noirish Los Angeles

[sopas ej]

Thanks very much Beaudry for your post about the Young Apartments. I too was always fascinated with this building, ever since I was a kid, when my family would drive by it on the freeway, and even when I was a teenager, I would drive by that building all the time on the freeway; back then in the 80s, I remember it being run down, covered in graffiti, a total hovel. Now of course it looks much better than it ever has since then. And I didn't realize how old the building is. It's practically 100 now.

That area also always fascinated me, which is why I'm so taken by that old picture I posted. I would drive on the 10, wondering what history was destroyed that I was driving over. And knowing that the Olympic Auditorium was the venue for a number of events during the 1932 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, I was wondering what the built environment might've looked like around it during 1932, what the athletes and spectators saw on the way to the Auditorium.

Also in that area was a building that I was fascinated by, the old building of the California Hospital Medical Center. I think it was demolished in the late 90s or early 00s. But it was an old brick-faced building, and I think it had some kind of dome and lantern on top. Maybe I haven't been looking hard enough, but I can't find any pictures of it.

After another quick search, I found this, from college.usc.edu.

California Hospital Medical Center, undated photo


When the old building still existed, it was attached to a 1950s-looking addition, which was attached to something probably built in the 1980s, which still exists:


California Hospital Medical Center website

I like the old building much better.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by Beaudry

And the reason those plots are empty? Our current economic sitch is nothing compared to the Panic of 1910, much less the Recession of 1913-14, where business and trade activity dropped 20-25%. Lest we forget the insane downturn of 1918-19 due to the postwar unemployment jazz. (Never ceases to amuse that people think that whatever's happening now is somehow the a) first and b) worst it has or ever will happen...) In any event, empty plots with driveways. Telling. I still can't believe I don't own this image. I always marry the inquisitive to the acquisitive. So sue me.

I don't wanna get into a political discussion here, but this is why I believe capitalism, particularly unregulated capitalism, doesn't work, in the sense that there will ALWAYS be periods of boom and bust, and the least regulation of businesses, the more extreme it will be. The decades between FDR's New Deal and Reagan's deregulation saw some recessions, but were not as bad until after Reagan.

Now, back to old Los Angeles. Looking at this thread this Saturday morning, I'm in the mood for breakfast at Langer's Deli on 7th and Alvarado.

[ethereal_reality]

Straightening Spring Street near the magnificent Hall of Records building in 1929.



usc digital archive






usc digital archive






usc digital archive

At first I thought they were just shaving off the facades to make the building fit. Now I am not so sure.
Were the buildings totally destroyed or modified?

The whole act of straightening Spring Street is a bit confusing to me.
Earlier in the thread I believe we had overhead views of the area....but I can't seem to find them at the moment.

[ethereal_reality]

Here is an enigmatic photo I found on ebay of an outdoor coffee stand in Los Angeles, ca. 1910


ebay

Notice the numerous stanchions made out of wood behind the coffee stand.
I can't quite figure out what is going on. Is it perhaps the beginning of a new building?

Can anyone here guess the location?

[mdiederi]

756 South Broadway (NE corner of 8th and Broadway), 13 floor "Los Angeles Investment Building", built in 1912 for $1 million, architect Ernest McConnell, later named the "Charles C. Chapman Building" after Chapman purchased the building in 1920. Recently converted to residential lofts by Killefer Flammang Architects (Emporis)

Photo ca.1913-1918

USCDL

Photo circa 1940s.

USCDL

Photo circa 1960s.

USCDL

Marble interior hallways.

Chapman Flats on flickr

Brass elevator doors.

Killefer Flammang Architects


http://www.antiquehomestyle.com/plan...ment/index.htm

The Los Angeles Investment Company was a substantial landholder in the LA area and was a major player in the development of the city and the surrounding area from about 1899 to 1913, designing homes with Ernest McConnell as the supervising architect. The company published about ten collections of bungalow house plans, supplied the land to build the houses on and also all the materials to build the houses. In 1914 the president of the company, Charles A. Elder, was convicted of fraud and the company went out of business.

Charles Clarke Chapman (1853–1944) was the first mayor of Fullerton, California and a relative of John Chapman, the legendary "Johnny Appleseed." He was a native of Illinois who had been a Chicago publisher before settling in Southern California.

