noirish Los Angeles

[Martin Pal]

Originally Posted by Lorendoc

http://www.ednasantiqueshop.com/holl...olley_line.htm

The building in question was a Thrifty drug store. You can see the letters "T H" on the blade sign, and the 1942 city directory has a Thrifty's at 8901 Santa Monica Boulevard. I might call it Streamline Moderne (curvy surfaces, horizontal grooves in walls), rather than Art Deco.

Probably doing something incorrectly, but I was trying to look in the city directory you mentioned to see if I could find out what the name of the Cafe was on the left in the above photo. (Although, now it occurs to me it wasn't a Cafe in 1942 perhaps...)

P.S.: HossC beat me to the two-way traffic on both lanes of SMB question, but could I tag along to lunch at The Palm anyway?

[HossC]

In 1942, 8919 Santa Monica Boulevard was a restaurant owned by Nick Stevanovich. Flicking through a couple of other CDs, the restaurant belonged to C E Boyle in 1932, and was the Switch Natural Foods Restaurant in 1987. There's no listing for that address in 1956.

P.S. You're welcome to tag along for lunch at The Palm .

[tovangar2]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

I see the larger building next to it is now a hostel. Do you remember the name of it back in the day when it was a hotel? (shown below, next door to the 'Lighthouse')


trippingthroughthegenepool.blogspot

No, e_r, I don't. We probably just called it "the hotel". It was built in the 20s or even a bit earlier. Nothing much changes along that block of Pier Ave. I assume it's all under some sort of historic preservation order.

It's a very utilitarian-looking building and, as you said, now the Surf City Hostel with an restaurant/bar on the ground floor:


surf city

[HossC]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

The large building on the right is obviously Baker Bros., but my eye is drawn to the red neon on the opposite side of the street.
If I'm not mistaken, that's the Fine Arts Building.

Does anyone recall why it would have red neon on both sides of the entrance in 1962?


detail

You asked a similar question last year, e_r, when I posted the picture below. I don't think we got answer. Note that the neon is only on one side in this shot. There's nothing obvious in the CDs to explain it.

Originally Posted by HossC

eBay

[ethereal_reality]

I remember discussing the place on the side of the Fine Arts Building (where the brownish awning is, to the left of the street car)
if I remember correctly, T2 used to go there.

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

Despite being a historic lesbian bar 'The Palms' closed in 2013 and the building was demolished



Oddly enough, despite walking past it almost every day back in the 1980s
I don't remember the other two doors on the right or the small windows on the second story.
______________________________________________________

I just found this photograph of 'The Palms' back in the 1970s.


http://www.laweekly.com/music/west-h...t-down-4170954

Now I know what that second story was all about.
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[tovangar2]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

eBay / 2_28_2015

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

I remember discussing the place on the side of the Fine Arts Building (where the brownish awning is, to the left of the street car)
if I remember correctly, T2 used to go there.

It looks like the Cap 'n' Quill had neon over the Lebanon St side at the time the photo above was taken (it's gone now). Maybe the restaurant space didn't extend all the way to 7th St then.
It did in the 70s when I was a patron. At that time, there was neon on the front.



.

[ethereal_reality]

That's it, the Capt'n Quill.


eBay

"Jot notes with these matches" (Huh?)



What does it mean "These matches WRITE as well as LIGHT"

I've never heard of 'writing' matches before.
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[tovangar2]

youtube

Originally Posted by Martin Pal

I saw "La La Land" on November 18th! I got the soundtrack yesterday. I really liked the film and will see it again.

Speaking of Gangster Squad, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone were in that, too.

Thanks for the LA Curbed location link. The movie makes great use of the Griffith observatory, even recreating an exact moving car shot from Rebel Without a Cause.

It will be worth seeing "La La Land" for me, if only to see Sinai and Olivet on the move again (there was a bit of a kerfuffle about that).


youtube

I did finally see "Gangster Squad", when it came out online, so I could fast forward through the many annoying bits and just check out the location shots.



.

[ethereal_reality]

Originally Posted by HossC

This is "Job 3912: Qvale and Associates, Crawford's Corner (Alhambra, Calif.), 1965".


Getty Research Institute

Hoss, the founder (and namesake) of Qvale and Associates was a contract player for 20th Century Fox in the 1940s.

