noirish Los Angeles

[donraymedia]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

Initially posted by HANDSOME STRANGER. Vine Street circa 1953.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/electrospark/

This is one of my favorite photographs of Hollywood.




below: Here is another photo with the same banners. This is looking west on Hollywood Boulevard.


I've posted this once before....I can't recall the source.







below: Banners at Hollywood & Vine 7 years earlier (1946). I believe these banners are slightly different.


http://www.theblackdahliainhollywood.com/







below: Now jump in the Way Back Machine.

Banners along Spring Street in 1929. At right is the brand new Los Angeles City Hall.


usc digital archive







below: Banners over the 4th Street viaduct in 1931.


usc digital archive






below: Banners in front of Grand Central Market downtown (no date given).


LAPL






below: Banners as far south as Crenshaw and 48th Street.


usc digital archive






below: Back in Hollywood 1947.


ucla digital archive





below: There is no description with this photograph. The banner seems to have the American Legion logo.
Does anyone know where this is?



unkown






below: A tourist snapshot showing banners over Vine Street near the NBC Radio Studios.


ebay






below: Another ebay find. The banner says Teen Age something.....perhaps Fair?


ebay

I'm not sure it I'm posting this correctly. I'm a new guy here. I'm sorry if I'm doing this wrong. Anyway, The photo is from about 1964 or maybe 1965. The Teen Age Fair had been happening for several years prior to that at the Pickwick Pool Facility at Riverside Drive and Main Street in Burbank. By the time of this photo, it took place at the Palladium a couple of blocks behind the camera. I attended the fair at both venues. It's great to see photos of Wallach's Music City. It was the place to go to if you wanted to drop the needle on your favorite 45 RPM record in your private listening booth while you decided if it was worth the dollar to buy it.




below: Extensive use of banners over Hollywood Blvd. as late as 1961.



unknown


So who owned these banners....the city? Did they rent them out like you would rent a billboard?


________


Also...thanks for the recording history of 6000 Sunset Boulevard 3940dxer. That building has a wonderful legacy.

__

I'm not sure it I'm posting this correctly. I'm a new guy here. I'm sorry if I'm doing this wrong. Anyway, The photo is from about 1964 or maybe 1965. The Teen Age Fair had been happening for several years prior to that at the Pickwick Pool Facility at Riverside Drive and Main Street in Burbank. By the time of this photo, it took place at the Palladium a couple of blocks behind the camera. I attended the fair at both venues. It's great to see photos of Wallach's Music City. It was the place to go to if you wanted to drop the needle on your favorite 45 RPM record in your private listening booth while you decided if it was worth the dollar to buy it.

[GaylordWilshire]

Originally Posted by donraymedia

I'm not sure it I'm posting this correctly. I'm a new guy here. I'm sorry if I'm doing this wrong. Anyway, The photo is from about 1964 or maybe 1965. The Teen Age Fair had been happening for several years prior to that at the Pickwick Pool Facility at Riverside Drive and Main Street in Burbank. By the time of this photo, it took place at the Palladium a couple of blocks behind the camera. I attended the fair at both venues. It's great to see photos of Wallach's Music City. It was the place to go to if you wanted to drop the needle on your favorite 45 RPM record in your private listening booth while you decided if it was worth the dollar to buy it.

You can isolate parts of a previous post when quoting, if you want to--just press the "quote" button at the bottom of the post, leave the first "QUOTE" indicator (including brackets), and delete the text and/or photos you don't need, just making sure to leave the final "QUOTE" indicator (including brackets and forward slash). Any new material you want to add needs to be before or after these indicators. In your case, you could have come up with only the last photo in ethereal's post and added your information about the teen fair after it. Sounds complicated, but you'll get the hang of it. As for the Teen Fair... I've seen that pic before but never noticed that banner. Here is an odd youtube item (click to see it) of low-resolution stills taken at the fair--complete with '60s graphics but set strangely to a trippy version of "The First Noel." Are you in any of these pictures? Or are you in the back of this Pontiac hearse?


LAPL

Per the LAPL: "Teenage members of the new Euclid Heights Community Center, Boyle Heights, on April 6, 1966. Here they pile into a one-time hearse for a field trip. Later they rode away in style for a Teen Fair in Hollywood."

