noirish Los Angeles

[AlvaroLegido]

Originally Posted by Scott Charles

It was (and still is!) a beautiful building. Those circular windows are in the stairwell, I used to run up the stairs when I was a kid, trying to beat my mother (who took the elevator) to the third floor.

I like reading this moving memory with regard to the circular windows.

[Martin Pal]

Originally Posted by Lorendoc

Very interesting to read all the LA bona fides.

I've lived here for 40 years, most of my life. I was preceded to Southern California by many cousins, and by my mother who lived here in 1947-8. After graduating from Northwestern in 1945, she moved to NY and got a job with an ad agency. When radio moved west, she went with it and got a job as a script girl for Lux Radio Theatre. She lived at the Hollywood Studio Club on Lodi Place and walked 15 minutes to CBS Columbia Square every day for work.

The Studio Club was a Julia Moore building, now on the National Register of Historic Places, I'm sure it must have been mentioned here before.


GSV

I don't know if interiors were actually filmed inside this place, but an exterior of this was in the recent Warren Beatty film Rules Don't Apply.

Along with some archive footage of Hollywood, some other location shoots in L.A. were:

--Northmere Apartments, 1840 North Berendo St. in Los Feliz.

--Musso & Frank's Grill on Hollywood Blvd.

--The Beverly Hills Hotel and also the Biltmore Hotel.

Although the Beverly Hills Hotel doesn't usually allow filming, Warren Beatty said that because of his long relationship with the hotel they agreed to let him film some interior scenes there.

________

I just found this L.A. Weekly article about all of the places in SoCal where Rules Don't Apply were filmed. The interiors of the Hollywood Studio Club were indeed filmed in there. Also, it says that the last time a movie was allowed to film in the Beverly Hills Hotel was 1978's California Suite.

http://www.laweekly.com/arts/your-ultima...-warren-beattys-rules-dont-apply-7611160

[Martin Pal]

You have quite a family history, Scott Charles, thanks for posting about it.

Originally Posted by Scott Charles

Being Japanese, my mother spent World War II in a Manzanar relocation camp [...]

I cannot imagine.

Well, nowadays, unfortunately, I can. I hear Shirley Bassey singing "History Repeating."

• Video Link

[Martin Pal]

Originally Posted by HossC

What caught my eye was the Art Deco building, first seen as a model.

It's obviously the old Lane-Wells Building [...]

That was a fascinating post, HossC!

[Scott Charles]

Originally Posted by AlvaroLegido

I like reading this moving memory with regard to the circular windows.

I'm so glad they “repurposed” the building instead of leveling it - I’ve got a lot of good memories of that building!

Originally Posted by Martin Pal

You have quite a family history, Scott Charles, thanks for posting about it.

I cannot imagine.

Well, nowadays, unfortunately, I can. I hear Shirley Bassey singing "History Repeating."

• Video Link

It may seem a bit odd, but my family was never really bitter about Manzanar - as soon as they got out, they considered it history, and never really thought about it again. They just moved on. My mom's brother even joined the US Army and served in Korea!

[CityBoyDoug]

Originally Posted by Scott Charles

I'm so glad they “repurposed” the building instead of leveling it - I’ve got a lot of good memories of that building!


!

Re: The old Bauhaus style CBS building on Sunset.

Well, it was ''re-purposed'' into something that is not approachable. Very brutal but appropriate for the LA of 2018. Its original fun and openness
is gone...its now a fortress with heavy-handed bars and gates.

Update:...My google street view was showing a different and older street view. Sorry for the error.

[ethereal_reality]

Originally Posted by Handsome Stranger

Ringo Starr was shooting a promo for a song called "Only You (And You Alone)" on top of the Capitol Records Building.
The shoot date was November 14, 1974.

Thanks Handsome Stranger.
So this 'video' pre-dates the MTV era by about 7 years....interesting. (so where was it shown?)

To be totally honest, it's all so...how do I put it mildly.....AWFUL

Here's Ringo wearing a bargain basement Ziggy Stardust outfit with star sunglasses.

VIDEO LINK

& inexplicably...Ringo appears with one of those Steve Martin arrows through his head. (symbolism...or simply a bad idea?)


Starting at 3:00 (in the 3:25 video) the helicopter takes off and reveals not one, but two GIANT ROBOTS on the roof.


VIDEO LINK

The robots are MIA in the slides I posted earlier.

__

[GaylordWilshire]

Originally Posted by CityBoyDoug

Odinthor, handsome stranger and fellow noirishers. There's lot more to my story.

My mother's father knew an attorney in LA., via one of his girlfriends. My mom persuaded this attorney to handle her divorce from the psycho. His wife had one year previously committed suicide by pistol in their garage attic. She had swiped the pistol from their neighbor the previous day whilst having tea and cake with her. This same attorney [who my mom later married] also obtained an arrest warrant for her former husband---then separated from.

