for the terrific thread.

More Centinela Adobe
 

I think the Centinela Adobe just got lucky with its narrow miss from the 405.

Here's part of a 1932 photo looking west over Inglewood. I've labeled the east-west streets; the 3-story building just above "Florence" at the NE
corner of Florence and Inglewood Avenues is still standing. The Centinela Adobe is hidden by trees near the upper left corner, but the tree-lined
driveway leading to it is reasonably clear. You can see a bit of meandering Centinela Creek east of the adobe. In the lower right corner, "Jct" marks a
fork in a railroad line. If you look closely, you can see half of a train on the southern fork, which went to Redondo Beach, and the other half east of the
junction. The northern fork was built to get to Port Ballona, a would-be harbor that was not completed:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...f.jpg~original
USCDL -- http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/re...coll65/id/3709

This 1888 Los Angeles County Map clearly shows the rail lines (dashed lines) and junction. At first I thought the line to Redondo was built first, but upon
further review I think the line to Port Ballona was the first to open. I'm sure there are plenty of folks here who know the story better than I do:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...8.jpg~original
Library of Congress -- http://www.loc.gov/resource/g4363l.la000023/

In this NE-facing photo taken September 12, 1949, the group of trees near the upper right corner marks the location of the Centinela Adobe. The major
intersection in the lower right corner is La Tijera Blvd. (runs upper left to lower right) and Manchester Avenue:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...s.jpg~original
USCDL -- http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/re...coll65/id/2795

In this north-facing c. 1950 photo, emerging from bottom center are Aviation Blvd. and the railroad line from Redondo Beach. The rail line curves at
Manchester Avenue (see the curve on the 1888 map above) and runs along the north side of Florence Avenue. The Centinela Adobe is marked by the
largest clump of trees visible, just to the right of center and above the rail line. Some of the trees lining the driveway to the adobe are still there:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...t.jpg~original
USCDL -- http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/re...oll65/id/12364

P.S. Welcome BCB and thanks for your interesting post!

Welcome....
 

Hello broadwy_central_bldg. Most interesting that you actually live in the Central Core of downtown Los Angeles.

The building at the far right in your posted photo is the Chester Williams Building. I know it well as my father had his law office in that building for 30 years.

Maybe if you have the inclination we'd like to see a post from you about what its like to live in your building and the area. How are the markets, parking, restaurants and other factors of a life downtown.

Welcome to this thread. Its amazing to me how much people on this thread know about Los Angeles. Its encyclopedic and then some.

A decade earlier, Nov. '29, and further west . . . Norton Avenue meets Fairfax Avenue. Intersection is now hardly recognizable.



http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0


http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/co.../id/544/rec/54








http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0





http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0







http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0







http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0

Supplemental to the edited :previous: Fairfax Ave images, is this (relatively) undated (< '38) aerial of the above area. http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/si...d/21793/rec/68 It appears that the barely improved property may have included a golf driving range, a baseball diamond (or two), and an enclosed field or possibly even a rodeo venue. Never been a fan of parking lots but I think I prefer the functional MayCo lot to the big rock.:shrug:











http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0









http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0








http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0

Another look at neighborhoods deftly carved by the 101 and 110 Freeways.
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/si...d/3425/rec/158



Source dates image circa '50-'59.
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/utils/...XT=&DMROTATE=0

Molly Malone's / the Broadway Central building (the Judson)
 

I'm pretty sure the Molly Malone building is a Nordstrom and Anderson effort from 1929. They had a nice line in the Churrigueresque style, as did Stiles O. Clements for a time. In the 30s, Nordstrom and Anderson segued into Streamline Moderne, as in their Sontag Drug building on the Miracle Mile.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-6...04804%2BAM.jpg
gsv


_________________________________________________


Thank you BCB. That shot, together with a gsv,
makes a great 'then and now'

One City Hall:
....and then another City Hall:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-o...10455%2BAM.jpg
gsv

The Broadway Theater at the Broadway Central Building, 1925-1988. This view is from 1954:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-L...12422%2BAM.jpg
Sean Ault Archives by Osiris Press via historiclosangelestheaters

I would be happy to!

That building now houses the Walgreen's where I go to buy milk :) They did a nice job of restoring the facade. Very cool that you have memories of it before it became lofts!

http://i0.wp.com/brighamyen.com/wp-c...size=495%2C330
http://brighamyen.com/2014/02/03/wil...y-downtown-la/

I personally love living on this stretch of Broadway. It's a little rough in parts, especially at night (we are just a couple of blocks from Skid Row). But it feels like the absolute center of downtown. Within just one block of my apartment are: Pershing Square, Grand Central Market, the Bradbury Building, the Broadway-Spring Arcade Building, the Continental Building, the Title Guarantee Building (1930), the OLD Title Guarantee Building (1912), Hotel Clark, J.J. Newberry's (now Fallas Parades)...too many more to list! And that's literally just within one block.