[MichaelRyerson]

Originally Posted by HunterK

No! Shady characters need to be chased out of downtowns core so people can feel comfortable coming in and spending their money.

I seriously can't put up with peoples bullish** when it comes to keeping those awful businesses on Broadway, or enabling the crazed and insane to wander the streets pulling all sorts of shenanigans.

But if it's people you want, heres a few I took Friday night

I thought this was pretty neat.


Cool alleyways. This one everyone has seen but may not realize. Its in thousands of commercials & movies..


2 guys at the edge of skid row. Who knows what they're up to..


My favorite from Friday night.

Hunter, Hunter, Hunter, when you talk like that, I just feel tired all over (although, I have to admit, the smiley face gives me pause). I love the joints, hang-outs, alleyways and artifacts of a living, breathing city. And this one happens to be my hometown. And while I love the folded, spindled and slightly mutilated edges of our downtown, I also love the panoramas of city lights, snow-capped mountains and white sand beaches. I love it all and I can't imagine it without 'the shady characters'. Without the people, some of whom are down at their heels, just barely scraping by, what you're left with is a theme park, a Knott's Berry Farm. One of your pics is of the refurbished interior of an Angels Flight car looking for all the world more like a museum piece than an actual mode of public transportation. They have 'refurbished' it past any semblance of the railcars I remember riding many times as a child. But that said, you take great pictures, I hope you keep em coming.

[GaylordWilshire]

USCDL

Per USC: "Two teenage boys test old fashioned locks on Grand Canal in Venice, CA, 1956"... Not exactly canal locks, but I like the image of Venice gone to seed.




Michael, Michael, Michael... when you talk like that, my ears prick up. I've lived in Manhattan for 35 years and have seen Times Square turn into an incredibly uninteresting tourist trap--the envisioned mix of business and tourism is giving way to nothing but tourists who like the M&M store and Abercrombie & Fitch, for example. SoHo is now almost literally a shopping mall clogged with tourists. The energy of NY has changed--it is duller. With all the shadings of character being priced out of the city, it has nowhere near the street-level energy of locals it once did. The quality of life in NYC has no doubt improved by some measures--but it has definitely been diminished in terms of the city's authenticity and individuality. Twenty-somethings and creative types would rather live in Brooklyn, where, priced out of Manhattan, they have taken their energy. (When I arrived here, the outer boroughs were considered absolute Siberia.) Manhattan is pretty much all boringly affluent now, practically from the Battery to the Bronx. The future of downtown L.A. will be interesting to watch. I don't see it becoming a huge tourist Mecca, unless maybe it once again becomes a shopping district, this time inevitably mall-like a la SoHo than like the days of Brock's jewelery store, for example (be careful what you wish for, Hunter). Maybe it will be mostly residential--but do enough people really want to live in California without a yard? There certainly aren't enough parks to make downtown L.A. pleasant without leaving the area frequently--most likely in a car. Artists will be priced out eventually, if they havent been already, and take their energy with them, to the northwest of downtown, for instance. OK I'm exhausting even myself with this ramble. Out for coffee in my hugely gentrifying Village neighborhood of 35 years...where I'll be reminded that even if gentrification strips away the color, it does restore the architectural fabric of a city. As for downtown L.A.--we'll miss the noir character, but at least the upper-middle-classification of the district will save the buildings we also love.

[MichaelRyerson]

GW, I agree with all of that, and your conclusion is, of course, the only place we can come out, with the buildings under an actual, if somewhat loose, stewardship. Over my professional life, I've had to frequent NY city and find it almost antiseptic now. I understand about crime and safety issues but I also understand the need for real multi-use and the clear benefit of living in close proximity with one another. As a kid I worked at the wholesale vegetable market in L.A. and I started work at around midnight. Frequently some of us would meet at the pantry to 'gas up' before starting our shift. At midnight, most nights, the place would be teeming with working stiffs, cab drivers, hustlers and swells in suits and ties or even tuxedos. It was the greatest. This would have been about 1961-62. Anyway, like the city, there's room in this thread for every one and Hunter's photgraphs are well above average. We're lucky he landed here.

[3940dxer]

GW, I totally understand your previous comments but see one little problem. Imagining DTLA (or sections of it) on a sliding scale ranging from gentrified to noirish doesn't fit the reality, at least not in terms of the people that walk the streets.

