noirish Los Angeles

[Earl Boebert]

Originally Posted by HossC

The 1915 CD has the Peebles College of Science and Philosophy at 218 West Pico.

Then I guess they hired a hall down the street for the event in the ad, which misled me.

Cheers,

Earl

[ethereal_reality]

.
There was a very large billiard parlor (and bowling alley) on the Santa Monica Pier. ..the photo below is dated 1917)


LAPL





Just for fun_ here is an aerial of pier taken in 1924.

I thought I'd try to figure out which building on the pier held the billiard parlor and bowling alley.


huntington archive





Judging by the windows in the interior photograph I'd say it might be this building.



What do ya think?


.

[Martin Pal]

That's a great photo of the pier 99 years ago!

I was looking for a similar current one and it seems the vast majority of pier photos are taken looking more toward the west! But here's one.


AdobeStock


At the top, left of center, is a light brownish colored building, which I believe is the same building in the b&w photo at the top, right of center.

The Looff Carousel Building is still there, too, where The Sting was filmed, interiors and exteriors. 50th Anniversary this year; yikes!


LAMag

[Mackerm]

Originally Posted by riichkay

"View from dorm", undated

This appears to be taken from the penthouse at 1880 N. Gramercy.

Nice dorm.

I narrowed it down with the help of a second photo from the Flickr set, also titled "View from dorm." It showed downtown in the distance, with the Crocker Bank tower exactly centered between the ARCO towers. This necessary angle put it somewhere between downtown and the American Film Institute. That, and the general Hollywood-ness of the photo.






Huntington Digital Library

The building next to the merry-go-round says Bowling and Billiards.

Why is the beach so much wider now? In 1924, the water was right next to the merry-go-round.

[Martin Pal]

You're right Mackerm, I hadn't thought of that.
___

I found an article about this, which begins:

In the early 1900s, L.A. County beaches were not yet the tourist destination they would one day become. The pier in Santa Monica was completed in 1909, but it wasn't for another few decades that the beach itself would itself become a destination. "At that time, Miami was the place to be, and this beach did not look like Miami," says ecologist Tom Ford, Executive Director of the Santa Monica-based research and restoration nonprofit The Bay Foundation.
To draw more tourists to the area, local municipalities wanted the beaches of the Santa Monica Bay to mimic those on the nation's opposite coast: bigger, flatter, wider. Beach managers of the time decided to bend the area's geology to their will, making Southern California beaches take on a more Floridian aesthetic. A century later, Ford and his colleagues are working to fix those managers’ work.
Walking along the beach north of the pier, behind the Annenberg Community Beach House, Ford explains that Santa Monica's three mile long beach – along with those of Venice, Dockweiler, Will Rogers, Zuma, Redondo, Torrance, and so on – is largely an artificial, man-made construct. It was built by moving sand from one place and dumping it into another.

The article is informative:

Rewilding Santa Monica's Thoroughly Artificial Beach
by Jason Goldman
May 9, 2017

https://www.kcet.org/shows/earth-foc...tificial-beach

Pertinent, from the 2017 article:

Alarmed by the threat of rising sea levels thanks to climate change, Santa Monica, like other coastal towns across the world, is trying to be proactive; to put processes in place now that could protect them from rising waters in the future.

[Martin Pal]

Originally Posted by Mackerm

Why is the beach so much wider now? In 1924, the water was right next to the merry-go-round.
_________________________________________________________________

In another 100 years it might be even closer:



This Is What Sea Level Rise Could Do to Santa Monica Pier
A new report by Climate Central shows what will happen to coastal areas if carbon emissions aren’t curbed
By Kailyn Brown - October 12, 2021

https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/...-santa-monica/

This Climate Central website shows pictures what 190 locations all over the world will look like with various degrees of global warming, with photos like the above.

https://picturing.climatecentral.org

Los Angeles area locations
Marina Del Rey: Los Angeles, California, United States
Santa Monica Pier: Santa Monica, California, United States
El Dorado Park: Long Beach, California, United States
South Wrigley: Long Beach, California, United States

California Locations
California State Capitol Building: Sacramento, California, United States
Goggleplex: Mountain View, California, United States
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art: San Francisco, California, United States
Contemporary Jewish Museum: San Francisco, California, United States
Downtown San Francisco: San Francisco, California, United States
South of Market (SoMa): San Francisco, California, United States
Lakeside Park: Oakland, California, United States
Hotel del Coronado: San Diego, California, United States

Hawaii was unnerving, because you really can't go inland.