[GaylordWilshire]

http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assets...433005A79?v=hr



e_r: I wondered if the poles weren't for some sort of exhibition tent-- Agricultural Park came to mind. It doesn't answer your question as to the location of the coffee stand, but when I came across this picture of the rose garden in Exposition Park (which of course once was Agricultural Park), I had to post it.

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

Here is an enigmatic photo I found on ebay of an outdoor coffee stand in Los Angeles, ca. 1910


ebay

Notice the numerous stanchions made out of wood behind the coffee stand.
I can't quite figure out what is going on. Is it perhaps the beginning of a new building?

Can anyone here guess the location?

[gsjansen]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

Straightening Spring Street near the magnificent Hall of Records building in 1929.



usc digital archive






usc digital archive






usc digital archive

At first I thought they were just shaving off the facades to make the building fit. Now I am not so sure.
Were the buildings totally destroyed or modified?

The whole act of straightening Spring Street is a bit confusing to me.
Earlier in the thread I believe we had overhead views of the area....but I can't seem to find them at the moment.

the buildings in the images are actually the back side of the buildings that fronted on new high street. they lost they're spring street back sides, when spring street was straightened.

1927 aerial


Source: USC Digital Archive http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assets.../CHS-6917?v=hr

the remainder of the buildings on new high street were gutted when the state building was constructed.

1931 aerial


Source: USC Digital Archive http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assets...DF739554A?v=hr

looking down new high street towards city hall in 1927. this image is taken from the exact location where the state building will be built in three years. all the buildings on the right, are the buildings with the spring street facades removed in your photographs E_R


Source: USC Digital Archive http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assets...CHS-36633?v=hr


1924, 1925 and 1929 aerials prior to street alignment and construction of city hall







the 1929 aerial shows proposed street alignment overlay for civic center

[gsjansen]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

This is an excellent photograph of an adobe in 1924.


usc digital archive


Above: Notice the Wrigley's chewing gum advertisement on the building in the background.


Below: This is a photo of the same area in 1924.
Notice the same turreted building as seen in the above photo. (the one with the Wrigley ad).

Would someone pinpoint the location of this photo. I believe I see Sunset but I'm a bit confused about the cross streets.



usc digital archive

the top photograph is looking northeast from new high street towards ord street., (the intersection of ord and new high is just out of view at the lower left). the adobe was on the south east corner of the intersection. the tri tower building, (you can only see two in the photo), was located on the northwest corner of spring and ord.

the building looked down at the north end of christine sterling's disney-esque, china city which was located between main street on the east, spring street on the west, macy street on the south, and ord street on the north.

looking north west from main and macy across china city towards ord street


Source: LAPL http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics45/00057482.jpg

looking south westerly on new high street north of ord street. the tri tower building is at the upper left of the photo, (you can see the wrigley advertisement).


Source: LAPL http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics28/00063798.jpg

the bottom photo is looking north east from fort moore hill. sunset boulevard is running right to left at the bottom of the image. sunset pool on the far right side of the photo is on the south east corner of sunset and new high street.

broadway is the street at the very bottom of the photograph. this image was taken adjacent to the west of the north tunnel portal.

1925 image looking up brodway across sunset boulevard from the north tunnel portal


Source: USC Digital Archive http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assets...-EN-122-3?v=hr

looking south at the north portal of the broadway tunnel from sunset boulevard. your 2nd photo E_R was taken from a point behind the billboard that says direct and consumers on it


Source: USC Digital Archive http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assets...CHS-45775?v=hr

a 1955 image looking north easterly from fort moore hill across the new hill street bridge connecting hill street to old castelar street on thenorth side of the 101 freeway. the tri towered building, (minus the wrigley add, and minus it's towers), is on the upper right


Source: LAPL http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics48/00043547.jpg

this 1950 image taken from where the broaday tunnel used to be, across the construction work of the 101 freeway and sunset bouelvard, shows the tri tower building without it's towers just above, and right of center


Source: USC Digital Archive http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assets...R-BRO-002?v=hr

this 1948 image looking west on ord street from main street, shows the building without it's towers