Living down here at the moment feels a little bit like...Soho NYC in the 80s? Still a lot of run-down storefronts, dark old theater marquees, and homelessness. But it seems like every week there's a new shop, cafe, or renovated theater opening (just last night we walked past the re-opening of the Globe Theatre a few blocks away). The other residents here are a mix of students, young professionals, artistic types, musicians and so on. I think we all tend to feel a little like "urban explorers" or maybe a little like the frontiersmen who were drawn to Los Angeles at the turn of the last century. You can just tell that downtown is in period of tremendous growth, and it's exciting to be part of that.

Due to the renaissance of the past few years, this part of downtown offers some tremendous conveniences. We have easy access to nearly all the Metro train lines. From Union Station, and to all points beyond... I do have a car, but I try as much as possible not to drive it. For those visiting downtown, you might be surprised to know that (depending on the time of day) street parking is actually relatively easy to find.

We do daily produce shopping at Grand Central Market, which I understand has been a fixture of this neighborhood for nearly 100 years. Chinatown and Little Tokyo are also short walks away, always nice for lunch or dinner. Our other favorite haunt is Cole's P.E. Buffet in the old Pacific Electric Terminal. It's been gussied up, but it still has a Victorian charm that is very "Old Los Angeles." Of course, the Plaza, Olvera Street, Union Station... more lovely spots to take a walk. I also love trekking up Bunker Hill, mostly because, outside of normal 9-5 work hours, it's a total ghost town-- a surprisingly tranquil place to escape the bustle of the city and take in some spectacular views too.

Living here, almost everything we need is within walking distance, or at least a short subway trip away. It's almost like actually living in a proper big city ;)

I'll be happy to post more photos or whatever people are interested in. I'll leave you with a great shot of Grand Central Market, a place I visit almost daily. Does anyone know in which part of the market this stall/counter was? It looks like Belcampo Meat Co. to me, but I have no idea.
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3796/...4ae0e040_b.jpg

http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/re...ll170/id/43203

Sure does! I think later I'll try to do a Then and Now series of Broadway with some old photos and postcards. It's kind of amazing how some of the views have barely changed.

Thank you for this photo! I haven't seen it (at least not blown up)... did not know there was a music shop here too! I love it. Here's a GSV because why not:

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/474/2...5eb9e3d9_b.jpg

via GSV

:previous:

Welcome BCB.
___



Since you brought this up in your recent post from this original post:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=24590

...I thought I'd tell you that I was in Eat Well recently, formerly Chapman's, and casually
asked if they had known what the location had previously been. One person vaguely knew
and I mentioned these photos you'd posted and they were all very interested and gave me
their info to send them the details. They talked about putting one or more of them on the
wall, so thank you, Godzilla!

Although we won't find the location in the photo below, although one never knows
with some of the sleuths we have on this forum, if one wants to know what Culver
City looked like in the past, you could do no better than to watch the Our Gang
shorts. While I was looking at the Culver City photos yesterday for the M-G-M posts,
I saw this one of Our Gang, only referenced as filming "in the residential backyards
of Culver City", dated "1930's" and naming only Jackie Cooper (right) as one of the
actors.

I decided to find out all I could about it.

http://www.culvercityhistoricalsocie...930sMedium.jpg

Bottom line: what I found out.

--The people in the photo, left to right, are:
Art Lloyd, the cameraman (you can see his name on the clapboard he's holding), Mary Ann Jackson, Miss Laurel Peralta, Allen "Farina" Hoskins, Bobby "Wheezer" Hutchins, Norman "Chubby" Chaney, Jackie Cooper and...Pete the Pup.

--They were filming short #96 titled "The First Seven Years", which was basically about two boys competing
for the attention of the same girl--Jackie, another boy not shown (Donald "Speck" Hines) and Mary Ann.

--It was only the 8th "talkie" that was made.

--It was released in theaters March 1, 1930.

