noirish Los Angeles

[Tetsu]

Originally Posted by HossC

Detail of picture in USC Digital Library

The Baist maps name the building to the right of the Upp Apartments as the St Louis Apartments, but this color shot from the 1940s shows it as the Amos Apartments (which also appears to be the name in the image above).


eBay

I only found the picture above because I was intrigued by the one below, which is from the same seller as several of the images posted yesterday by e_r. The description says "Homes and apartment buildings in Los Angeles. I think this photo was taken near The Upp Apartments on W. 1st St. (see my other listing)." It's dated "early 1940s." Is this the back of the Upp and Amos Apartments? That would mean that these houses were on Mignonette Street.


eBay

Two amazing shots!!! Wow. As it has already been pointed out, that second photo is on Olive looking at the back of the Melrose. And, might I add that nothing in the photo looks remotely slum-like. Quite opposite, really.

[HossC]

Originally Posted by MichaelRyerson

This is a shot of the backs of the Melrose (background center and right) and the Richelieu background on the left. View is looking west from Olive on which these houses in the foreground number.

Thanks, MR. I probably should've recognized them, but was thrown by the description.


---------------


Here's the Bell Motor Hotel at 1126 East Colorado St, Glendale. I can't find any previous mentions. The seller says this postcard is dated 1957.


eBay

This one is dated by the source as "between circa 1930 and circa 1945", and gives a couple of interior views.


Wikimedia Commons

I had a look at Historic Aerials, and the Bell Motor Hotel seems to have been replaced by the current building between 2005 and 2012. The view below is from 2004, and shows that the swimming pool disappeared sometime before the motel (it's clearly visible in some of the earlier images).


Historic Aerials

[MartinTurnbull]

I found this one recently on Pinterest. Looking north up Vine St toward the Hollywoodland sign, shortly after it was installed in the Hollywood Hills in 1923. When I posted it on my Facebook page, I was asked about the”H” or “K” in the Hollywood Hills to the far left of the sign, way in the background. I don’t really know what it is? The only other sign I remember seeing is the Outpost sign. Any ideas?

[tovangar2]

The "H" is for Hollywood High School. Not many references or photos online as it didn't last long.

https://underthehollywoodsign.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/hollywoodland-from-above-circa-1925/


jalopejournal

Your photo has been posted before, but nobody asked about the "H". It's a great shot.

[CityBoyDoug]

Originally Posted by HossC

Thanks, MR. I probably should've recognized them, but was thrown by the description.


---------------




This one is dated by the source as "between circa 1930 and circa 1945", and gives a couple of interior views.


Wikimedia Commons

s

Let's look at that motel. Swedish modern furniture and a TV....ay caramba so modern.

Don't you all love the brown chenille bedspreads? What more could one ask for. So lovely and authentic of the era. I just know that Tovangar likes it!!

[tovangar2]

You think I like chenille CBD? Brown chenille?

LOL, what are you smoking?

[jdcamb]

I follow this thread with much enjoyment. Thanks everyone. Excellent work !

[CityBoyDoug]

Originally Posted by tovangar2

You think I like chenille CBD? Brown chenille?

LOL, what are you smoking?

LOL....you don't like that? Oh...OK.

[HenryHuntington]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

"Train curve between Barstow and San Bernardino."

eBay

I never noticed the three lights on the side of a train before. Obviously it's caution....go....and stop.
Is this so another train doesn't rear-end them?

According to amtrak_russ on the Amtrak Unlimited message board (http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/26266-marker-signal-lights/)...

These lights on the sides of the cars are to let the engineer and train crew know which car's brakes are applied or not. The green light indicated that the brakes are released on the car. The yellow light indicated that the brake is applied and the red light indicated a emergency application (not all cars have a red light). This also helps to alert the crew if a car's brakes are still applied or stick while moving.

Thanks for the photo - apparently taken in Cajon Pass - and for the opportunity to learn something new. ER, this place that you founded never ceases to amaze, one way or another!

[rick m]

Originally Posted by Tetsu

Two amazing shots!!! Wow. As it has already been pointed out, that second photo is on Olive looking at the back of the Melrose. And, might I add that nothing in the photo looks remotely slum-like. Quite opposite, really.

This home always eluded me in my years of studying all of Bunker Hill ! And its next door property looks great as well- Great find....

[MichaelRyerson]

Originally Posted by rick m

This home always eluded me in my years of studying all of Bunker Hill ! And its next door property looks great as well- Great find....

Because of the lovely condition of the buildings (except maybe the Richelieu) I'm guessing 1940 or earlier. But not much earlier, it is color film after all. Is that a 'V' for victory sign in the second floor window on the right?

[MartinTurnbull]

Originally Posted by tovangar2

The "H" is for Hollywood High School. Not many references or photos online as it didn't last long.

https://underthehollywoodsign.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/hollywoodland-from-above-circa-1925/


jalopejournal

Your photo has been posted before, but nobody asked about the "H". It's a great shot.

The "H" was for Hollywood High? Now, there's something I never would have guessed. I wonder why they'd go to the trouble of even building it - it must have been fairly big - when it was so far from the campus.

[oldstuff]

Originally Posted by MartinTurnbull

The "H" was for Hollywood High? Now, there's something I never would have guessed. I wonder why they'd go to the trouble of even building it - it must have been fairly big - when it was so far from the campus.

Lots of local high schools had their letters on a hill (if they had a hill). If you could see far enough in the pictures that show the Verdugo Hills on the other side of the valley, you could probably see the "B" for Burbank and the "H" for Hoover High (later, though) in Glendale, both facing the same direction. For Burbank, at least, it was put there in the 1920's by the "Key Club" and was painted rocks and then they had the football team take paint up the hill as part of their football conditioning program before school started in the fall to freshen up the letter. The Burbank B is just above my house. Ours is not nearly so high up as the Hollywood H, but we don't have an accessible road along the top of our hill.

