As to the street address of the Sentous Block, the North Spring address is correct, as shown on the Baist map. The confusion with North Main comes from the fact that North Spring, like so many other streets, underwent not only realignment, as noted above, but also a flurry of name changes. In the 19th Century it was Upper Main, and was distinct from North Main, which was where it remains today. IIRC in those days there was a rise in elevation, hence the very confusing name for what we would now call North Spring, if only it existed in this block.
(Sanborn Map, access provided by the San Diego PL.)
I just want to add a link to the outstanding post by Those Who Squirm. We see (from Pico House -third floor) the complicated intersection in a movie during the early 1930s (I guess by the cars) and in pastel colors. It is the best excerpt that I've seen on the Plaza.
It is on YouTube Pamela Greyson's Lost Los Angeles channel
Homepage
Welcome friends to my youtube channel Lost Los Angeles
The intersection appears at 0 :35.
BTW, later (at 2 : 20) we see from City Hall, Temple Street to the West, starting at Broadway and a quick glimpse of Bunker Hill.
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AlvaroLegido
Last edited by AlvaroLegido; Nov 26, 2015 at 9:59 PM.
Here's another building that Julius Shulman got to photograph in the year that it opened. It's the Times-Mirror Building at 145 S Spring Street, or "Job 327: Rowland H. Crawford, Los Angeles Times, Mirror Building (Los Angeles, Calif.), 1948" as Mr Shulman called it.
Thanks again for your Shulman series, HossC. The photos are great, as are your additional comments and photos.
Here's a photo of the Mirror Building, then called the New Times Building, under construction on July 15, 1947.
That's the 1897 Hellman Building to the left at the NE corner of 2nd and Broadway:
The March 21, 1948, Times mentioned that the building would be used for Times expansion, plus floors would be rented out:
LAPL
However, it seems the true purpose of the building wasn't announced until just before the building was dedicated.
The article below goes on to state, "The official announcement ended months of rumors and climaxed one of the
largest billboard advertising campaigns in city history. Mr. Chandler emphasized that The Mirror will have no
connection as a newspaper with The Times":
Los Angeles Times, October 3, 1948 @ LAPL
Here's the Times from the morning the building was dedicated, October 10, 1948:
LAPL
The Mirror quit publishing in 1962. My grandfather, who was an accountant at the Times from 1947-72,
said he thought the whole Mirror operation was just a tax write-off.
Last edited by Flyingwedge; Nov 27, 2015 at 1:56 AM.
Reason: add 1948 photo
If the caption is accurate then this is a great find! I've never before seen a photo of the inside of the Broadway tunnel that wasn't involved with construction or demolition.
However, the Broadway tunnel was quite long and this tunnel doesn't seem like it's long enough to me. And I think there were streetcar tracks running through the Broadway tunnel. I searched to come up with comparison pics that show the tunnel entrance to compare the small amount of detail on the side, and I came up with a matching photo, but it's of the Hill Street tunnel, not Broadway. I think the above picture is actually the Hill Street tunnel.
The above pic is looking south out of the Hill Street auto tunnel in 1953. You can see the trim running down the sides of the tunnel, with a wide sidewalk on one side and no sidewalk on the other. You can also see the decorative footings (?) on either side of the tunnel entrance, which match the shadow on the far right of the first photo (and the opposite end of the tunnel).
Just a quick Julius Shulman post today. The index numbers on these photos suggest that the original set may have been bigger, but all we have is the three I'm posting here. These wonderful shots of the Los Angeles Convention Center were taken in 1971, the year it opened. It's "Job 4775: Charles Luckman Associates, Los Angeles Convention Center (Los Angeles, Calif.), 1971".
It's remarkable how much more appealing and interesting the Convention Center is when seen from these intimate vantage points, than when you drive past it on the freeway.
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The new Wandering In L.A. post is published!
