noirish Los Angeles

[Those Who Squirm!]

These are great. I had no idea that the building still had a second story as recently as 1974. I wonder if that part of the building had already been condemned following the 1971 earthquake.

I was able to determine the name "Clinton Block", but found it useless to Google. Mostly I got links about Bill Clinton, and I'm not sure quotation marks even work anymore.

Originally Posted by Scott Charles

Here is the Clinton Block building (CIRCLED IN PINK) from Google Street View. I used the view from 2009 because it's the best view on the site (not obscured by trees, buses, delivery trucks, etc):



And here is the same view from the 1974 Jack Nicholson movie, Chinatown (note red arrow pointing to the same sign in both images):



In 1974, the Clinton Block building appears to be 2 (or 2.5?) stories tall...


Movie screenshots from Chinatown 4k Blu-Ray

[Noir_Noir]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

.

Today we have a cyanotype mystery location.

You had some of those cyanotypes before e_r.

Originally Posted by Noir_Noir

The ebay seller of the cyanotypes you've posted has these two street scenes ones listed as well as the "theatre" ones.



ebay


Their listings also say "possibly Los Angeles" ... but they're not.

Those scenes are of Walnut Street in Des Moines, Iowa circa 1899.

[Those Who Squirm!]

Originally Posted by Noir_Noir

This post by Flyingwedge HERE gathers a number of pictures of the Clinton Block/Sunset Hotel that you're looking for.

Outstanding!

[ethereal_reality]

.
oops.

Thanks for reminding me, Noir Noir.

.

[Those Who Squirm!]

These are excellent; Noir Noir directed me to this post.

From the posts above it appears that the building was decapitated in stages with the third and second stories being removed at different times.

As of 2025 it's still there according to the county assessor's website. Two other corners of this intersection are likewise occupied by pre-1900 buildings; it's been surprising to learn how old the built environment of this neighborhood still is; and how much more so it must have been when New Chinatown was established. As far as the buildings went, it wasn't much newer than Old Chinatown, at least when we look back from the year 2025. In the 1935 photo, we clearly see the thin double pilasters on the exterior wall, as well as the three windows and lowered door, that are still evident today.



ETA: The small tumbledown building with the Carmen Rodriguez poster, in the 1920 photo, looks like it's built of adobe, or if not that, like it goes back to the earliest development of the era, possibly even before the American conquest.

Originally Posted by Flyingwedge

It used to have three towers! That's the 1887 Clinton Block aka Sunset Hotel at the NWC of North Spring and Ord.

Here it is, de-towered (above the pedestrian's head), looking west on Ord in 1948:



2001-0410 at CA State Library



This image is dated c. 1935; the Clinton Block is north across Ord, beyond the vacant lot. The building's distinctive corner is
at the right edge:



00067304 @ LA Public Library



Here's a c. 1920 view showing two of the towers (note "Sunset Hotel" atop west wall above Wrigley's ad):



CHS-6378 @ USC Digital Library



The Clinton Block is on the left in this undated photo looking NE -- we finally see all three towers:





Here we're looking SE at it in probably late 1887:



Denver Public Library



It was still hanging on as a one-story building in February 2023!

[Noir_Noir]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

.
A new Mystery location.



eBay

This is the northside of W. Pico Blvd. between S. Rimpau Blvd. and Mullen Ave.

The three stores to the right of the picture in the 1963 directory.



rescarta.lapl.org

The building that housed the three was demolished and replaced in 1985.

[Snix]

Saw this nice Gomi's postcard on eBay and wondered what it's story was. The coffee shop at 11107 Olympic Boulevard was built in 1965 and designed by architect T.H. Kendell who I am not familiar with. It replaced a bar called "Duffy's Tavern" which burned down. In 1968 the secret service raided the parking lot and recovered almost a million dollars in counterfeit money! Gomi's gave way to Dirty Dick's in the early 70s, the Los Angeles outpost of a famous Australian bar and theater. When the former Gomi's burned again in 1977 it was a seafood restaurant called The Blue Point. The site is currently a mini mall.

eBay

LAT 8.13.68

LAT 10.9.75



eBay

LAT 6.22.76
Today it's the world's most anonymous mini mall.

