That looks like the Society of the Sons of the Revolution building at 437 S Hope Street. MichaelRyerson's full post can be found here.

:previous: You're right HossC. thanks!

Santa Monica oceanfront with 1957 era liter.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/661/4ZQ7Cj.jpg
eBay
__

A tiny detail of history.

Los Angeles Railway uniform button, 7/8" across.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/673/hKXegl.jpg
eBay




-here's the reverse
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/673/rhgUaz.jpg
__

HossC...excellent post on the Overdorff's fraudulent talent school.

I saw the picture above on eBay earlier, and before I got too far with my research, I found that e_r had beaten me to it by over a year! The original post also includes the back of the photo and a link to a short video showing the aftermath. The store in the center is (was) Caro & Upright, a wholesale drapery business at 219 E 8th Street.

Here's an interior view of the fifth floor showing the damage where the explosion occurred. The caption for this photo suggests some kind of bomb plot, so I decided to look for more information.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...1.jpg~original
eBay

The clipping below is from the Department of City Planning's 2008 recommendation that the Garment Capitol Building should get Historic Cultural Monument status. Click the link below the clipping to see the full 36 page document - it says the 12-story Gothic Revival building was designed by William Douglas Lee and completed in 1926. William Douglas Lee also designed the El Royale Apartments (see post #6084). Despite some union unrest a few months earlier, the explosion was actually the result of a spark from a burglar alarm igniting a gas leak.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...ntCapitol2.jpg
cityplanning.lacity.org (PDF file)

According to Wikipedia, the Garment Capitol Building was added to the List of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments on July 29, 2008, and to the National Register of Historic Places on March 8, 2010. I was going to say "here's the Garment Capitol Building today", but all the recent GSV images show it shrouded in scaffolding, so this one is from April 2014.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...ntCapitol3.jpg
GSV

Gone
 

836 S. Ardmore

http://i.imgur.com/EaqPmwH.jpg
LAT 11/8/32

No T-shirts.....
 

That large brick and sandstone building in ER's photo is the Jonathon Club. If you ever visit the club, here is a list of items not to wear:

What is Inappropriate Attire?

• Denim, jeans, shorts or cargo pants
• T-shirts, tank tops, men’s sleeveless shirts
• Sweats (including warm-ups and jogging suits in all fabrics), leggings
• Frayed, bleached, soiled or torn clothing
• Clothing that exposes undergarments and bare midriffs, is excessively revealing or which might be considered offensive
• Visors, formal and casual hats (except for women’s dress hats, which are allowed)
• Men’s sandals, clogs or open-toe shoes
• Rubber flip-flops, athletic shoes (including running or tennis shoes and sneakers)

I wear most all of the items listed. I presume that a Speedo is not allowed in the pool. I guess that I'm not welcome. :D:D:D

Whoa- I was intrigued enough this afternoon to amble down Santee-to see what the state of progress on this renovation would be-- And all scaffolding has been removed- do somebody revisit soon- I did not know of the name of this structure- The Downtown News seems to be studiously ignoring it (and about 3 others) in their ongoing development articles--

Borman "kidnapping"
 

In reply to HossC's request for more information on the Borman kidnapping:

http://i.imgur.com/zjkdkNg.jpg
LAT

LAT articles from 12/17/31 and 10/28/32 provide many noir details, including the baby being forcibly taken from her mother right after birth by Mrs. Buchanan, a financial motive for Mrs. Buchanan to have a legal heir, as well as another picture:

http://i.imgur.com/8bo0gSR.jpg
LAT

The LA Times of April 13, 1934, described Violet as a "wealthy heiress" who, a judge decided, did not owe her ex-husband Arthur $33,800 despite having co-signed a promissory note with her mother in 1930, "more than a year before the Buchanans were divorced." The article failed to mention that the mother, Mrs. Josefa Bandini Douslin, had died in 1931.