Thanks for the excellent follow-up on the Times-Mirror Building, FW. As I mentioned in my original post, the entrance is virtually unchanged. On the left of the entrance is a stone recording the architect and constructor of the building, Rowland H Crawford and P J Walker Co respectively. I struggled to get a close-up of that with GSV, but the stone on the right is all about the dedication by Norman Chandler. I've inset an enlargement of that one.
There's some contention about this. The more reliable maps I'm familiar with all show Bellevue/Sunset ending at the complicated intersection on the NW corner of the Plaza, with Marchessault then running east from Main.
I agree this is more typical with regard to how the maps were labeled. But the Sunset labelling was used in some of the city directories, like this one from 1942, listing Plaza Methodist at 125 E Sunset. FWIW, if you go to HistoricAerials.com and look up the area, Marchessault does looklike an eastward continuation of Sunset and I wouldn't be surprised if that's how many people perceived it.
I just want to add a link to the outstanding post by Those Who Squirm. We see (from Pico House -third floor) the complicated intersection in a movie during the early 1930s (I guess by the cars) and in pastel colors. It is the best excerpt that I've seen on the Plaza.
It is on YouTube Pamela Greyson's Lost Los Angeles channel
Homepage
Welcome friends to my youtube channel Lost Los Angeles
The intersection appears at 0 :35.
BTW, later (at 2 : 20) we see from City Hall, Temple Street to the West, starting at Broadway and a quick glimpse of Bunker Hill.
I see there's a lot of good stuff there for everone to check out. Thanks for sharing!
__________________
The new Wandering In L.A. post is published!
Thanks for the excellent follow-up on the Times-Mirror Building, FW. As I mentioned in my original post, the entrance is virtually unchanged. On the left of the entrance is a stone recording the architect and constructor of the building, Rowland H Crawford and P J Walker Co respectively. I struggled to get a close-up of that with GSV, but the stone on the right is all about the dedication by Norman Chandler. I've inset an enlargement of that one.
GSV
Here is that other tablet:
Flyingwedge photo
And here is the entrance in September 2014. The reflections on the door are newspaper vending machines:
I just want to add a link to the outstanding post by Those Who Squirm. We see (from Pico House -third floor) the complicated intersection in a movie during the early 1930s (I guess by the cars) and in pastel colors. It is the best excerpt that I've seen on the Plaza.
It is on YouTube Pamela Greyson's Lost Los Angeles channel
Homepage
Welcome friends to my youtube channel Lost Los Angeles
The intersection appears at 0 :35.
BTW, later (at 2 : 20) we see from City Hall, Temple Street to the West, starting at Broadway and a quick glimpse of Bunker Hill.
I'm guessing that this is the video you're referring to.
Although I found the Francesca Braggiotti (if I heard the narrator correctly) Dancers painfully hokey, rehearsing at the Hollywood Bowl in the video, I guess they were kind of a big deal at the time.
The web seems to be awash with not-quite-positively identified 'tasteful' nude photos of Braggiotti. There may have been some obfuscation going on as Braggiotti married actor turned Republican politician John Davis Lodge in 1929. He was later governor of Connecticut (1951 to 1955) and diplomatic ambassador to Spain, Argentina and Switzerland.
Although I found the Francesca Braggiotti (if I heard the narrator correctly) Dancers painfully hokey, rehearsing at the Hollywood Bowl in the video, I guess they were kind of a big deal at the time.
The web seems to be awash with not-quite-positively identified 'tasteful' nude photos of Braggiotti. There may have been some obfuscation going on as Braggiotti married actor turned Republican politician John Davis Lodge in 1929. He was later governor of Connecticut (1951 to 1955) and diplomatic ambassador to Spain, Argentina and Switzerland.
The Braggiotto dancers at the Hollywood Bowl. Here's a quote from the MGM travelogue..."Hollywood...a quiet, well behaved little town...".
youtube
Last edited by CityBoyDoug; Nov 27, 2015 at 7:16 PM.
As well as the voiceover guy saying "Los Angeles" in every other sentence, he seems to call Olvera Street "Alvero Street".
Excellent screengrabs!
