noirish Los Angeles

[ethereal_reality]

Originally Posted by Fab Fifties Fan

This was the 1938 vintage Western Airlines office in the 1600 block of Vine next to the Brown Derby. I love everything about this place!

Exterior view with the Brown Derby parking garage to the left


Front entrance looking in (LOVE the sign lettering!!!)


~Jon Paul

This Western Airlines Office is spectacular!

I have color photos of the interior somewhere in my 'homemade' LA/CD collection. I'll try and dig them up.

___

[ethereal_reality]

I found them!

The interior of the Western Airline Office on Vine Street (or is this the downtown location?)



http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/













http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/








http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/







http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/









http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/










http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/









http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/


I wonder if the same interior designer worked on several Western Airlines Ticket Offices at different locations?
If I remember correctly, there was also a ticket office downtown facing Pershing Square.


____

[ethereal_reality]

Sorry to throw so many photographs at you all at once, but I thought Jon Paul would be interested in these highly detailed photographs
(especially if he's still working on his design project).




So is this the downtown ticket office?....or perhaps a ticket office on Wilshire? (it looks like a corner location)



http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/








http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/








http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/







below: OK, these last three photos answered by question. Obviously, this is the downtown location at Olive & 6th Street.



http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/







http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/









below: Detail of the unique column/window interaction.


http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/





I'd love to find a 'travel industry' map that shows all the airline ticket locations in Los Angeles.



____

[Moxie]

Loving all the pics of the ticket office(s) by the way. Yet another building I wish still existed.

[Fab Fifties Fan]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

I found them!


http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/







http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/





I wonder if the same interior designer worked on several Western Airlines Ticket Offices at different locations?
If I remember correctly, there was also a ticket office downtown facing Pershing Square.
____

e_r! You are officially my hero!!! I have never seen these incredible images before. Everything down to the wonderful detail of the baggage scale is industrial streamline modern at its finest.

The closeup of my inspirational element just has me all hot and bothered

~Jon Paul

[Fab Fifties Fan]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

Sorry to throw so many photographs at you all at once, but I thought Jon Paul would be interested in these highly detailed photographs
(especially if he's still working on his design project).




So is this the downtown ticket office?....or perhaps a ticket office on Wilshire? (it looks like a corner location)


http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/

I'd love to find a 'travel' map that shows all the airline ticket locations in Los Angeles.
(remember there were also ticket offices in many of the hotels)


____

AYYYEEE!!! I can't take any more!!!! Such awesome design!

I'm gonna go take a cold shower now

~Jon Paul

[GaylordWilshire]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/
____

LAPL

It looks like Continental took over the space by the '70s--I don't know if it was responsible for taking out the incredible Western design, but, if so, for the crime, its name deserves its recent eclipse by United. According to city directories, the 6th & Olive intersection was airline office central--CTOs (CTO is airlinese for "City Ticket Office," apparently) and sales offices. e_r and FFF: AMAZING interiors of the Western CTO. And Scott--still looking at all of your Union station pics. As someone said, it it great to see these private pics. We have all seen so many of what have now become the standard pics of L.A., from libraries etc, but these kind from private albums with people in them really add the third dimension.


A few more shots of the SW corner of 6th and Olive:

1927: USCDL; 1939: LAPL

Noticing the 1939 date on the second shot--when was the Western office done?


The corner today: beauty products
GoogleSV

[MichaelRyerson]

What a beautiful example of mid-fifties sophistication. In fact, it reminded me of this image (wrong city, I know, but can't you just see her at the counter picking up a ticket for SF?). The light colored wood, ultra clean lines, the marriage of concrete pillars and glass, the minimalist furnishings and the serif-free font throughout. perfect.


kim vertigo
image from classicfilmsreloaded.com

And what a wonder, E-R, that you're able to pull these things up from your mysterious cache of cd's. How are they indexed and annotated? almost a rabbit-from-the-hat kind of thing to all appearances.

[GaylordWilshire]

youtube.com

I think the Western offices might be from before the '50s... but anyway, I figured that surely we could find a picture of Kim Novak in Los Angeles in a MCM setting... the first thing I thought of was Strangers When We Meet. A sudsy 1960 movie with Novak and Kirk Douglas, who plays an architect who designs a house for Ernie Kovacs. It was a real house in Bel-Air, still standing but apparently much changed. I was sure we'd covered it here before, but I couldn't find it. Can anyone dredge it up? Dear Old Hollywood has a bit on it here --the movie, that is. I didn't do a thorough search online--there must be better stills somewhere, or at least better screenshots than the one I have here from youtube.

[jg6544]

Those Western Airlines office photos remind us of the time when airlines believed that a purchased ticket entitled a customer to be treated like something better than freight.