These days the dingier side of the DTLA demographic isn't seedy gumshoes, on-the-skids actors, bookies, aging strippers, flashy pimps, or anything interesting or photogenic like that.

The impediment to money, clean up, restoration, and new life coming into downtown is the homeless people and the crack heads. There are many thousands of them, and you can't "romanticize" them, or be very fascinated. The people pushing overloaded shopping cards, the 6th St. homeless camps made of cardboard boxes, bits of scrap, and trash bags...it's a gigantic problem that doesn't add any any mystique, vibe, or "energy". We're talking extreme poverty.

Sorry if this seems cold, but I think it's the reality. To the guys restoring the Morrison Hotel and those with visions of turning around a hundred other DTLA properties this is problem #1, and this is why 5th and Main won't look anything like the "new" Times Square any time soon, even with the Nickel Diner and the Rosslyn Lofts.

The cops and crowds kind of keep the homeless at bay on Art Walk nights but any other evening of the month, it's rough dodging the (sometimes aggressive) crackheads and homeless, avoiding broken glass and "damp" smelly sections of sidewalk.

Our mild winter climate contributes to this. The DTLA aid agencies are under financed and overwhelmed. As a once or twice a week visitor, this is what I see. I'm no expert and I have no ideas or solutions. Maybe it's just a case of gradually reclaiming a block or two here and there over the next decade or two, and that's all we can hope for.

Some posters live downtown and will understand this much more clearly -- I'd be interested in their perspective.

P.S. HunterK, thanks for the great photos!

[ConstructDTLA]

Thanks guys for the kind words about my pics.

I can understand what you mean about the gritty feel though I do not agree with DTLA staying that way.. I hope that DTLA gets as cleaned up and upscale as possible and gives the people of LA a walkable, urban environment.

Money in downtown is what it's going to take to keep many of these architectural gems alive..

I'll be taking some more before/after pics today. Please anyone feel free to ask me to shoot a specific building or do a specific after pic to any vintage DTLA ones. I'm always looking for new shots.


EDIT:
3940dxer Just saw your post. I couldn't of said it better, you're absolutely correct.

[MichaelRyerson]

Of course, the problems are different and maddening and unphotogenic. Poor people (including the homeless and the drug addled) are always problematic. And I hate to interject politics but the real problem stems from our inability or unwillingness to maintain a functioning public mental healthcare system. I won't launch into a full blown Trotskyite rant except to say if not in the city, then where? That's as far as I'll go.

[GaylordWilshire]

jamescastle3

Very interesting discussion re DTLA, especially in that it's coming from several different viewpoints. David-- I get your drift. Obviously there is a difference between the seedy elements of the current DTLA--which I don't romanticize--and the romanticized noir notions of old L.A. we muse about on the thread. Managing the livabilty of downtown is up to the people who choose live there--for me, life is too short to endure years of a poor quality of life (i.e., crime) and political push. I wouldn't take the financial risks involved in DTLA property ownership because too few ever win at the game of investing in marginal areas ("location, location, location" is safer for the real estate investor who intends to live in his own purchase, in my experience) and there's not enough in the way of open space downtown to make it attractive even if it were cleansed of crime. And for that reason, I just don't envision the critical mass of striving bourgeois risk-takers who will ever complete the gentrification of downtown--and central Hollywood to boot. (I hope I'm wrong for your sake, HunterK.) The rents seem high to me for an area that no one seems to think is safe--they seem to be based more on the promoted hip factor than the seedy reality. (But are there really many thousands of the homeless and crack-addicted?) DTLA is in a bind--too pricey for those who might put up with the downside, not safe enough for the upwardly mobile, who I'm sure, with all that good weather, will want their own pool eventually. Maybe my ideas of what Southern Californians want nowadays is outmoded--but are they really losing interest in the traditional expectations of sun and space?


Note to e_r: The source of the photo above appears to be your doppelgänger...check out the credit. --GW

[3940dxer]

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

...But are there really many thousands of the homeless and crack-addicted?...

I'm afraid so. There was a long article in the Downtown News about 2 months ago that cited numbers in the thousands, and said that the numbers are going up these days.