As for the narrator, James Fitzpatrick, I've seen a number of his Traveltalk films on TCM. AFAIK he was Boston born and raised; how he got that rural Kansas-like accent and over-the-top intonation I'll never know.
I don't think Olvera was ever a main thoroughfare, but hey, it was a brand, so to speak, especially so soon after the makeover.
ETA: The appearance in the video by Walt Disney rubs it in deeper that, by virtue of the Copyright Term Extension Act, several highly interesting and informative Los Angeles-related books from the late 1920s and early 30s will not be appearing in online full text any time soon. Disney Studios led the charge because they didn't want Mickey Mouse to enter the public domain. The desire to protect extremely valuable creative properties is certainly understandable and I don't blame them for it; be that as it may, it also means that dusty old books of interest to nobody else than history geeks like us also remain under lock and key, if at all available, unless we can get to the kind of library that would have them.
__________________
The new Wandering In L.A. post is published!
This week, for no particular reason, we ordered the original 1953 "War of the Worlds" from Netflix. It holds up remarkably well for a movie of its age. For those not familiar with it, herewith a few screen grabs from the LA sequence:
We begin by evacuating a hospital:
Scientists flee the Pacific Institute, actual location unknown to me:
Block an intersection, scatter some papers, and voila! LA has been abandoned:
Here's another look at the location. The artfully placed box almost but not quite blocks the normality at the lower left corner. You can figure the camera angle from the fragment of the blue Russel Stover storefront in the previous shot:
Duck and cover, kids (we all knew how to do that in 1953), here they come:
According to the article in Astounding Science Fiction, which consumed my interest along with the movie, the orange blast ray was manufactured by George Pal's technicians by feeding welding rod into an acetylene torch and forcing it into a spray with high-pressure air. The thing was reportedly about as destructive as the presumed Martian version. My attempts at duplicating the effect with Fourth of July sparklers and an air pump met with failure, but I did manage to carve a pretty good replica of the Martian "manta ray" war machine.
Finally, the iconic shot of zapping City Hall:
Again, according to Astounding, the building was a six-foot high model made of plaster that was exploded by air pressure. All in all, pretty impressive SFX for the day.
I'm guessing that this is the video you're referring to.
• Video Link
As well as the voiceover guy saying "Los Angeles" in every other sentence, he seems to call Olvera Street "Alvero Street".
Thanks so much Hoss !
You are great to operate on links, photos, maps, etc. The very opposite of me. I've downloaded the three screengrabs to make them my alternating desktop background. And now I'll have to sign « ALVEROLegido » my forthcoming posts to merge with the spirit of place. I'm French allright but I was born in Uruguay. We came in France when I was seven, so Spanish is my native language.
The James Oviatt Building at 617 S Olive Street isn't new to NLA. It's still standing, and still looking good, but I couldn't resist Julius Shulman's view of it from 1979 (just five years after the death of James Oviatt). This is "Job 5657: Albert R. Walker and Percy Eisen, James Oviatt Building (Los Angeles, Calif.), 1979".
List of Sunset Boulevard occupants/businesses by address, probably mid 1920s
(Or maybe not...be sure to read the ETA section below)
While researching the North Spring/Sunset/Bellevue block I came across this interesting list of Sunset Boulevard addresses.
Neither church has a Sunset address here, but as tovangar2 justly pointed out, the North Main and Marchessault addresses were much more typically used. ETA: In the case of the Methodist church, it's certainly possible that it didn't yet exist at that location, in which case the upper limit for the year would have to be 1925 or so.
The presence of a Chinese restaurant at 101 E, which presumably puts it in the Simpson Building, strongly suggests that this was prior to the Christine Sterling makeover of Olvera Street. I can't imagine that she would have tolerated a Chinese restaurant after the fact, and she clearly had the pull to get her way. Also, the Italian grocery I mentioned from the 1934 directory doesn't show up yet, so I'm pretty sure this must be from before then.
