noirish Los Angeles

[JeffDiego]

Originally Posted by Flyingwedge

The California State Library lists this photo as "Los Angeles 1908" by Mauritz De Haaff. No other information is given:



2011-1191 @ CA St Library


In the foreground we see a sandy river bottom and, through the trees near the top, a river:




This is the center of the photo, with the road going down into the river bed:




Here's a closer look at the larger buildings in the image's left half. That could be St. Somebody's Church in the background:




Aaaand the upper right-hand corner of the image:




Does this area look familiar to anyone? I thought it might be the LA River NE of Dodger Stadium, but I can't place it anywhere exactly.

Fascinating. Wonderful photo(s) & some very interesting houses and buildings. Can't wait for it to be identified. Thanks, Flyingwedge.

[ScottyB]

Feels like we might be looking North across the Arroyo Seco, with one of the larger streets maybe being Figueroa Bl where it heads over to Eagle Rock. I'll snoop harder shortly.

[ScottyB]

OK, here is my (rather crude) attempt to verify my suspicion:





Picture taken from Monterey Hills south of the Arroyo looking NNE-ish.
Where Ave 64 drops down into the Arroyo wash (now to the Pasadena Fwy) the topography is essentially the same today.

[Flyingwedge]

Thanks, ScottyB!

So the building on the left . . .




. . . is the Garvanza Hotel, which "was located at South Avenue 63 and York Boulevard in Garzanza [sic], a former section of Highland Park" (per LAPL):



00073861 @ LAPL

[odinthor]

The 1894 Los Angeles Sanborn maps in the Library of Congress collection are difficult to consult because there is no key to the more than 80 pages, as presented by the LOC.

I have made the following attempt to assist by superimposing scarlet numbers on the general Sanborn maps (there are two). These numbers correspond to the pages in the Library of Congress collection.


odinthor collection


odinthor collection

Here is a link to the set of LOC maps: https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4364lm.g4364lm_g00656189401/?sp=1&r=-0.001,0.624,1.095,0.404,0

I hope this proves useful!

[ethereal_reality]

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A MILLION times THANKS, odinthor. . . . . . .

You have no idea how many times I nearly drove myself crazy looking for the right segment.

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[ethereal_reality]

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Saturday night.

I have three 'fast moving' mystery locations for all you fine noirishers lngering out there the dark.

They are three slides (from 1958) that are being sold separately on eBay.





Let's take a closer look at each of them.

The first one is my favorite despite the blurriness. It show an apartment complex (that looks somewhat familiar to me) of a. .um . .mid-cetury faux TIKI apartment complex.

#1

eBay


Does it look familiar to anyone else?





#2

eBay

The name is on the front but it's too blurry to read.





And finally. . .

#3

eBay





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[knapford]

Photo #3 -- aren't those the "tiny homes" on Hollywood Way in Burbank near Warner Bros Ranch property?

[HossC]

They could be the two houses at 315/317 N Hollywood Way. The brick part of the chimneys appears to match, but the fence/trees at the front make it difficult to tell conclusively. Check out GSV here.

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

#2

eBay

The name is on the front but it's too blurry to read.

Originally Posted by knapford

Photo #3 -- aren't those the "tiny homes" on Hollywood Way in Burbank near Warner Bros Ranch property?

This is the Bermuda Palms Apartments just up the street at 301 N Hollywood Way. They still look very original.


GSV

[Scott Charles]

Originally Posted by HossC

They could be the two houses at 315/317 N Hollywood Way. The brick part of the chimneys appears to match, but the fence/trees at the front make it difficult to tell conclusively. Check out GSV here.

You are quite correct, HossC. If you view the location in Apple Maps, it's a clear match - with the most obvious part being the distinctive chimney on the right:


Apple Maps - no URL, as it's a Mac desktop app

[HossC]

Originally Posted by Scott Charles

You are quite correct, HossC. If you view the location in Apple Maps, it's a clear match - with the most obvious part being the distinctive chimney on the right:


Apple Maps - no URL, as it's a Mac desktop app

Thanks for the confirmation, Scott Charles. Weirdly, Google only seems to have been down that part of the street once and Bing not at all. I'd never have looked there if it weren't for knapford's lead.