[riichkay]

A customized '32 Ford at Barrett Rd. and Hall St. in the El Sereno hills, late '30's.....can't quite make out the sign on the right.....photo courtesy theoldmotor.com.

[stanklem]

Originally Posted by Mackerm

This appears to be taken from the penthouse at 1880 N. Gramercy.

Nice dorm.

I narrowed it down with the help of a second photo from the Flickr set, also titled "View from dorm." It showed downtown in the distance, with the Crocker Bank tower exactly centered between the ARCO towers. This necessary angle put it somewhere between downtown and the American Film Institute. That, and the general Hollywood-ness of the photo.






Huntington Digital Library

The building next to the merry-go-round says Bowling and Billiards.

Why is the beach so much wider now? In 1924, the water was right next to the merry-go-round.

The beach is wider because the city removed many structures at the back of the beach. Compare the relationship of the buildings to the caroussel shown in the 1924 photograph to the present. It may also be due to whether the photographs were taken at highn or low tide.

[ethereal_reality]

I SPY . . .


detail

. . .a deflated HOT AIR BALLOON.

(I think)



Thanks for figuring out the address of the Peebles Institute, Earl and Hoss. ...
.

[ethereal_reality]

.
How 'bout a mystery location from 1954?


eBay

Note that the entance to the apartment building on the right is practically on the 2nd floor!

Get to work minions.

.

[HossC]

The Transparent Shade Co used to be at 501 N Figueroa Street. Here are the buildings in part of a 1959 aerial view.


USC Digital Library

We've seen a previous incarnation of this building when it was the Swanfeldt Tent and Awning Co. - see here for the full post from 2015.

Originally Posted by HossC

USC Digital Library

[ethereal_reality]

Thanks Hoss.


Re: The 2015 Post.

Did we ever figure out why the black sedan driving on Figueroa Street had a huge white X on top of it?

This one.

Full photo Here



I don't remember.
.

[ethereal_reality]

.
This is pretty cool.

Dodger Stadium under construction, January 1962.


eBay

I imagine the boy and girl's father was working on the project.




eBay

.

[ethereal_reality]

.
This is pretty cool too.


The Mermaid Bar on the Queen Mary in the 1950s.


eBay

My family toured the Queen Mary in 1974 (yes, I wore my brown leisure suit) but I don't remember seeing this little bar. ..Does anyone know where on the ship it was located? It almost looks like an afterthought.

.

[HossC]

I found the following info at www.sterling.rmplc.co.uk:

1947 - 1967 - In the postwar refit of the Queen Mary, the enclosed promenade areas on both sides were partially obstructed by the addition of "garden lounges" alongside the first class smoking room.

• The port side garden lounge was reserved for first class passengers.
• The starboard side garden lounge was reserved for second class passengers. To accommodate this second class facility on what had been first class deck space pre-war, second class barrier on the starboard side was moved forward. As a result, the pre-war turnabout just aft of the first class smoking room that had permitted first class passengers to circle the decks was closed off. Additionally a new cocktail bar was created adjacent to this garden lounge for second class passengers. Called the "Mermaid Bar" it replaced the small cocktail bar on Main deck, that was removed and the spaced joined to enlarge the second class children's playroom.

I've arrowed the cocktail bar. Looking at the layout, I'd say the photo above may have been mirrored.


www.sterling.rmplc.co.uk

You wouldn't have seen the Mermard Bar in 1974:

1968 - Present - In the Long Beach conversion both garden lounges and the Mermaid bar were entirely gutted. The starboard side of the enclosed Promenade deck, aft of the main hall has been partitioned into a series of restaurants and banqueting rooms.

[Martin Pal]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

.
This is pretty cool.

Dodger Stadium under construction, January 1962.


eBay

I imagine the boy and girl's father was working on the project.




eBay

.