I perked up at the mention of a Bandini. Josefa was indeed a local, a granddaughter of Don Juan Bandini. Her first husband was a wealthy Englishman named Clevendon Thomas; their daughter, Edith Violet Antonia was born in 1902. On Clevendon Thomas's death, Josefa and Violet inherited 100,000 pounds. Josefa then married a Mr. Douslin. Immigration records show that Violet Clevedon Thomas was born in France in 1902 and naturalized in 1927; she had married her chauffeur (!) Arthur Buchanan in 1925. Their brief marriage resulted in no children, and Clevendon Thomas's will stipulated that for Violet to get his money, she must have produced a blood heir. How Violet and Ruth met is not disclosed, but the Times says that Ruth as a 17-year old foster child in Michigan "encountered a great tragedy in her life," and hitchhiked to California "to spare her foster-parents from shame."

A family tree from Ancestry.com has a Ruth Helen Borman born in Iowa 2/22/12, and married to a Donald Alden Allison in Los Angeles in June, 1929.

Ancestry.com also provides a photo of Ruth, which I am willing to say is the same person as in the Times photos:

http://i.imgur.com/gaVLHq4.jpg

Ruth Borman died on 8/30/44 in San Bernardino. She was only 32. Donald Alden Allison, on the other hand, was 84 when he died in 1992. Of Nancy Irene, I have found nothing, and I am prepared to leave it that way.

:previous: Excellent research Lorendoc.
__

BREAKING!! Apartment Complex Fire
 

The huge apartment complex that was being built near the stub of Mignonette St. and that has been discussed here previously, is currently burning down. Original address of the fire was 909 West Temple.

Here is a link to the story from the Times.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/l...208-story.html

:previous:

I'm sure there will be plenty of daylight shots in the coming hours, but here's one of the LA Times pictures.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...emontFire1.jpg
LA Times

This is roughly the same angle showing how far the building had progressed in September.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...emontFire2.jpg
GSV

Check out post #12415 by kznyc2k for several views of the area before the construction of the apartments began.


-----------


Thanks for the great follow-up on the Buchanan kidnapping story, Lorendoc. You tied up several loose ends and found the house!

All the censuses where Mr Skeele appears have his middle initial as "F"

Samuel Calvert Foy was born in Washington D.C. in September of 1830. He came to Los Angeles prior to June 1860 where he appears in the 1860 Census as being in the saddlery business with an older brother, John Foy. He and his wife Lucinda appear in the 1880 Census in Los Angeles with their five children. Their residence at that time was 489 Pearl Street, (later Figueroa) Los Angeles. Mr. Foy appears in that census as being a harness maker. An 1894 directory shows the family at 651 S. Pearl St., with his shop at 315 N. Los Angeles Street. That directory indicates that Mr Foy also made tents.

In 1900 the family was living at 651 S. Figueroa. By then they had a Chinese cook named Ah Luey. Mr. Foy was, at some point. the Chief of Police for Los Angeles.

A directory from 1907 lists Mr Foy's harness and saddlery shop as being at 315 N. Los Angeles Street. It lists it as his "estate". Mr Foy died in April of 1901

The house he and his wife built in 1872, which was originally located at 7th and Figueroa, was noted to be the first three story house in the city. At some point, the house was sold and moved to 631-633 S. Witmer. It was across the street from Good Samaritan Hospital and in the 1980's the building was donated to Good Samaritan. In the 1990's the house was moved a third time and is now located at 1337 Carroll Avenue in the Angeleno Heights district. It is the house featured on the "Charmed" TV series.


The early addresses come from the Censuses and from directories and the information about the house comes from Wikipedia.

S.C. Foy is still in the business of leather goods today. They have a website

I park for work on the old bus deck next to the SubTerminal building and this morning there were chunks of burnt embers an inch across all over the deck from the fire a few blocks away. The smoke was just clearing when we came down Temple on the way to work and the lobby of Cal Plaza Two still smelled of smoke.