On a side note, it's sad to see the former Warner Bros Ranch site almost cleared. All those famous TV/movie locations gone! Here's a reminder of some of them:

• Video Link

[riichkay]

It seems to me we must have seen this place in years past, but a search did not turn up a photo....there was a brief discussion of The Hot Dog Show location in Toluca Lake here.... https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?p=6455033&highlight=Hot+Dog+Show#post6455033


I did some digging, it appears there were a total of 4 locations, all opened in about 1949....450 S. La Cienega Blvd. and 3694 Crenshaw Blvd. as indicated in the below menu, also the store in Toluca Lake on Riverside Dr., which was a local institution for decades until it's closure in 2011, and finally Ontario (there is a photo of that location in the above linked post)....









450 S. La Cienega became the iconic Fatburger in the early '70's, I don't believe it's a location match for the pictured building....the same for Toluca Lake and Ontario....so I figured the subject photo must be of the Crenshaw store.....




3694 Crenshaw would have been about where you see the abandoned cross street here....there was a Ralph's Market and other businesses on this site, as you can see it's been cleared for new development.....


....but I could not match up the streetscape, which still has many older buildings, on the west side of Crenshaw with the background buildings seen in the subject photo....





......however, the Crenshaw store was moved further south in early 1954....




...I have no suggestion whatsoever regarding the reference to a "caddy house".....is this another term for a "caddyshack?"....and why would you have such a structure adjacent to a hot dog stand?....






Anyway, 3730 Crenshaw would be at the NE corner of Crenshaw and Coliseum...



....so it would have been adjacent to Majestic Pontiac, which was at 3740 Crenshaw....note the tall, high-intensity light and neon "Park" sign in the subject photo, these may have been on the Majestic Pontiac property (the Pontiac "Indian" sign was moved to the corner when the property was redeveloped.)


As for the streetscape opposite the hot dog stand (assuming the photo was indeed the NE corner of Crenshaw/Coliseum) I found 1955 new construction permits for O'Conner Lincoln-Mercury, they eventually occupied the NW corner of Crenshaw and Coliseum.....it's possible the subject photo was circa 1954, and the buildings in the background were demolished shortly thereafter to make way for the car dealership....it's also entirely possible I am way off here.


Here's an unidentified woman in front of an unidentified Hot Dog Show location in an undated photo...

[odinthor]

"Harold, I'm not going to stand here all day. Would you just take the stupid photo already?"

LOL, something's up, as the hotdog guy inside the booth is watching intently.

[ethereal_reality]

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Thanks for the excellent post on The Hot Dog Show, riichkay.



It's much appreciated.
.

[JeffDiego]

Originally Posted by riichkay

It seems to me we must have seen this place in years past, but a search did not turn up a photo....there was a brief discussion of The Hot Dog Show location in Toluca Lake here.... https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?p=6455033&highlight=Hot+Dog+Show#post6455033


I did some digging, it appears there were a total of 4 locations, all opened in about 1949....450 S. La Cienega Blvd. and 3694 Crenshaw Blvd. as indicated in the below menu, also the store in Toluca Lake on Riverside Dr., which was a local institution for decades until it's closure in 2011, and finally Ontario (there is a photo of that location in the above linked post)....









450 S. La Cienega became the iconic Fatburger in the early '70's, I don't believe it's a location match for the pictured building....the same for Toluca Lake and Ontario....so I figured the subject photo must be of the Crenshaw store.....




3694 Crenshaw would have been about where you see the abandoned cross street here....there was a Ralph's Market and other businesses on this site, as you can see it's been cleared for new development.....


....but I could not match up the streetscape, which still has many older buildings, on the west side of Crenshaw with the background buildings seen in the subject photo....





