I don't think we've been to Thorne Street since
e_r took us there in 2013 to see the Judson Studios.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ethereal_reality
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The "1911 two story shingled crasftman/bungalow" mentioned above became the oldest family run art glass studio in the world.
The Judson Studios produced stained glass features in many prominent buildings in the theater district of downtown Los Angeles, and also
in the atrium of the Los Angeles Public Library. (as well as stained glass for two Frank Lloyd Wright projects, the Barnsdall and Ennis homes)
view from Thorne Street
gsv
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At one time, Thorne Street was called Rose Street. The 1902 map below notwithstanding, I believe the name was changed in 1900.
Also, Rose/Thorne ended at York Boulevard (Pasadena Avenue on the map below) until the city abandoned the NE end of the street
in 1905. Lots 2 and 10 in Block 42 are marked:
1902 Ruger's Map of Greater LA - WALLMAP-00071 @
LAPL
By 1920 Thorne Street looked like this. Lot 2 from the 1902 Ruger Map is 216 Thorne. Lot 10 is 6624 Thorne, which at some point later
was renumbered to 256, its address today. USC's CFA is the same building shown in
e_r's post above:
Sanborn Map @ ProQuest via LAPL
Philo Eugene Kinsley and his wife Mary purchased Lot 10 (actually, Lots 9 & 10) in August 1890. The next month, they sold the lots to
Dr. Daniel H. Thatcher. Thatcher sold both lots back to the Kinsleys in August 1893 but lived with them on Thorne St. until his death in
1900. The LA County Assessor says the house at what is now 256 Thorne was built in 1893, but I think it may have been a few years
before that.
William Lees Judson -- founder of the Judson Studios -- purchased Lot 2 (actually, Lots 2 & 3) in September 1894. The LA County Assessor
says his house at what is now 216 Thorne was built in 1894. USC's CFA (then known as the Los Angeles College of Fine Art, affiliated with
USC) was built in 1901 on Thorne no doubt because Judson, who was the college dean, lived across the street. He could go home for lunch!
Behind his home he built an octagonal stone building where he painted and taught his pupils:
November 28, 1895,
Los Angeles Herald @ Newspapers.com
Judson is at 216 Thorne through the 1927 LA City Directory. He died at his studio across the street on October 26, 1928.
Marked on this recent aerial are
216 and
256 Thorne. At upper right, 216 has a 2-story tower at the SW corner. Sort of at lower left, 256 has
a witch's hat in the NE corner that's hard to see here (but not in GSV) and a dormer just south of that. Both houses overlook the Arroyo Seco
and its namesake parkway:
Google Maps
At upper left is the Thatcher/Kinsley house. To its right is the Judson home; note the 2-story tower and what is probably the small octagonal
structure mentioned in the November 1895 article. The Judson home looks like it's being built, which would date the photo from late 1894 to
sometime before Easter Sunday 1895, when Pasadena's Raymond Hotel, seen in the distance over the second RR bridge, burned down. Also,
please note the shed and landscaping adjacent to the Thatcher/Kinsley home, and the trees behind it on the left:
Beatrice Sherwood Collection of Photographs @ Society of California Pioneers via
Internet Archive
This undated photo shows the Thatcher/Kinsley home just right of center. There is no adjacent shed or landscaping, and no Judson house down the
street. Just above center are rows of plantings that seem to be at about the correct angle to be the rows of trees to the left of the house in the
previous photo, although they might be a bit too far away. If the previous photo is 1894/95, I think the area around the Thatcher/Kinsley home is
sufficiently different in this photo to date it c. 1891, if not a tad earlier (it depends on those trees
*). In any case, that little house has seen a lot!
00028263 @ LAPL
* And the bridges. The bridge below the Thatcher/Kinsley home is different in the two photos, and the Arroyo Seco bridge just upstream might be
different in the two photos as well.
P.S. Noir on Rose/Thorne Street: In November 1898, a ~30-year-old widow named Mrs. Blinn Pierce began boarding at the Thatcher/Kinsley home.
In late December 1898, Thatcher, aged 80 and in his dotage, showed Pierce $1500 worth of diamonds he kept stashed in his room. A few days later,
Mrs. Pierce breathlessly announced she had to leave immediately for San Francisco. A few days after Mrs. Pierce left, Thatcher noticed his diamonds
were missing. This aroused suspicion.
Newspapers said Mrs. Pierce had seduced Horace Bell Jr away from his wife and family. Bell and Pierce had known each other since May 1898, and
he had visited her at the Thatcher/Kinsley home almost daily until mid-December 1898, when he left for San Francisco. Once Pierce joined him
there, Bell pawned the diamonds for her, but later the two had a falling out and Bell wrote from SF to Mrs. Kinsley about Pierce taking the diamonds
(which Thatcher's 1895 will gave, along with 4/5 of his estate, to Mrs. Kinsley). Pierce eventually returned to LA and was arrested in March 1900.
Thatcher testified at the preliminary hearing in March but died the day before the start of the trial in May. Bell testified at the preliminary hearing
but then would not cooperate with the prosecution and balked at testifying again. When he finally did, he would not confirm the story he gave at
the preliminary hearing. The trial ended in a hung jury, 7-5 to convict. A second trial was set for September, but with Thatcher dead and conflicting
testimony from the uncooperative Bell, the case was dismissed.
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