Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Pal
BDiH, Heh! "Smile, you're on Candid Camera!"
Is this what it looked like? It's from a blog post on Vintage Los Angeles talking about Wallich's. No date listed for the photo.
VLA
Does anyone recognize the photo the girl has in her lap?
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I was a habitué of the Wallichs Music City across from Lakewood Center, and well remember the sound booths there, very much like those in the last photo. It seemed to me then that, though they weren't used very often, those who
did use them were very intense in doing so, and completely oblivious to the rest of the world. I never used one, because I was a very shy li'l odinthor,
and it would have been necessary to actually talk to another human being to request to use a booth.
Or could one just stroll in and use them? I dunno: I was too scared to ask and find out.
Edit Add:
I can't seem to lay my hands or any other part of my body on a pic of Wallichs Lakewood in its heyday; here's the same building now:
gsv
We're looking west on Candlewood St. at its corner with Lakewood Blvd.
The listening booths stretched along the length of the building to the left of the entrance.
I included the building across the street, built as a branch of Great Western Savings, because somehow I've always liked the design of the freestanding sign's support structure . . . meant to suggest . . . ? . . . something about the Old West . . . ? . . . a Hanging Tree? . . . a totally misimagined Saguaro Cactus? . . . ? . . . an Old West ancestor of L.A.'s Triforium? . . .
. . . Still, whatever it is, I like it.