Wikipedia has a list of the 80-some hillside letters throughout California including the first one in 1905 built for UC Berkeley

The Key Club is the High School version of the Kiwanis service club.

[tovangar2]

Originally Posted by MartinTurnbull

The "H" was for Hollywood High? Now, there's something I never would have guessed. I wonder why they'd go to the trouble of even building it - it must have been fairly big - when it was so far from the campus.

Compared to the "Hollywoodland" sign, the HHS "H" looks like it was huge. That it could be seen for miles must have been very gratifying for the students. I don't think it was so much "built" as just painted (as oldstuff described) or made of packed chalk (as the rehabbed BHS "B" is now):

burbankhigh68

One more of the HHS "H":

water and power

P.S.

The Heinz "57" numbers in the Baldwin Hills were concrete, if you remember those

[tovangar2]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

I've heard about the Schindler church but somehow never got around to finding it (I never would have guessed Compton). It looks as if it's getting to the point where it's beyond repair (can you imagine the shape it would be in if it had been built in a place with inclement weather?)
__

If you're still following this, Schindler's 1944 Bethlehem Baptist Church has been restored (not including the original paint colors), as SonnyLA related last year. The news now is the building is for sale.

The listing is here.

Then:

esoteric

Now:

schindlerchurch

Info on the history of the building and the work done is here.

[MartinTurnbull]

Originally Posted by oldstuff

Lots of local high schools had their letters on a hill (if they had a hill). If you could see far enough in the pictures that show the Verdugo Hills on the other side of the valley, you could probably see the "B" for Burbank and the "H" for Hoover High (later, though) in Glendale, both facing the same direction. For Burbank, at least, it was put there in the 1920's by the "Key Club" and was painted rocks and then they had the football team take paint up the hill as part of their football conditioning program before school started in the fall to freshen up the letter. The Burbank B is just above my house. Ours is not nearly so high up as the Hollywood H, but we don't have an accessible road along the top of our hill.

Wikipedia has a list of the 80-some hillside letters throughout California including the first one in 1905 built for UC Berkeley

The Key Club is the High School version of the Kiwanis service club.

Ahhhhh... that clears up something I've wondered since I moved here in the 90s. I'm familiar with the "B" in the Burbank hills. Thanks for that history lesson, oldstuff!

[Martin Pal]

E_R, those color photographs of World War II era Los Angeles you recently posted are fantastic! The fact that you consistently find these wonderful historical images on eBay is seemingly miraculous and I appreciate it and thank you for doing it! How many things would we have missed were it not for--ebay?!



This one of the Pan Pacific Auditorium, sans watermark courtesy of HossC, might be the best one I've seen with this color scheme. We've had a lot of information posted about this location, and I've read some from other sources, too, but I wondered if anyone knew anything about the painting of this building? We normally see color photos of it in the art deco green colors. I'm curious if there was any rhyme or reasoning as to why it was also painted this color and if it had been any other colors at other times?
___



Though I am usually partial to neon lit scenes like the Examiner/Richfield and Hawaii Theater ones, this particular photo is perhaps my favorite. It just feels like a matter-of-fact, slice-of-life photo showing a glimpse back to one moment in World War II era Los Angeles...with the people waiting for a bus on the bench...some "ladies who lunch" coming from the Brown Derby and, also, probably the soldier with his date (?) jaywalking across Wilshire Blvd. The fact it also shows a grouping of buildings that are now also left to history is doubly interesting. Anyone know what the circular "K" sign near the bus bench might signify? I also love "the Mariposa dip." LOL!

If these photos all were taken during WWII, I am wondering about the duration of any "blackout' rules because of those great neon pictures. I don't recall seing any color photos of the Hawaii theater before and had thought the neon might probably have been green, yellow or orange instead of red, white and blue...and also wondering why the mural scene in between the blue neon columns wasn't visible?

Lots of great stuff lately, thanks all.

[Martin Pal]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

And here's another from the 1940s...
New Chinatown or China City?*

eBay
Note the American Flags. Yep, it's the patriotic 1940s!
__

*This is actually New Chinatown. The Forbidden Palace was located at 451 Gin Ling Way.
Vintage Menus
http://www.kcet.org/living/food/the-nosh/historic-chinese-menus-from-las-chinatown-and-beyond.html

Did anyone else think the lady by the doors of the "Forbidden Palace" entrance resembles Eleanor Roosevelt?

[CityBoyDoug]

Here is one of those random ''candid'' downtown Los Angeles photos from the mid 1940s. Photographers would take them and later hope you would purchase.

[Incidentally this is my stepfather, he's the one who's first wife was a suicide in 1943, that I've mentioned before.] He bought his suits at Desmond's. He later loaned me
his Desmond's credit card....which was a mistake. He let me use it twice and that was the end of that.


album

[ethereal_reality]

Stylish man. -I believe those are glass blocks imbedded in the sidewalks. We discussed them on NLA years ago, but I wasn't able locate the earlier discussion.
They're to let light into the basements...if the basement extends out to the curb. (right?)

Originally Posted by Martin Pal

Anyone know what the circular "K" sign near the bus bench might signify?

detail

M_P, at first I thought it was a Rotary International sign (you still see them in the Midwest).


wiki

...but, that doesn't explain the large K in the center.

so now I'm thinking it was a Kiwanis International sign (below).


http://www.nnhs65.com/11-26-08-NNHS-John-Seward.html


if interested:

Rotary Club history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_International

Kiwanis history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwanis

Kiwanis of Los Angeles
https://sites.google.com/site/lakiwanis/