"While working as a ski instructor in Sun Valley, Idaho, in late 1939, Ragnar Qvale taught skiing to movie mogul Darryl Zanuck,
who brought Qvale to Los Angeles for a screen test and signed him as a $75-a-week contract player at 20th Century Fox."



eBay









"Qvale landed his first role--as a Nazi officer in the war drama "Four Sons"--the same day that the German army entered his native Norway.

Qvale also appeared in the Sonja Henie picture "Sun Valley Serenade," playing a small part and doing the stunt-skiing for Milton Berle.
He had small parts in a few other films before World War II cut his fledgling acting career short.

After serving four years as a pilot, he returned to Los Angeles. Abandoning his acting career to pursue his first love, he established the architectural firm
of Ragnar C. Qvale and Associates as well as Q.A. Architectural Arts, a firm that made watercolor renderings of buildings from blueprints.

Qvale's projects also include Hughes Laboratories in Malibu, the rebuilt Wilshire Country Club and the Buckley School in Sherman Oaks.

Qvale went on to restore an English Tudor home that he and his wife purchased in Hancock Park and another old home in Fremont Place
that Mary Pickford once lived in and where the Qvales lived for 24 years."

Another building Qvale restored was the former Title Insurance & Trust Building on Spring Street in Los Angeles, which he and his brother had purchased."

from http://articles.latimes.com/2001/oct/02/local/me-52287


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[tovangar2]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

Hoss, the founder (and namesake) of Qvale and Associates was a contract player for 20th Century Fox in the 1940s.

"While working as a ski instructor in Sun Valley, Idaho, in late 1939, Ragnar Qvale taught skiing to movie mogul Darryl Zanuck,
who brought Qvale to Los Angeles for a screen test and signed him as a $75-a-week contract player at 20th Century Fox."
__

Thank you e_r and HossC, you answered a question for me.

Remember that one Morgan Walls and Morgan building on that intact block of 7th St? I couldn't figure out why it had a big "QA" on the cartouche over the front door. Now we know it is probably for Qvale and Associates. R.C. Qvale's name was misspelled on the permit as "Quale", so I couldn't get an answer until now:



ladbs

The same year, 1958, that Ragnar Qvale rehabbed the 7th St building, he built his own mid-century modern home in Outpost Estates



Here's the images from the old post (now w/ the spelling of "Qvale" corrected):

Originally Posted by tovangar2

Next door to the west is 2515-2525 W 7th built as retail shops in 1923. Morgan, Walls and Morgan get the credit here, but I think Stiles O. Clements, not yet a partner, might have been supervising architect because he signed the permit. I suspect that the building owes something to Irving Gill. It's been architects' offices of late. Two of the original columns survive, so it could also be restored to something like its original appearance. It got a handsome paint job last year.

1925:

detail from csl image above

2015:

gsv

1925. This detail shows that 2515-2525 transitions to two stories at its western end. Note the 1922 building on the NW corner of S Coronado and W 7th (on the left). It's by Thomas Franklin Powers and is still there, but grievously altered:

detail of the csl image above

2015, with Bullocks Wilshire/Southwest School of Law (1929) in the distance (note the Coronado Inn/Hotel Parkway peeking over the rooftop at center. It is much larger than its facade would lead one to believe):

gsv

Looking east, towards DTLA:

gsv

It's hard to get a unobstructed view of the transition between the one-story and two-story parts of this building
(I probably need to have a word with that "Trees-in-the-Streets" program guy):

gsv

Architect Ragnar C Qvale, Qvale Associates, owned the building from the 50s into the 80s.
He's the one who ordered a "parapet correction" for the building in 1958, stripping away the clay roof tiles:

gsv


gsv

The 1923 permit:



ladbs

Also, in that LAT article you referenced was this paragraph:

"Qvale's interest in building preservation grew out of his first restoration project in the early 1970s: a '20s-era San Francisco building designed by acclaimed architect Bernhard Maybeck that had been bought by Qvale's brother, Kjell, to house his British Motor Car Co."

The San Francisco Packard showroom has come up briefly here before

It still looks spectacular. Qvale did a good job preserving Maybeck's work. It's still the British Motorcar Company, as it has been since the 70s:

roadarch

Too bad its LA sister Packard showroom was destroyed.

[HossC]

Originally Posted by ConstructDTLA

Building next door is now Mas Malo, a great mexican restaurant. Anyone know what it was 90 years ago..?