The Foy House at 1337 Carroll Avenue. I've never watched 'Charmed', but you can see the Charmed Wikia page about the house here.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...e.jpg~original
GSV

Here's an amazing view of the fire.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/905/IBu3BL.png
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=6898
_

World Cruise - Hamburg Amerika Linie - Weltreise

1932
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/538/DnYdkA.jpg

City Hall - Los Angeles - Rathaus



reverse / interesting descriptions, especially the last paragraph.
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/912/B2kT2B.jpg
eBay


http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/910/1pv93p.png
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb....db/ships_R.htm


The 'Resolute'
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/911/Jvword.png
http://www.norwayheritage.com/p_ship.asp?sh=resol
__

1930s
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/633/Ktn5rU.png
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/904/CqmeYF.png
http://www.storyofhollywood.com/Author.html

"The Pilgrimage Cross on the Caheunga Pass Overlook as seen from Hollywood Dell."
__

One of a kind.

Rare 1920s snapshot showing film star Bebe Daniels in the back-seat of a car.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/673/ER84xL.jpg
eBay

-with all kinds of interesting 'writings' on the back.
__

Billboard next to the Mona Lisa Restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/910/8Zc1pm.jpg
ebay

Thanks oldstuff and HossC for locating the Foy house.
__

There don't seem to be many pictures of the aftermath of today's fire. I suppose it's understandable given that pictures of flames are more dramatic than pictures of embers. Here are a couple I've found.

I'm surprised that buildings of this size are still being constructed largely from wood. It reminds me of the fire at a nearly finished apartment complex in Houston back in March. This shot shows how the stairs survived while all around was destroyed. I would have thought that at least the stairwell should have been made of concrete. From what I've read/heard, the building behind suffered fire on three floors, sprinker activations on several other floors due to heat, and windows blown out on every floor. It even looks like the lettering at the top started to melt.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...emontFire3.jpg
eric spillman on Twitter

Here's a wider shot that I grabbed from ABC7 News earlier. It looks like the section of the development on the east of Temple (on the left of this picture) survived unscathed. It could've been a different story if there had been a strong wind.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...emontFire4.jpg
ABC7 News

Yeah, but that's people fuel. :)

amy!

Thanks for the aerial shot Hoss. I heard about the fire extensively on the newsradio when I ducked out at lunchtime today (so 9am for LA) and saw a couple of night time photos that were posted on Hidden LA but I couldn't get a real sense for where it actually was.

To CBD's point, those massive ~5 story luxury apartment complexes are popping up all over Boston too. 50 years from now, we'll look back at them fondly.

amy!

I couldn't let this pass. Wrong on so many levels. My mind boggles.

(For the record, as just about everyone here knows, Bunker Hill's apartment stock was pretty much built 1900-1915 or so. By 1920 it was built out (or to be more precise, the original 1870s and 1880s Victorians had been replaced.)

As to "cheap" "economy" etc.......

Frame built 4 and 5 story apartment buildings are the standard in So Cal. Provides good quake resistance. And what with modern engineered wood, etc. these are far better constructed than the Sunshine, the Alta Vista, or the Lovejoy.

Of course you technically could build a 4 story steel frame. Not that anyone would. Your pockets would be empty. It doesn't pencil, as they say. Not even close.

You must not spend much time in So Cal, Dougie.

Well Malumotie, for some odd reason, I just do not feel safe in these cheap new apartments. Plus, the neighbors are rather nervous.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...psaac305a8.jpg
LATimes

I still don't know where you keep getting off on "cheap" and "nervous neighbors". If you live anywhere within the sound of Jerry Dunphy's voice, chances are overwhelming you live in a building built JUST LIKE THIS ONE.

I will say one thing we agree on......personally, I wouldn't want to live in one either, but for density and noise reasons...not intrinsic safety.

Where do you live? The Bat-Cave in Griffith Park? LOL

There are a ton of fire images on the other (modern-day, modern-architecture) LA threads. Here is some legitimate historic architecture, in legitimate danger.