Source: California State Library http://catalog.library.ca.gov/exlibr...UEKES2FT6B.jpg

[westcork]

I really wish the USC and LAPL collections were geo-tagged. When you put together a whole collection of photos from the same general area like this^^^ it really gives one a good perspective of what they are looking at, and how the city developed over time. A good example of this is on Flikr on Vokoban's page. This is the guy who meticulously mapped out the theaters along Main Street http://www.flickr.com/photos/vokoban/map/

[Los Angeles Past]

It would have been nice, but unfortunately, a significant portion of both collections were apparently curated by people who had only a cursory knowledge of L.A. history (and in some cases, it seems no knowledge at all), so if the photos had been geotagged, I, personally, wouldn't give them much credence. In fact, every time I look at a photo's accompanying description on the USC and LAPL sites, I take it with a big grain of salt. Some errors I've found on both sites have been absolutely ludicrous. It's really a shame how inaccurate some of the archives' information is.

-Scott

[MichaelRyerson]

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

The singlemost important book in my library of Los Angeles history remains Reyner Banham's seminal 1971 Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies. Like everyone else of a certain age, movies and television piqued my interest in faraway California, and mythologized the state, L. A. in particular. I've now been there many many times, often specifically to explore its architecture, I've read dozens of histories of it, and, of course devoured every photograph of its history I could find--the myth still trumps reality. Anyway, among the Banham book's illustrations is a small photo of the now-vanished Crenshaw Motors Ford, which was at 5311 S. Crenshaw until recently. (The dealership closed in early 2007 after 70 years, the building demolished more recently. Last I heard a Tesco market of some sort is to be built there.) Being automotively minded, I went down to Crenshaw and 53rd soon after the book came out (naturally checking out the Dahlia location on Norton Street on the way) and took my own pictures, now gone missing. Some years later I acquired a '56 Ford, which I still have...my automotive and L.A. obsessions merge in its license plate frame, which you see here. (On another trip I asked the nonplussed Crenshaw Motors parts department for some of their license frames--they were plastic, but I had the graphics reproduced and put them on a more vintage metal frame.)

jericle cat

labeez

GaylordWilshire

If you haven't already, the next book you read should be Banham's:
http://www.amazon.com/Los-Angeles-Ar...520219244#noop

Oh man, Gaylord that is so cool! Congratulations and good thinking. Assuming the license (and rim) are mounted on your car, do you have a stationwagon? and a woody at that?

[MichaelRyerson]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

Wow, more great photos yet again.



I've been staring at this for a while now. This is terrific, gsjansen. To think this picture was taken 100 years ago already. I'm particularly interested in the bottom part of the photo, you can see that diagonal block-long street which was originally called Weller Street, in the middle of Little Tokyo. That street is now of course Astronaut Ellison S. Onizuka Street, and the block and the blocks around it have changed quite a lot since then. In fact a LOT of things shown in this photo have changed since then. It's interesting to see what still exists. Really fascinating.

And, of course Weller Street was the unofficial shortcut favored by stagecoach drivers trying for an advantage in the race from San Pedro to the Bella Union Hotel back in the 1850's. Rather than wait and make the 90 degree turn at 1st, a spontaneous and informal roadway was cut into the plot of land and a street was born.

[GaylordWilshire]

Originally Posted by Los Angeles Past

It would have been nice, but unfortunately, a significant portion of both collections were apparently curated by people who had only a cursory knowledge of L.A. history (and in some cases, it seems no knowledge at all), so if the photos had been geotagged, I, personally, wouldn't give them much credence. In fact, every time I look at a photo's accompanying description on the USC and LAPL sites, I take it with a big grain of salt. Some errors I've found on both sites have been absolutely ludicrous. It's really a shame how inaccurate some of the archives' information is.

-Scott

Scott-- I've found the same thing-- often when I've found inaccuracies I've emailed corrections, citing a source. Although I feel a little didactic, I've always gotten an appreciative email in reply. The number of mistakes I've found does lead me to question the labels on all pictures on these sites, but I guess in the end I'm just glad the pictures themselves have been made so accessible--and piecing together the truth about them keeps us busy here!

[GaylordWilshire]

.......................................