Can't promise great accuracy, but Wikipedia says:

Skid Row, Los Angeles
The area contains one of the largest stable populations of homeless persons in the United States.[5] Local homeless count estimates have ranged from 3,668 to 5,131. The 2011 point in time estimate was 4,316. People passing through this area see cardboard boxes and camping tents lining the sidewalks. According to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the official boundaries are Third and Seventh Streets to the north and south and Alameda and Main Streets to the east and west, respectively.[6]...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skid_Row,_Los_Angeles


It's BAD, GW, especially east of Main Street. I've thought of taking some photos to document what it looks like down there, but haven't had the stomach for it yet. Hollywood actually is an interesting contrast -- many of the seedy areas (partly excluding, unfortunately, Cahuenga, Wilcox, and Ivar) are much better these days. In fact, maybe Hollywood Blvd. is now close to our collective neo-noir wish-vision of DTLA, with it's collection of oddballs, fringers, and the strangely clothed. The Boulevard has a few homeless and crackheads, but it's well policed, and not especially dangerous. This is the rougher side of Hollywood but unlike the rougher side of DTLA, it offers a safe enough and rich blend of historical sites, eccentric locals, curious tourists, clubbers, and big theaters, with just enough edginess to keep your adrenaline up. In the 80's and 90's I rarely went to Hollywood for fun but now my wife and I enjoy a good meal or show there, coupled with a stroll and some people watching.

[BifRayRock]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

"L.A. is a great big freeway, put a hundred down and buy a car..." --Burt Bacharach/Hal David

lapl


Another Hill on borrowed time. Don't believe I have seen this one posted before, but it wouldn't be the first (or last) time I was wrong!

Temple and Spring Street at the Hall of Justice '30s


North Figueroa Street as viewed from Spring Street. New '36 improvements!







Finished product?

All pics courtesy of http://digitallibrary.usc.edu

[GaylordWilshire]

LAPL

Grauman's Chinese was held up for two days' receipts ($15,000) on July 15, 1929. A bystander was
wounded in the crossfire between the bandits and a cop.

[ethereal_reality]

Originally posted by 3940dxer/David


photo by David

I loved your exploration of the Montecito Heights area David (3940dxer). The crumbling stairways and dirt roads to nowhere,
a mere 3 miles away from downtown L.A., brought to mind a post-apocalyptic wasteland.




below: You can clearly see the underdeveloped area of Montecito Heights in this 1958 view from atop L.A. City Hall.



http://photos.lapl.org/carlweb/jsp/F...olNumber=35212


Throw in the fact that Aimee Simple McPherson's Church of the Foursquare Gospel stills owns prime real estate in this mostly overlooked area
makes it doubly intriguing! It also looks like a good place to dump some bodies (if you're low on gas that is).





below: One last view.


http://www.lapl.org/


____

[3940dxer]

Originally Posted by BifRayRock

North Figueroa Street as viewed from Spring Street. New '36 improvements!

That one had me scratching my head; I couldn't imagine how the view could possibly be from Spring Street. So I found that photo on USC -- they do indeed identify it that way, but then a similar shot from the same series calls it Spruce Street, which must be correct.

Spruce Street is short road that is west of 110 freeway (at the time the Figueroa route), in the Radio Hill area.

[ethereal_reality]

Originally Posted by HunterK

Hey guys. Outstanding thread.. Words can't explain the amount of knowledge or joy I have gotten from it. I have been lurking for probably 3 months now going through every single page reading every single post. I am still on page 276 but working my way up to the present day.

Welcome to the thread HunterK! Your photographs of downtown L.A. are very beautiful.

[sopas ej]

A weekend of firsts for me.

I saw the film noir "Tension" for the very first time ever on Saturday. I thought it was a good film. Audrey Totter plays the shit out of her femme fatale role, and a very young and beautiful Cyd Charisse plays the "good girl" role with aplomb.

An Apple Pan burger (maybe) to anyone who can locate the Ralphs supermarket seen in the film, @14:51 in this clip:
• Video Link

There are clues that the film is set in Culver City (plus the fact that it's an MGM production), but I'm curious to know where that Ralphs is.

My other first; on Sunday, I observed my first ever Greek Orthodox worship service (I don't think they refer to it as a Mass). I went to St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in LA, on Normandie. A very over-the-top church; and go figure, there's a Hollywood connection to it---it was built with money provided by the Skouras brothers and opened in 1952. I've always wanted to sit through an Eastern Orthodox worship service, just to see what they do; myself being raised Roman Catholic, I wanted to compare the two.