Anyone interested in the only views inside the Roxie Theatre in Downtown LA?


http://southonspring.com/wp-content/...11-940x635.jpg

http://southonspring.com/wp-content/...eatre-1939.png

http://southonspring.com/wp-content/...ng_Roxie_6.jpg

More pics at www.SouthOnSpring.com


Or how about the only shots of the interior of the soon-to-be-destroyed Warner Huntington Park theatre. A baby brother to the grand Pantages Hollywood:

http://southonspring.com/wp-content/...-4-940x742.jpg

http://southonspring.com/wp-content/.../2014/11/5.jpg

http://southonspring.com/wp-content/...014/11/11B.jpg

Hunter thanks for the images of the Roxie and WHP which I had seen just recently. I knew what to expect going inside the Roxie but one never knows for sure. What first interest me in the Broadway area and downtown LA was it's collection of movie palaces found nowhere else in the world, and the red and yellow streetcars that once roamed it's streets. The hope of bringing this section back with all its challenges fascinates so many of us. After the fire on Monday your photos were very welcome, still so much to be done. Enjoy your work very much.

OK, here's a strange and noirish tale from 1940. As the caption says, this is "Chloe Davis, 11-year-old daughter of Mrs Lolita Davis, who is thought to have killed three of her children before being hammered to death by Chloe".

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...1.jpg~original
http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...hloeDavis2.jpg
eBay

There's quite a bit about this case online, so I'll try to pick out some of the details. On April 4, 1940, a bloodied 11-year-old Chloe Dibble Davis went to a neighbor's house to phone her father and ask him to come home immediately. He returned to his house at 1211 W 58th Place from a nearby grocery store where he worked as manager to find most of his family dead or dying. As Chloe led him through the house, she showed him her 3-year-old brother, Marquis (sometimes referred to as Mark), and 7-year-old sister, Deborah Ann, on the kitchen floor. Both had been bludgeoned. Chloe then pushed her father to the hallway where her mother, Lolita Davis, was lying dead on a mattress after being bludgeoned and burned. Finally, Chloe took her father to the bathroom where her 10-year-old sister, Daphne, was found with blood and brain matter splattered on the walls, floor and ceiling. At this point, Frank Barton Davis ran into the street screaming. Chloe followed and told her father to "brace up". The two younger girls were still alive when police arrived, but unconscious. Both died soon after reaching hospital, although Daphne apparently told doctors that Chloe had carried out the attacks.

After being treated for her superficial head wound, Chloe was held on suspicion of murdering her mother and siblings. The police and their psychiatrist, Dr Paul De River, were surprised by the detached way Chloe recounted the details of the killings. Chloe claimed that her mother believed that her children were inhabited by demons. Her mother had then beaten three of her siblings with a hammer and slashed her own wrists. When Chloe discovered her brother moaning in pain on the kitchen floor, she asked her mother is she should put him out of his misery, which she did. Chloe's mother was still alive at this point, and she asked Chloe to keep hitting her until she could no longer talk. Only when the house went quiet did Chloe calmly go to the neighbor's house to call her father.

Chloe is described as having above average intelligence and behaving like a 15- or 16-year-old, but it was her disconnectedness that confused investigators. When she was taken back to her home from the police station for a re-enactment, Chloe is said to have waved at her schoolmates on the lawn. She then took the police around the house, coolly explaining what had happened, and stopping to point at some books, telling them "I'm a bookworm. I read all the time."

Despite early suspicions that Chloe had carried out the attacks, Judge W Turney Fox ruled that Chloe's strange behavior and participation had been due to her mother's domination. Although he accepted that Chloe had beaten her mother and brother, the coroner's jury determined that both had died from their original injuries. Her father, Frank, also admitted that his wife had been to see two doctors and a psychiatrist for her illness, and had asked him to buy some chloroform to pour on the children when the demons came to torture them. In the end, Judge Fox ruled that Chloe was not responsible for her actions, and that they were carried out under the complete domination of her mother. He then ordered that Chloe should live with her father at the home of relatives or friends approved by the probation office.

Chloe Dibble Davis died in Indiana in 1987. She married three times, and had three children by her first husband. Her last marriage was only a few months before her death.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...hloeDavis3.jpg
Various pictures from derangedlacrimes.com


Further reading:

Deranged L.A. Crimes - Sole Survivor

The Mind of a Murderer: Privileged Access to the Demons that Drive Extreme Violence by Katherine M. Ramsland

Beyond Bizarre: Chloe Davis & Her Murder-Coaching Mom - 1940

Chloe Dibble Davis on familyorigins.com

I've been meaning to follow up on this. I think that Pinocchio has had a rhinectomy and been covered up with makeup, but the bulge for his face still exists.