[MichaelRyerson]

the car that picked up Jake Gittes and drove him to his luncheon with Noah Cross ("I believe they should be served with the head on." " I don't mind as long as you don't serve chicken that way.") Besides the shot of the Ford looks like it's parked outside of Pierce Patchett's garage.

[mdiederi]

Cool old curved gas station at 3304 N. Figueroa

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/s...446547&page=13


It's still there, but looks like this now.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/s...446547&page=13

[GaylordWilshire]

Originally Posted by MichaelRyerson

the car that picked up Jake Gittes and drove him to his luncheon with Noah Cross ("I believe they should be served with the head on." " I don't mind as long as you don't serve chicken that way.") Besides the shot of the Ford looks like it's parked outside of Pierce Patchett's garage.

The wagon you mentioned--a 1936 Ford. A genuine woody.



Jake's '35 Ford Phaeton--soon to be bifurcated by a tree in a Valley orange grove.



Mrs. Mulwray's beautiful '38 Packard in her Pasadena driveway. She would later die at
the wheel of it in... Chinatown.


And...
An excellent Chinatown re-creation of a SoCal streetscape, appropriately
enough in a rear-view mirror. An iconic Bekins van completes the scene:



All photos: Paramount Pictures Corp./http://imcdb.org/

[westcork]

Found these on LAPL. Not sure if I have seen them here before. Most are dated 1888

The west side of Spring Street, including the Bryson Block on the left, between 1st and 2nd Streets, in a drawing. The Bryson Block was commissioned by John Bryson, Sr., Los Angeles mayor, and George H. Bonebrake, banker. The building was six stories plus a basement and contained a lodgeroom on the sixth floor. There was a court in the center of the building. The architects were Joseph Carter Newsom and Samuel Newsom and the building was completed ca. 1888.


An architectural drawing of the Currier block and the Bradbury Building, located at 3rd Street and Broadway. The names of various tenants in the building have been printed in the picture at different floor levels.


Drawing of the east side of Broadway between south 2nd and 3rd Streets, showing City Hall on the left.


Drawing of the Downey Block on the northwest corner of Main and Temple Streets. Various businesses are housed in the building, including The Capitol, La Cronica, H. Sloterbeck & Co. gun store, I.W.L. Auction Co., Libreria Espanola, L.W. Thatcher, Commercial Restaurant, Davis Architect, and L. Harris Clothing. Stairs lead up to the second floor, on which the Los Angeles Public Library was housed from 1872 to 1889. Various horse-drawn vehicles are seen on the street, including horse cars to Agricultural Park/Washington Garden, Spring & 6th Streets/S.P.R.R. Depot, and Boyle Heights/Los Angeles and Aliso Avenue/Perry Villa Tract. The Downey Block was demolished in 1904.


A drawing of the "Nadeau Block," a corner view of the hotel with church steeple on the far left. This later became the Nadeau Hotel. Architects, Morgan & Walls.


Drawing of the east side of Main Street between Commercial and Requena Streets.

[westcork]

Drawing of the east side of North Spring Street between 3rd and 4th Streets.


Drawing of Spring Street looking south from Temple Street.


Line drawing of portion of block on West side of Spring Street, between 4th and 5th Sts. especially noting, George Elliott, 421 Spring Street.Block starts at left with UR Bowers & Sons, B. Wynns & Co., Wills & Sonocer, Lewis & Alderson, N. Strauss & Co., D. Whitney & Co., George Elliott, stationery and artists' materials, at far right.


An artist's drawing of the West side of North Los Angeles Street, between Requena and Commercial, looking south.


An architectural drawing of Broadway between 2nd St. and 3rd St. On the left in the picture is the Los Angeles Furniture Company, and next to it the Ville de Paris.


An architectural rendering of business buildings along the west side of Broadway, seen from 4th St. looking south.


An architectural drawing of the east side of Spring St. between 2nd and 3rd, looking south.


An architectural drawing of the east side of Spring St. between 3rd and 4th, looking south.

[gsjansen]

a friend of mine was just in los angeles, and he sent me some photos of his trip.

one of the images he had taken from the south side of union square at alameda and aliso street, i realized that i had seen this almost exact same angled image on this thread. i tracked it down on page 45. here is a then and now