GSV

[Flyingwedge]

I never knew the Clinton Block was in Chinatown. Thanks, Scott Charles!

Here's a better view of the three-hatted Clinton Block, along with its neighbor across the street, the Tononi Block, from a c. 1890 panorama:



2004-0003 @ Calisphere

[Scott Charles]

Originally Posted by Those Who Squirm!

I'm not sure quotation marks even work (on Google Search) anymore.

You may get better results using Google Advanced Search:

https://www.google.com/advanced_search

[Lwize]

Originally Posted by Snix

Saw this nice Gomi's postcard on eBay and wondered what it's story was. The coffee shop at 11107 Olympic Boulevard was built in 1965 and designed by architect T.H. Kendell who I am not familiar with. It replaced a bar called "Duffy's Tavern" which burned down. In 1968 the secret service raided the parking lot and recovered almost a million dollars in counterfeit money! Gomi's gave way to Dirty Dick's in the early 70s, the Los Angeles outpost of a famous Australian bar and theater. When the former Gomi's burned again in 1977 it was a seafood restaurant called The Blue Point. The site is currently a mini mall.

eBay

Gomi's was across the street (NW corner, not SW corner), where 11111 sits on the corner (11107 and 11105 are part of the block).

I had dined there in the 1970's when It had googy architectural elements.
The food was nothing special.

[ethereal_reality]

.

Today we have a mystery vantage point. . .

. .of a funny bussiness man posing on the balcony of the hotel he was staying in.


Here's the view from the balcony. (sans business man)



Hmm. .nice pool.



The business man is obviously in town with a cohort because he appears (and jokes around) in the other snapshots.



Don't jump!





Altitude sickness.



In the next two pics the business appears to be running out of funny things to do- but we get to see a couple of additional skyscrapers!







If I had to go on a business trip with someone I'd want it to him. LOL


Get to work minions!
.

[odinthor]

e_r, the prominent building is the Prudential Savings building in Century Plaza, Century City.


https://www.johnkelsey-architect.com/

[Those Who Squirm!]

Originally Posted by Flyingwedge

It used to have three towers! That's the 1887 Clinton Block aka Sunset Hotel at the NWC of North Spring and Ord.

Here it is, de-towered (above the pedestrian's head), looking west on Ord in 1948:



2001-0410 at CA State Library

Regarding the 1948 photo, the other large building across North Spring from the Sunset Hotel, and slightly closer to the camera, is the San Fernando Hotel, named after the street as North Spring was known in the 1880s. This building was also known as the Tononi Block. Oddly enough I remembered that there was an Italian name somewhere in all of this, which I thought was the name of one of the hotels. Evidently this was incorrect.

If the build date of 1887 reported in the county assessor's website is accurate, then this is another astonishing survival--yet another 19th century hotel building that has stood in three centuries, albeit drastically truncated like its across-the-street neighbor.

I haven't done one for a long time but I do believe feel a blog post percolating and circulating in me... It will out!

[Lwize]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

.

Today we have a mystery vantage point. . .

. .of a funny bussiness man posing on the balcony of the hotel he was staying in.


Here's the view from the balcony. (sans business man)




.

Yeah, he's on a westward-facing balcony of the Century Plaza Hotel.

[Martin Pal]

^^^
When I first saw the photo I thought it had a Century City vibe. When confirmed with the Prudential Savings building in Century City, I recalled those Plaza hotel railings were all a bit angular in design.