I got (and annotated) this shot from GSV:
http://almostrandom.com/nla/greatwesternhoagie.jpg

amy!

Thank you very much!

History repeats itself......?
 

LA under-construction building burns to the ground, December, 2014. Real life mimics art.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ps9cf96fcb.jpg
LATimes


MGM "Gone With The Wind"... ''Atlanta" burns to the ground in 1939, Culver City. Old MGM back-lot movie sets used in massive movie fire effect.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ps7b6756ce.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ps275dca93.jpg
MGM

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...pse556e230.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...psfdf241f7.jpg
MGM ~ Vivien Leigh & Hattie McDaniel

That is exactly what I said when I saw the pictures. By the time we drove by, all there was left was smoke

http://media.cmgdigital.com/shared/l...8796397152.jpgABC7

Symbols of Los Angeles: freeways and palm trees.

http://cdn.abclocal.go.com/content/k...ire-img-02.jpgABC7

Orsini, Visconti, Medici...
 

Lately, one noirisher took photos of this section which was still empty or just starting under construction. The topic was the remaining stairs leading to Mignonette street. I don't know how to research back. Dear HossC, you are the master of the thread on that, please do !
I also remember Ethereal saying he « wouldn't like to live next to the 110 » in those luxury Orsini, Visconti, Medici etc. apartments.
How could they build residential buildings on that narrow space between Fremont and the 110 ?

^ Alvaro, I believe you're referring to my series of pics. I was the one that became semi-obsessed with it last year and beat that drum good and loud, lol.

--Here's the post with all my photos: http://skyscraperpage.com/forum/show...ostcount=15393
--And here's my post where I lay out my noticing the remains and touch on the history of the site: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=12415

Also: wow, what a spectacular fire! This thing at its peak (peek?) was utterly massive, with reports of flames reaching 700 feet up into the night sky. As a fire captain in an LA Times article put it, all that bare wood goes up real good. I mean would you look at this shot!

http://imageshack.com/a/img538/5131/hyrFMs.jpg
Photo from the LA Times

The investigation begins........
 

An apartment building of similar construction and maybe a bit larger project burned to the ground in Houston a few months ago. Its fire was an accident cause by an A/C installers torch.

These types of structures are cheap to build and all the materials extraordinarily flammable, thanks to the unbridled use of chipboard and soft fir studs. My personal opinion is no city anywhere should approve construction of such structures. Nothing but dangerous fire traps! Note the chances are any Holiday inn Express, Best Western, or LaQuinta Motel/Hotel built in the last 5 years is of similar construction type and of similar materials. Cheap and Dangerous!

This here is Earthquake Country
 

The building codes around here are exceedingly stringent, and they get more so after every earthquake, as more is learned. It's impossible to build a frame structure cheaply, or dangerously, around here—unless someone's paying off the inspectors.

As someone has mentioned quite recently in these pages, wood-frame construction is the most suitable method for such a structure hereabouts, in terms of safety and durability.

Frankly I'm not intimately familiar with current building codes in Los Angeles, but as one who was educated as a Geologist before focusing on other directions I have no problem in saying there is no such thing as a multi-story building of wood frame construction that can survive even a moderate Earthquake without suffering significant or even catastrophic damage. They don't even do well within a couple of hundred feet of faults of far less stress potential than an Earthquake, which is why the State of California has a statewide moratorium on new construction of any nature within 300 feet of a known fault line. And that is without even considering the fire hazard from broken natural gas lines that can easily occur with an Earthquake. Broken gas and water lines from Earthquakes = out of control fires! In the case of the fire that took out the apartment building under construction there apparently was insufficient water available to even seriously fight the fire without Earthquake damaged water mains. As for cost comparisons with other materials, it goes without saying every construction project is typically built with the least costly materials acceptable to local building codes.

It seems to be a slow news day on NLA, so ...

If there are ever any typos in my posts, I blame my assistant here :).