From the uniform pattern of LL-#### telephone numbers, I think this can't be any earlier than 1921 or so. The 1920 City Directory still has some oddly formatted numbers in the display ads, like five digits and no exchange, or one letter followed by digits.
BTW in the course of perusing the old directories in the LAPL online collection, I've spotted at least three different North Main addresses for Our Lady Of The Angels--525, 527, and strangely enough 935 (!).
ETA: I see now that westcork scooped me on the Soochow Restaurant over two years ago:
Quote:
Originally Posted by westcork
Simpson Building
Description: Soochow Restaurant, main facade, at the corner of Main Street and Sunset Boulevard
Photo Date: early 1950's
Description: Soochow Restaurant and Diamond Shirt Co. on Sunset Boulevard
Photo Date: August 21, 1958
...
All images courtesy of LAPL El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument Photo Archive
Clearly the Soochow Restaurant persisted into the 1950s, so all my conjectures about the the date of the list may be entirely wrong. At least I was right about it being in the Simpson building, though. I see there was also a Soochow on Los Angeles; was that the same establishment, and did they move to the Plaza after the demolition on Los Angeles Street?
(Original text of this post, prior to editing, is spoilered below.)
While researching the North Spring/Sunset/Bellevue block I came across this interesting list of Sunset Boulevard addresses. I'm not sure of the year, but the phone numbers have only four digits after the exchange. I believe seven-digit dialing came in around 1950, so this doesn't help us narrow it down very much. The two churches on the Plaza are both absent; that is likewise unhelpful because it seems that they only very briefly/infrequently ever used the Sunset addresses. Much more typically, as tovangar2 justly points out, they used the North Main and Marchessault addresses (or Paseo de la Plaza in the case of the Methodist Church after Sunset/Marchessault was closed off to motor traffic.
The presence of a Chinese restaurant at 101 E, which presumably puts it in the Simpson Building, strongly suggests that this was prior to the Christine Sterling makeover of Olvera Street. I can't imagine that she would have tolerated a Chinese restaurant after the fact, and she clearly had the pull to get her way.
BTW in the course of perusing the old directories in the LAPL online collection, I've spotted at least three different North Main addresses for Our Lady Of The Angels--525, 527, and strangely enough 935 (!).
__________________
The new Wandering In L.A. post is published!
This week, for no particular reason, we ordered the original 1953 "War of the Worlds" from Netflix. It holds up remarkably well for a movie of its age. For those not familiar with it, herewith a few screen grabs from the LA sequence:
Scientists flee the Pacific Institute, actual location unknown to me:
Cheers,
Earl
Those white office buildings appear to be inside the Paramount Studio lot...office buildings for the studio itself.
Brings back memories from when I worked at Paramount in the 1970s.
The James Oviatt Building at 617 S Olive Street isn't new to NLA. It's still standing, and still looking good, but I couldn't resist Julius Shulman's view of it from 1979 (just five years after the death of James Oviatt). This is "Job 5657: Albert R. Walker and Percy Eisen, James Oviatt Building (Los Angeles, Calif.), 1979".
Thanks again, Hoss.
Here are a few shots of the Oviatt Building I took on June 17, 2013:
Last edited by Flyingwedge; Sep 14, 2018 at 6:40 AM.
Reason: delete "~original" extension in Photobucket link to make last image appear
This week, for no particular reason, we ordered the original 1953 "War of the Worlds" from Netflix. It holds up remarkably well for a movie of its age. For those not familiar with it, herewith a few screen grabs from the LA sequence:
Here's another look at the location. The artfully placed box almost but not quite blocks the normality at the lower left corner. You can figure the camera angle from the fragment of the blue Russel Stover storefront in the previous shot:
Cheers,
Earl
Hey, Earl, these are great! I haven't watched Them! (1954) lately, but I think it shows some of Los Angeles,
including the LA River at the end of the movie when the army moves in to attack the mutant ants.
Last edited by Flyingwedge; Nov 28, 2015 at 6:09 PM.
Reason: in to not into