My mom, my brother and I moved to a new home every two months, because she feared for our safety....due to the psycho's threats. During that year my brother and I were involved in a crosswalk accident with a drunk driver on Brand Blvd. in Glendale. Our names appeared in a local newspaper...after my mom had begged them not to print our names and address..they did anyways. The next day she received an unpleasant call from one of his relatives. Later that night us brothers were taken to San Bernardino where we stayed with a family-in-law for 6 months.

When her ex found out about the arrest warrant, he left CA, never to return.

This is the house where she committed suicide in 1943. They had bought the house new in 1935 for around $7,000...its in San Gabriel. She left a note claiming he had some girlfriends.


photo bucket

Here it is--1102 King St, San Gabriel




GSV

[CityBoyDoug]

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

Here it is--1102 King St, San Gabriel

Yeah, I was inside this house a few times or so. There were 3 people living there at the time...later on they became my dear relatives.

It was all decorated like a mansion inside with Oriental rugs, marble & mahogany tables and lead crystal drinking glasses, etc.. Everything was very adult and in perfect order.
They had a cook, a gardener and cleaning people.
One cleaning lady/cook was named Garcia...she helped my mom and teacher arrange a birthday party for me [but at a different house in nearby San Marino...a brand new house]. My teacher, Miss Sandman and a few neighbor boys attended. It was a great day.

[TangoJuliet]

Originally Posted by HossC

I was watching TV the other day when I saw a clip of the rather bizarre video below. It's "Mr. Tillman" by Father John Misty.

• Video Link

What caught my eye was the Art Deco building, first seen as a model.

It's obviously the old Lane-Wells Building at 5610 S Soto Street, Huntington Park, but there's some camera trickery going on. I'm guessing that some scenes were filmed with a tilt-shift lens, and they've also digitally altered this shot to turn the sidewalk into a driveway and add more grass.

Wow. Amazing visuals. Pretty cool song too.

[Scott Charles]

Originally Posted by CityBoyDoug

Re: The old Bauhaus style CBS building on Sunset.

Well, it was ''re-purposed'' into something that is not approachable. Very brutal but appropriate for the LA of 2018. Its original fun and openness
is gone...its now a fortress with heavy-handed bars and gates.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean, Doug - to my eyes, everything there looks more open and approachable now, not less!

For example, the entire time I used to go there with my mom, the Sunset Blvd side of the building looked like this:

GSV

Now it looks like this, all the bars and gates removed:

GSV

As to the entrance on El Centro, the same thing applies... all of the gates, and the booth with the armed guard, are gone. Now you can walk right up to the doors, straight off the street.

Then:
GSV

And now:


I haven't been to the building since my mom worked there, but from the outside at least, the building certainly seems more open and approachable now, no?

[ethereal_reality]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

So far on NLA, we've seen, or have mentioned...

Bohemian Grill (Vine Street)
Stark's Bohemian Café (Santa Monica Blvd.)
Bohemian Tavern (Pasadena)
& La Boheme (Sunset)

Yet, this flood scene shows a 'Bohemian Grove' on a un-named street in Los Angeles.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/1934-Vintage-Pho...t=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19fefbca77

So where was this 'Bohemian Grove' located... Does anyone know?
_________________________________________________________________________________

I don't believe we ever located this place. One reason might be a discrepancy in the name.





I found the same photograph again the other day....but in this description the nightclub is called "Bohemian Gardens"....NOT 'Bohemian Grove'.



EBAY

And what's this ravine they're talking about?





The next photograph is new to NLA. (i THINK)

If the building in this photograph is the club...it looks like a large shed-like building. (almost like a fort)


VINTAGETIMES

But more importantly, now we have an address. 3890 Mission Road

3890 South Mission Road places the nightclub almost directly beneath the Sixth Street Bridge! (very noirish)


GSV AS MOST OF YOU KNOW; 6TH ST BRIDGE WAS WHERE YOU SEE WHITTIER BLVD.

And the ravine that was mentioned in the first description must have been the Los Angeles River. (why call it a ravine )

so did two of the bar's patrons drown...or were they eventually found?
___



3890 North Mission Road is just northeast of Lincoln Park HERE

[CityBoyDoug]

Originally Posted by Scott Charles

I'm not sure I understand what you mean, Doug - to my eyes, everything there looks more open and approachable now, not less!

I haven't been to the building since my mom worked there, but from the outside at least, the building certainly seems more open and approachable now, no?

Update:...My google street view was showing a different and older street view [2011]. Sorry for the error. I have no idea how that happened.

The building complex looks fine now....I like it... plus I like all of Scott Charles' Posts..

Maybe President Trump will have me investigated for my many mistaken Posts.

[Handsome Stranger]

Originally Posted by mushmonster

Am I the only one who thinks that LA seems quite scary when it's in black and white?