......however, the Crenshaw store was moved further south in early 1954....




...I have no suggestion whatsoever regarding the reference to a "caddy house".....is this another term for a "caddyshack?"....and why would you have such a structure adjacent to a hot dog stand?....






Anyway, 3730 Crenshaw would be at the NE corner of Crenshaw and Coliseum...



....so it would have been adjacent to Majestic Pontiac, which was at 3740 Crenshaw....note the tall, high-intensity light and neon "Park" sign in the subject photo, these may have been on the Majestic Pontiac property (the Pontiac "Indian" sign was moved to the corner when the property was redeveloped.)


As for the streetscape opposite the hot dog stand (assuming the photo was indeed the NE corner of Crenshaw/Coliseum) I found 1955 new construction permits for O'Conner Lincoln-Mercury, they eventually occupied the NW corner of Crenshaw and Coliseum.....it's possible the subject photo was circa 1954, and the buildings in the background were demolished shortly thereafter to make way for the car dealership....it's also entirely possible I am way off here.


Here's an unidentified woman in front of an unidentified Hot Dog Show location in an undated photo...

Very interesting, richkay. Thanks. I immediately remembered the scene in the 1956 "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers" featuring a striking montage of patrol cars dragging the streets looking for the hero & heroine, and you see a couple of cops sitting on stools in front of The Hot Dog Show - and it looks exactly like the one pictured at top. Ethereal_reality refers to this scene in a post from 2014.

[Beaudry]

Originally Posted by Flyingwedge

Thanks, ScottyB!

So the building on the left . . .




. . . is the Garvanza Hotel, which "was located at South Avenue 63 and York Boulevard in Garzanza [sic], a former section of Highland Park" (per LAPL):



00073861 @ LAPL

Note the structure above it; that's Garvanza Elementary

lausd

at Figueroa & Avenue 62

[riichkay]

I had to re-think the Hot Dog Show location on Crenshaw....with an address of 3730 Crenshaw the relocated stand would have been just north of the Majestic (originally Ken Clark) Pontiac dealership at 3740 Crenshaw....and the "Indian" sign would always have been on the corner of Coliseum St. as seen here, although it was moved a few feet eastward when the property was redeveloped for it's current use...





The stand at 3730 would only have survived a few years, as it would have been demolished (or moved again) to make way for the Holiday Bowl in 1958....the bowling alley also carried the 3730 address.

So we are back to square one....the subject photo might be at the original location, 3694 Crenshaw, just south of the Ralph's supermarket, although I can't line up the background buildings with anything standing today....another possibility is that there were additional Hot Dog Show locations in addition to the four that I found, and we are not on Crenshaw at all.

[Noir_Noir]

Originally Posted by riichkay

another possibility is that there were additional Hot Dog Show locations in addition to the four that I found, and we are not on Crenshaw at all.

Some additional Hot Dog Show locations for you riichkay.


12924 Ventura Blvd. Studio City.

19336 Ventura Blvd. Tarzana.

3363½ Manchester Blvd. Inglewood.

15135 Sunset Blvd. Pacific Palisades.

745 E. Broadway, Long Beach.

1302 S. Main, Santa Ana.


Further afield -

236 Highland Ave. San Bernardino.

134 N. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs.

[ethereal_reality]

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I know that we've seen the 'Bulldog Cafe' (I don't remember its official name) numerous times on NLA but this snapshot is one-of-a-kind (OOAK) so I thought you all might like to see it.


It was on EBAY earlier this week.

What I like most about it is that the angle is wide enough to see the surrounding area.




. .despite the $#X&!@# pen the seller has placed over it.

[ethereal_reality]

.
Here's another eBay find.


As you can see, the snapshot shows four spirited youths enjoying a sunny day at the beach.


eBay.

The seller says it was taken in Los Angeles but doesn't know which beach.

I thought good ol' Chuck's Cafe in the background might be a big enough clue for us to figure it out...

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