It's now the Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel. I know Pres. Reagan used it a lot during his Presidency The Press called it the Western White House. The hotel's history page mentions some things I did not know. President Nixon hosted an official state dinner for the Apollo astronauts there in August of 1969. The 1967 Emmy Awards were held there. Notable people have performed there like Sonny & Cher and Elton John. The website says every President since Ford has stayed or visited there in some capacity. (Shouldn't that be since Nixon? State dinner and all?)

https://www.fairmontcenturyplaza.com/our-history/
---

There's an episode of Adam-12 where they show the officers drive by the hotel and the camera pans left and the land on the entire left side of the street is vacant where the ABC Entertainment center (Shubert Theatre, Century Plaza Movie Theatres) was located.

[riichkay]

Great work by all on the photo negatives that e_r posted, and props to Noir Noir for locating the Pico/Rimpau image, that was a tough i.d.



flickr

This photo is undated (it's likely during the war years) and the gentleman is unidentified....the obvious clue here is Nadeau Pharmacy....I guessed this could be on Nadeau St., which has a relatively short retail/commercial stretch....so I hopped on the Googlemobile and eventually arrived at the intersection of Nadeau and Bell Ave., this is the n.e. corner....






...the building has similar brickwork design elements as the pharmacy (note that we just observed this sort of decoration on several buildings in the Eagle Rock Blvd. photos)....





If I have the pharmacy building identified correctly the G.I. would have been seated diagonally across the intersection, near the rear door of this cafe....

[HossC]

Here's the parking lot between Prudential Savings and the Century Plaza Hotel in 1971. It remained undeveloped until the early 2000s. The Prudential Savings building survived until around 2012, by which time it was Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin (an investment bank). It can be seen on the early StreetView images.


mil.library.ucsb.edu

[Those Who Squirm!]

I thought the group would be interested in these interior photos of the Evangeline Swam Room bar currently occupying what's left of the Sunset Hotel building. You never know when the bar may shut down or the building finally be demolished, so I saved a few Google Maps screengrabs on Flickr. Vintage details abound!


Note the embossed tin ceiling and the sconce lamps on the columns.


In this photo you can see what appear to be electrical conduits on the far wall, typically seen in buildings to which electric lighting was added years after the original construction.

If the details don't fully show up in this post, you can see them better in the Flickr album.

If this interior doesn't look like it could have once been the lobby and reception area of a hotel in a small Western city in the 1880s, then I don't know what does.

[Earl Boebert]

Originally Posted by riichkay

Great work by all on the photo negatives that e_r posted, and props to Noir Noir for locating the Pico/Rimpau image, that was a tough i.d.



flickr

This photo is undated (it's likely during the war years) and the gentleman is unidentified....the obvious clue here is Nadeau Pharmacy....I guessed this could be on Nadeau St., which has a relatively short retail/commercial stretch....so I hopped on the Googlemobile and eventually arrived at the intersection of Nadeau and Bell Ave., this is the n.e. corner....






...the building has similar brickwork design elements as the pharmacy (note that we just observed this sort of decoration on several buildings in the Eagle Rock Blvd. photos)....





If I have the pharmacy building identified correctly the G.I. would have been seated diagonally across the intersection, near the rear door of this cafe....

That is a very peculiar uniform that gentleman is wearing. It has the cut of a WWII era US Army uniform but is completely devoid of the nationality and rank markings called out by the Geneva Convention or any unit patches or specialty pins (e.g., aircrew wings, paratroop wings, etc.) or award ribbons.

Cheers,

Earl

[Martin Pal]

It seems he's sitting on a keg, too.

That "Slow Down" etc. sign on the bottom of the pole on the now photo isn't something I've seen before, either.

---

Originally Posted by HossC

Here's the parking lot between Prudential Savings and the Century Plaza Hotel in 1971. It remained undeveloped until the early 2000s. The Prudential Savings building survived until around 2012, by which time it was Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin (an investment bank). It can be seen on the early StreetView images.


mil.library.ucsb.edu

It's interesting to me that the Century Plaza Hotel opened in 1966, and by all accounts a success, and the ABC Entertainment Center opened in 1972, so the view from the rooms facing east was, for six years, pretty much a construction site on one side and parking lots on the other, which isn't that attractive, not to mention all the other high rise buildings constructed around there the years afterwards.