I snuck one photo while the service was going on, and even took some video footage before an usher told me that I couldn't take photos during the service. I was secretly hoping to see Arianna Huffington there.

Photo by me

I took more photos of the interior after the service was over, but I won't post those here.

But anyway, after that experience, I started wondering where LA's Greeks worshipped prior to this cathedral being built. Apparently, they used to go to a church called the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation, located at 1216 S. San Julian Street. Here it is in 1943:

LAPL

Unfortunately it no longer exists. Here's the site now, per Google Street View:

[ethereal_reality]

It looks like you had a great weekend of firsts sopas_ej! The interior of the St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral is splendid.

And now I must see the movie 'Tension'.

[3940dxer]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

...You can clearly see the underdeveloped area of Montecito Heights in this 1958 view from atop L.A. City Hall...

Thanks for that photo. It really fascinated me and as you realized, it's a great, mirror-image opposite of the color photo I shot this weekend.

And ironically, if you took the elevator to the top of City Hall tomorrow and looked towards Montecito Heights, I'll bet that it would look about the same as in your 1958 image.

In the last couple days I've found a few sites about Montecito Heights, and it's interesting to see what the locals have to say. Right now, Foursquare Church is seeking permission to develop this land though naturally, and fortunately, there's plenty of community resistance. It will be interesting to see how the story "develops".

The L.A. newspapers seem to ignore Montecito Heights. When I searched the Times database (which covers 1881-1988) looking for stories, there was almost nothing at all. This is amazing to me -- I mean, you can find hundreds (maybe thousands) of articles about Laurel Canyon, Watts, or Silver Lake.

As I wrote the other day, there is much, much more to see around here than my little photo essay, which mainly focused on the roads and the views of downtown, might suggest. Exploring the area last year, I was amazed by the mixture of ages and styles in the homes around there. You see million dollar mansions, abandoned old shacks, and everything in between. There are a lot of really rough dirt roads, and you have to remind yourself that you're in L.A.

Well, end of rant, but glad you enjoyed the photos, e_r. I'll have to go back some day and get more images of the homes, and of the many old stairways.

[Handsome Stranger]

Last week a group called de LaB (design east of La Brea) hosted a tour of what remains of the subway station beneath the Subway Terminal Building.


[source: getlatobaby.com]

There's an interesting little write-up of the event along with a mess of photos here:

LA's Original Subway

Garshk...why do I always find out about these things too late?

PS - David, thanks tons for your photo tour of Montecito Heights! Looks like a fun area to explore!

[Moxie]

Originally Posted by MichaelRyerson

Hunter, Hunter, Hunter, when you talk like that, I just feel tired all over (although, I have to admit, the smiley face gives me pause). I love the joints, hang-outs, alleyways and artifacts of a living, breathing city. And this one happens to be my hometown. And while I love the folded, spindled and slightly mutilated edges of our downtown, I also love the panoramas of city lights, snow-capped mountains and white sand beaches. I love it all and I can't imagine it without 'the shady characters'. Without the people, some of whom are down at their heels, just barely scraping by, what you're left with is a theme park, a Knott's Berry Farm. One of your pics is of the refurbished interior of an Angels Flight car looking for all the world more like a museum piece than an actual mode of public transportation. They have 'refurbished' it past any semblance of the railcars I remember riding many times as a child. But that said, you take great pictures, I hope you keep em coming.

I found yesterday's debate about gentrification really interesting. It's something I can see the pros and cons to, and I usually fall on the side of favoring it because it so often results in the rescue/saving of historic architecture. That being said, I can also see that much of the "restoration" of history isn't really restoring it to how it was, but how people wish it was. There's no perfect solution to handling historic restoration, and as an historian I am glad to see things preserved one way or the other. You do run the risk of something like Angel's Flight coming across to tourists and the younger generations as a brand new gimmick, rather than an historic treasure. For those who've ridden it, do they explain to people the history of it at all? At least having signs posted or brochures to pick up or something?

And ditto to what everyone else has said about the quality of your photos, Hunter. I've been enjoying them immensely.