Not sure I entirely agree. It can be scary, but as a rule it isn't necessarily scary.

I do think black and white photography can be highly evocative in ways color can't, which is part of the reason it's so essential to film noir. Black and white is particularly well suited to evoking a strong sense of dread, menace, malice, and clandestine misdeeds. Los Angeles just happens to provide an excellent backdrop for such imagery.


Frame grab from Orson Welles' Touch of Evil, 1958. Cinematography by Russell Metty. [source:bplusmovieblog.com]

I'd love to see other Noirishers share their most evocative black and white photos of Los Angeles, even if they've been posted previously. Noirish or not.

[Lorendoc]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

I don't believe we ever located this place. One reason might be a discrepancy in the name.





I found the same photograph again the other day....but in this description the nightclub is called "Bohemian Gardens"....NOT 'Bohemian Grove'.

e_r I think the nightclub was not under the Sixth street viaduct. The 1938 CD has a listing for the Bohemian Gardens at 3890 North Mission:



lapl.org

It looks like that the North Mission address would be in the drainage area of Montecito Heights, so ravines were likely to be in the area...

Here is the LAT of 1/2/34, indicating that the club was north of the County Hospital, which can be seen in the map below:


newspapers.com


GSV

The address is at the corner of Baldwin and N. Mission; looks industrial today:

[odinthor]

Originally Posted by odinthor

L.A.'s Tenderloin appears to be mostly if not completely associated with the crib district off of Alameda (all images LA Times via ProQuest via CSULB Library). Some early mentions:

[...]

[...]

I always become interested in further details. Young Willie Steppler's travails and further adventures seemed worth pursuing. All from LA Times via ProQuest via CSULB Library, resized and rearranged for your viewing pleasure:







I find, so far, nothing further on young Mr. Steppler.

[Martin Pal]

Originally Posted by Scott Charles

It may seem a bit odd, but my family was never really bitter about Manzanar - as soon as they got out, they considered it history, and never really thought about it again. They just moved on. My mom's brother even joined the US Army and served in Korea!

I don't find it odd, Scott Charles, I find it admirable. So much of the public discourse today is to look for offense and/or to be aggrieved. If one is able to, some good advice is: Take no offense. That which offends you only weakens you. Being offended creates the same destructive energy that offended you in the first place--so transcend your ego and stay in peace.

[odinthor]

I've spent a deal of time trying to follow the further careers of the interesting principals in the Steppler incident. The "fallen woman" with whom young Steppler took up, and who acquired quite a good handful of surnames from successive husbands, but whose birth name appears to have been Lena Junger, but most often known--at least by the Los Angeles Times--as "Spanish Beauty," is a good candidate for True L.A. Noirisher distinction, Turn of the Century Division, with varied, riotous, and sometimes violent behavior for several years. Oh, and we can't forget to mention her young daughter with a two-week marriage which faltered because of the shocked young husband's objections to her choice of entertainment.

But, beyond all that, I found the following two items very poignant (as usual, from the Los Angeles Times via ProQuest via CSULB Library), and thought I'd share them:

First, her brother (article from 9/28/1895):



Finally, herself (5/1/1902):



Sic transit gloria mundi!

[oldstuff]

Originally Posted by odinthor

I always become interested in further details. Young Willie Steppler's travails and further adventures seemed worth pursuing. All from LA Times via ProQuest via CSULB Library, resized and rearranged for your viewing pleasure:

I find, so far, nothing further on young Mr. Steppler.

I had a detailed background on the Steppler family after the death of the father but my computer ate it. It does that frequently.

Generally. I found Willie (William) and his mother Crezentia (also known as Crecencia, Crecenca , Criscerta and other variations) in the 1900 census along with Willie's sister Paulina (mentioned in the article) and younger brothers Charles and Henry. In that census, his mother was working as a laundress, which she apparently was before, according to the articles. They are living at that time in Hueneme, Ventura County, CA. William is listed as working as a barber. His sister was working as a house servant and two younger brothers as day laborers.

Willie disappears after that census. The two younger brothers continued to live in Ventura county for a while and then Henry got a job apparently as a truck driver and moved back to Los Angeles. Henry registered for the WWI draft and is listed as living in Glendale and working at Pacific Mineral and Chemical Company.

Their mother died in Los Angeles County at the age of 84 in 1927. In the death records her name is spelled "Creszent". Charles died in 1948 in Ventura County and is buried in Fillmore.

Other searching had revealed that the elder Mr. Steppler was Crecencia's second husband and that she had at least four other children before she married him. He had been farming in Wisconsin prior to the family coming to California and had owned about 40 acres in Brown County, Wisconsin.

He appears in voter registrations and is listed as being a bricklayer. In various records he appears as Ernst, Ernest and Louis.

[odinthor]

Thanks, oldstuff! I'm always interested in getting the full sweep of these characters' lives, when possible!