The seller dates "this Los Angeles Dog" using a typewriter picture at 1929. Neither the dog nor his owner is named, so I don't know if this was a one-off for the cameras or a trained performing animal.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...1.jpg~original
http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...2.jpg~original
eBay

Italian style
 

kznyc2k : your LIVE post was so interesting, now it has become even more!!! On your photos, we saw those Visconti, Orsini, Medici buildings in the distance (on Sunset) which style is (as CityBoyDoug says) irrelevant to Downtown Los Angeles. It would fit with Hollywood.

Sam Cooke
 

50 years ago today singer Sam Cooke, was shot dead in a south LA motel. [IMG]http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/m...a33c2c3dde.jpg[/IMG]

Bertha Lee Franklin who shot Mr. Cooke was cleared of all chardges.
[IMG]http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/m...anklin2200.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/m...ke-Coroner.jpg[/IMG]

Fairfax south of Rosewood. 1-6-37 Los Angeles

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/537/b54q9e.jpg
eBay

reverse
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/661/qhrA8R.jpg


close-up, left side
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/910/uLbTeU.jpg



close up, right side
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/540/U6bJ7d.jpg

__

"Los Angeles Electrical Exposition 1936."

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/911/Vpq5H3.jpg
eBay

What's the girl representing with the cross on her chest....fluorescent lighting?
I'm not sure where this exposition took place.
__

"Pacific Electric car in Santa Ana."

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/537/Y9P6bG.jpg
flickr / metrolibrary

Any idea what the workmen are doing at the bend in the track?

__

Tomorrow is National Poinsettia Day.

As mentioned in posts from around a year ago, poinsettias were grown in fields around West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, most notably by the Ecke family, and sold along roadside stands on Sunset Blvd. among other locations.

Apparently Albert Ecke, a vegetarian and nature lover, along with his family, owned and operated a health spa in Germany and around 1900 was moving to Fiji with all of them to open another one (?) but at some point when traveling through Los Angeles decided to stay there.

Speaking little English, Paul Ecke, later known as Paul Ecke Sr., quickly adapted to his new environs and translated for his father, Albert, during their trips to the wholesale markets. The family lived on a ranch on Hayworth Avenue, where they initially cultivated mostly fruits and vegetables. By 1915 they were growing poinsettias.

http://legacy.utsandiego.com/uniontr...es/met-way.jpg
Union Tribune / photo from the Ecke family

Caption: Paul Ecke Sr. took over his father's business in 1919, selling off the dairy he had run with his sister and focusing his energy on field-grown poinsettias.

http://media.utsandiego.com/img/phot...0_r620x349.jpg
Paul Ecke III, former owner of Ecke Ranch poinsettia farm, shows a sign from the 1920's for one of his family's old poinsettia packing sheds in Los Angeles. It was among the many artifacts he discovered in the past year while preparing his family's records for an archiving project at Cal State San Marcos. This photo was taken in April 2013. / Bill Wechter/U-T San Diego

Because of the growing urbanization in Hollywood, the Eckes moved their ranch to Encinitas in 1923.

According to dailybreeze.com, the Plush Horse Inn opened at 1700 Pacific Coast Highway in Redondo Beach on August 3, 1960 (the seller dates the slide below as 1959). The article says that the original business included a restaurant called the Plush Horse, and a coffee shop called the Plush Pony. The article also names several of the businesses that have occupied the site since 1980, including Annabelle's Discotheque, a French restaurant called Renaud's, the Strand nightclub, the Club Caprice, and finally a gourmet grocery store owned by Bristol Farms.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...lushHorse1.jpg
eBay

This view from the other side shows the hotel in the background. It's now the Palos Verdes Inn.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...lushHorse2.jpg
dailybreeze.com

Here's the building during its time as Bristol Farms.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...lushHorse3.jpg
citysearch.com

There have been some alterations over the years, but the building is still easily recognizable. Yelp indicates that the Bristol Farms store/restaurant is now closed (their signs as seen in the picture above are gone in the GSV images after 2008), and I can't see any signage for a current business.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...lushHorse4.jpg
GSV

There are more pictures of the inside and outside of the building over the years on facebook.com/StrandRedondoBeach.