--What interested me in the photo was the word SPANISH on the clapboard. What did that mean?
Obviously, silent films could change the title cards to whatever language they wished for foreign
distribution. Not so with sound films and the studios were worried about losing their export trade.
Miss Laurel Peralta was a spanish teacher and coach. This is a quote from a Leonard Maltin site:
"Even more remarkable is the fact that these kids repeated their roles in foreign language versions
of the same short, learning to speak the Spanish, French, and German dialogue phonetically!
Sound shorts also added a 20% increment to production costs and faced with the loss of revenue
from foreign markets, Hal Roach and other producers solved the problem temporarily by hiring
language tutors (like Miss Peralta) to coach their stars through as many as four separate foreign
editions of each film. Highly impractical today, the idea made sense at the time, since Hal Roach
comedies weren't talkfests, and signage with phonetic dialogue could be placed out of camera
range to prompt the stars. Each scene was shot first in English, and then immediately afterward
in French, Spanish, German and sometimes Italian. This was an impressive feat for adult performers
like Laurel & Hardy, but for the children of Our Gang who were still learning to read and write in
English, it is nothing less than astounding."


--In Spanish, this short was titled "Los Pequenos Papas." I don't know about you, but I'd kind of like
to see one of these shorts in their different language versions. Since they actually filmed the scenes
over, there has to be some differences in each of them.

--It's also noted that foreign actors often replaced many of the incidental roles in these films,
because they could speak the language and also could carry the expository dialogue if necessary,
though I don't know how that would save costs if you had additional actors for 4-5 different versions
of the films.

Pretty incredible nonetheless.

The Broadway Theater/Broadway Central Building/Judson
 

Here BCB, I think this makes a full set of Broadway Theater marquees:

1928:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-v...15834%2BPM.jpg
uscdl first posted by BCB on this page (detail)

1954:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-R...20038%2BPM.jpg
Sean Ault Archives by Osiris Press via historiclosangelestheaters (detail)

1980s:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-O...14519%2BPM.jpg
americanclassicimages (detail)



And that's a nice (skinny) lobby there at the Judson. I like it:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-0...15346%2BPM.jpg
yelp

Martin_Pal, I had no idea they shot "Our Gang" shorts in various languages. Those kids were certainly earning their money weren't they.

Thanks for the additional information on (and photographs of) the "Centinela Adobe" tovanger2, HossC[/B] and Flyingwedge. -much appreciated.
__
And welcome to the thread Broadway_Central_Bldg.! I really enjoyed the photographs you posted.

I'd like to see a photograph of the Judson Loft entryway that you mentioned still has elements of the old theater lobby.
We're always curious here on NLA. ;)

*I see that t2 just posted an interesting photograph of the lobby.

Broadway Central Building / The Judson
 

It looks like the building entrance lobby has always been on the left. The Broadway theater was, as I understand it, completely contained in the what-was-built-as retail space at the right, where Alvarado Clothing is now. The theater is gone without trace.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-B...30902%2BPM.jpg
gsv

Yep, that's it! I suspect you are right, tovangar2. But it's these doors in our lobby that interest me:

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3742/...a93d736e_b.jpg

They are sealed up now. I have no idea, but it seems possible they may have once opened to the Broadway's lobby. Or maybe they're just decoration added by developers later. What do you guys think?

Thanks for the welcome, and thanks to tovangar2 for the additional photos of the Broadway!

I'm happy to take more photos of the building or the surrounding area; really I don't mind shooting any easily accessible sites in the downtown/historic core area. Not sure if there are any other DLTA residents on this thread, but it does seem like there's a lot of interest in downtown buildings, and sometimes Street View can only get you so far... plus, things are changing around here so quickly!

:previous:
It looks as if the doors opened into the central retail space. If that was originally a drugstore or a small cafe, it would have benefited both the office building and the business to have a connecting door. Many DTLA lobbies had similar arrangements. But, over time, as tenants changed, the access may have no longer made sense and so the doors were closed off.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Every time I get out of the elevators I want to slip through those doors! Makes me wish there were still a cafe on the other side... Thanks for the input!

"Butterfly Girls" Los Angeles Calif. 1921

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/128...911/rAGFZO.jpg
eBay

Los Angeles Ambassador Hotel

info/reverse
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640...661/caVga4.jpg

Broadway Central Building / The Judson
 

:previous:

Those little girls do not look like they're having fun.
1921 was the year the Ambassador opened.


_____________________________________________________


Here's the 1924 permit allowing the larger, right-hand retail space (addressed No. 428) to be turned into the Broadway Theater:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-W...33928%2BPM.jpg
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-f...33947%2BPM.jpg
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-W...34040%2BPM.jpg
ladbs online building records

There are a lot of permits for your building BCB and for its retail spaces, starting with the one to demolish a two-story brick building on the site. The 2/27/1907 permit names C.R. Aldrich as the architect.