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

As for Mas Malo at 515 W. 7th, the building was put up by Brock & Co. jewelers just about 90 years ago. The store lasted into the '60s, after which--some sources say 1975--it became Clifton's Silver Spoon, "A Jewel of a Cafeteria." It seems obvious that Clifton's branding of its new space came from its heritage as a jewelry store....

Originally Posted by Blaster

In response to this earlier post... my wife and I had dinner last night at Mas Malo, located at 515 W 7th. Food is just okay but the interior is worth checking out. The waiter told us it had originally been a jewelry store in the 20's and a lot of the original decor was still in place including old timey wall murals and large wood and glass display cabinets. The walk-in vault is now used as a wine tasting room.

ConstructDTLA's original pictures are now missing, and I left out GW's pictures for brevity. Here's the building everyone's talking about.


pcad.lib.washington.edu

The reason I'm revisiting this old subject is that I accidently found my Google man inside this building when I actually wanted him to be outside on the street. Here are some shots of the interior that Blaster was talking about.


GSV

You can visit three levels - I've omitted the basement. This is the rasied section at the back.


GSV

I'll finish with a close-up of the ceiling.


GSV

[GaylordWilshire]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

Can anyone explain this 1954 photograph of a rather impressive waterfall?


usc digital archive

I believe it has something to do with Fort Moore Hill.

There have been many posts about the Ft. Moore Hill waterfall since ER's of 5-10-2010 above, but here's some news about it:

http://la.curbed.com/2016/12/13/1393...ation-downtown

[ethereal_reality]

That's great news GW.

It's hard to believe the waterfall hasn't been turned on since 1977!

[ethereal_reality]

'before' and 'after' #1


Headliner Coffee Shop








eBay

915 N. Glendale Ave.

[ethereal_reality]

'before' and 'after' #2


Our Lady Chapel

eBay
809 S. Flower Street
gsv





eBay




The chapel building is next door to the Hotel Milner.


gsv

[ethereal_reality]

'mystery' location

"Vitagraph Company, Vernon Dent, Los Angeles" [no date]


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pic-historic...sAAOSw4GVYNyCG

I don't know for sure, but I believe this image shows a production (featuring Vernon Dent) on a location shoot.

(the house in the background might be next to the studio....or further afield)
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I think Vernon Dent is at far right (with the thick mustache)





p.s. The commercial building in the distance could be a clue. (there's some writing but it's really difficult to read)


detail

[ethereal_reality]

'mystery' location #2

Even though the seller gives us a street name (which could possibly be wrong), I'm having trouble figuring out where this was taken.

"Pic historic Los Angeles Hollywood 1931 Selig Studios Occidental Blvd"


http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw...l&_sacat=14277

The T intersection and (what I believe to be..) an underground pedestrian crossing are a couple pretty good clues. (as is the 'Production' sign)

I can't help but wonder where the kid riding the tricycle went? (is he in the tunnel?)




I'm out of town until Fri. or Sat. Have fun NLA'ers.
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[HossC]

I can't remember the last library we had from Julius Shulman. This is "Job 2863: William H. Harrison, Whittier Public Library (Whittier, Calif.), 1959".



I left out a close-up of the windows - I think this picture shows them just as well, but with more of the interior in view.



This is the only color shot.



All from Getty Research Institute

The library is still standing at 7344 Washington Avenue, Whittier. I think the decorative walls at the back have been changed, but the rest is recognizable. There are too many trees to get a good view from the road, so I went with an elevated shot.


Google Maps

Finally, I thought that I should also include a picture of the front.


GSV

There seem to be a few other 1959 Julius Shulman photos of the library floating around the internet, but they're not on the Getty site.

[tovangar2]

Originally Posted by HossC

This is "Job 2863: William H. Harrison, Whittier Public Library (Whittier, Calif.), 1959".

Thx Hoss, I always enjoy looking up the architects you bring us to see what else they've done. Whittier resident William H Harrison built quite a bit out that way. None of the following photos are much good, but they give a hint of Harrison's impact on Whittier. All of these buildings are still in use.


The Whittier National Trust and Savings Bank (now softened by trees) -1932:


whittieruptown

Lou Henry Hoover School - 1938 (frieze by Bartolo Mako):


living new deal

El Rancho High School, Whittier - 1954-1955


diversity inc

Whittier City Hall #2 -1955


panoramio

[ronev760]

I have never heard of this underground L.A. Please check out the link.
Any thoughts on this?

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/su...reptiles27.htm