The interesting thing to me about this photograph is that it was taken in January of 1962 and park opened April 10, 1962!
_________

I read something just recently that kind of astounded me: When Los Angeles Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley opened Dodger Stadium on April 10, 1962, his ticket price structure was simple, straightforward, and inexpensive:
$3.50 for box seats
$2.50 for reserved seats
$1.50 for general admission and the outfield pavilions.

That was for every home game, regardless of opponent—whether it was the hated San Francisco Giants, with whom the Dodgers were engaged in an epic pennant race that year, or the hapless expansion Houston Colt .45s.

And get this: These prices remained the same until 1976. (That's 14 consecutive years at the SAME prices!) As late as 1997, the last full year Walter’s son Peter O’Malley owned the team before selling it to Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Group (that lasted only a year or two), a box seat cost $12 (22.81 today), and you could sit in the pavilions for $6 ($11.41 today).

Translate 1962 prices to today, they would be:
$35.36
$25.26
$15.15

O'Malley's idea was to cultivate people "regularly" going to games. I haven't been able to find out if ticket fees were added to your orders in 1962 or not, or when that actually started. I went to a Dodger game in mid-June and over 1/3 of the price I paid were ticket fees. Fees for what? They don't even print out tickets any more. They don't mail you anything. If you add all three of those adjusted to today's prices from 1962 prices together you get: $75.77. That's still less than I paid for my ticket.

The thing is, the largest markets like LA and NY, Chicago, Boston and San Francisco have loyal fans who keep the stadiums full and will pay these ridiculous prices. And there are people who make money buying tickets and then selling them at higher prices at online ticket brokering systems, like StubHub, Vivid Seats and Seat Geeks. How I'd love to go to games a lot more often, like I used to. And because it's so expensive I have to go by myself. People who used to go with me once in awhile aren't so interested in it to pay such exorbitant fees. Articles about like this are written every year lately, for example:
2017: https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2...odger-stadium/
2023: https://www.truebluela.com/2023/5/16...ve-in-baseball

[MartinTurnbull]

Can any identify the background building of these 1931 shots of a Wonder-cut Bread ("It's-slo-baked" doncha know?) truck. The caption only said "Southern California."

[Lwize]

They cut the Cut out of Wonder-Cut.

[Mackerm]

An earlier version of the Museum of Science and Industry in Exposition Park.

https://hdl.huntington.org/digital/c...0coll2/id/4281

In Martin Turnbull's second picture on the right you can see some Spanish arches, which look like the lawn bowling clubhouse

[Martin Pal]

I think you've got it, Mackerm!

Cropped from the image in that link above.

According to Calisphere, the truck photos are from the Dick Whittington Photography Collection and the client was Otto K. Olesen at 1560 Vine Street.

Wikipedia says: In the 1930s, Continental Baking began marketing Wonder Bread in sliced form nationwide, one of the first companies to do so; this was a significant milestone for the industry and for American consumers, who, at first, needed reassurance that "wonder-cut" bread would not dry out. Unsliced bread returned for a period during World War II due to an industry-wide slicing suspension in 1943. Bread slicers returned two months later. (?)

I wondered about that WWII prohibition on "unsliced bread." At this link HERE it says: Among the minor casualties of war was the government demand that bread was to no longer be sold sliced. The reasoning behind this was unclear. If a bread slicing machine already existed, was the government gathering those machines to re-purpose the steel? Or was the rule actually because the government did not want new bread slicing devices made?

Others said the rule pertained to savings on waxed paper—what the bread was wrapped in after it was sliced. Still others put forward that it was a way to reduce consumption of bread by consumers. Because it had to be sliced to be eaten, it wasn’t as convenient as a snack food.

Whatever the thinking, the American public was outraged. Americans were dealing with Meatless Mondays and Wheatless Wednesdays. (Both programs that were started during World War I.) They also faced the rationing of butter, sugar, and canned milk, not to mention gasoline.

Many families also donated pets to see if they would qualify for the U.S. K-9 Corps, which did not exist at this time. (Ten thousand family dogs were donated. Those that didn’t qualify were returned.) [I never heard of this before, either. How the heck did THAT work?!]

When it came to giving up sliced bread, the extra sacrifice seemed pointless. The outcry was enough that the government backed down. Within a few months, consumers could again buy sliced bread.

Whew!

Anyway, I didn't answer the question, but I found out a couple odd things!