[Andromeda]

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

Mark L: A few other small notes on 2412 W. 7th... the building is listed in vintage city directories as the Kosloff Building, and at one time it housed J. G. Davenport & Associates, the L.A. representatives of Boy's Life magazine. An office of the Encyclopaedia Britannica is also listed in city directories there, as are some other publisher's reps, insurance offices, and other firms. All 2412 listings were in the DUnkirk telephone exchange... now, we're getting into real Asperger territory here, but I couldn't help but notice that the "382" in the neon number over the door today (213-382-7229) corresponds to "DUnkirk".... The name Kosloff is likely that of the owner and/or builder--there were a few other small (though not as architecturally interesting) apartment buildings in the area bearing the name Kosloff. The name Kosloff seems, not surprisingly, to be of Russian derivation. I can find no connection with 2412 and two other well-known Kosloffs in L.A. (though one or the other could conceivably be the investor/developer of it): Theodore, a ballet promoter/coach (http://articles.latimes.com/2009/apr...t/ca-kosloff5), and Maurice.... In my Googling I've also read of a producer by the name of Maurice Kosloff (also apparently connected to the ballet--http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thed...control-p.html. He may or may not be--but likely is--the same Maurice Kosloff who was the proprietor of the "Maurice Kasloff School of Dancing-Singing-Radio & Acting", once on the top floor of the Art Deco building still at the SW corner of Wilshire and Robertson:

LAPL http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics01/00020217.jpg

Detail:
Los Angeles Art Deco

and today:
Google Street View

OK... now for the (anti-climatic, I'm afraid) Dahlia connection: As the writer does in the second Times link
above, some people speculate on some of the BD boards (most of which are decidedly loopy) that "Maurice
the Voice Teacher", sometimes mentioned in connection with the Florentine Gardens, was Maurice Kosloff....
No? Oh well, Mark L (if you're still reading), I know this probably has little to do with 2412 W. 7th, but I do
like to try to make a noir connection here if I can.. and the building above is pretty, isn't it?

I can solve this mystery. Maurice Kosloff was my great grandfather. He was not related to Theodore Kosloff and was, in fact, threatened with a lawsuit by the family of Theodore Kosloff because he had changed his name from Koslove (which had been changed from Love, which had been changed from some spelling of Koslovsky), to Kosloff and went into the entertainment industry and they felt he was fraudulently trying to capitalize on the name.

I don't believe he owned either of the buildings which housed his studios. Lastly, he was not Maurice the voice coach at the Florentine Gardens. That was Maurice Clements according to the L.A. Times article.

Suffice to say, I'm positive he wasn't responsible for the Black Dahlia murder. He may have gotten around a bit in his day but my great grandmother always knew where he was and he was always home for dinner in the evening. He was very content with his home life and I think, at least in his later years, he really looked forward to going home at the end of the day.

The only time he was late coming home was when he had been attacked in his office and beaten in the head with a baseball bat. He suffered a skull fracture that required multiple surgeries but survived. He was never able to identify his attacker and speculations ranged from attempted robbery, to a personal debt to the Armenian Mafia.

My great grandmother once commented that she thought it might have been a former office manager. I remember in his later years, he dedicated himself to managing the business and never retired because he didn't trust anyone to run it for him.

He ran the business until his death in 1986 at the age of about 84 I think. He suffered a heart attack on his way out the door to work.

[GaylordWilshire]

Thanks for clearing things up. The whole Dahlia story seems--IMO--to be confused all the more by the individual who strangely (if not pathologically) exploits his real or convenient belief that his father murdered Elizabeth Short. How refreshing to find someone not trying to get in and cash in on the act! Welcome to the thread. More importantly--thanks for adding to the real-life dimension here on noirish.


On the other hand...there is a noir dimension to Maurice's life. The Times was full of good stories:

Los Angeles Times

[Moxie]

Thanks for your post, Andromeda. And let me add my own welcome to the thread. Enjoyable as it is digging in the archives to find history, it's all the more interesting when it comes from personal/family knowledge.

[GaylordWilshire]

LAPL

I've just completed my history of 27 St. James Park, the once and always signature house of Chester Place's less-celebrated rival...less celebrated
perhaps because there's less left of it. But there are stories: not forgetting for a minute where I'm posting this, there's even a bit of noir in a Chinese
rug soiled by way of a 1924 murder-suicide. The Stearns and Dockweiler families figure in the story too.

[MichaelRyerson]

Yeah, and that rug tied the whole room together.

[srk1941]

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

LAPL

It looks like Continental took over the space by the '70s--I don't know if it was responsible for taking out the incredible Western design, but, if so, for the crime, its name deserves its recent eclipse by United. According to city directories, the 6th & Olive intersection was airline office central--CTOs (CTO is airlinese for "City Ticket Office," apparently) and sales offices. e_r and FFF: AMAZING interiors of the Western CTO. And Scott--still looking at all of your Union station pics. As someone said, it it great to see these private pics. We have all seen so many of what have now become the standard pics of L.A., from libraries etc, but these kind from private albums with people in them really add the third dimension.


A few more shots of the SW corner of 6th and Olive:

1927: USCDL; 1939: LAPL

Noticing the 1939 date on the second shot--when was the Western office done?


The corner today: beauty products
GoogleSV

H. Roy Kelley was the architect for both of these locations. I have seen a bound volume of these Maynard Parker photographs, with a lovely brown suede cover, in H. Roy Kelley's archives at UCSB. According to Kelley's own notes, the downtown location was at 6th and Grand (though you have found that 6th and Olive is more accurate), and he indicates that they were created ca. 1945. His dates as he recalled them in the 1980s isn't always accurate, but I don't feel like these were done in 1938, they do seem later. And Western Air Lines didn't get that name until 1941. It was known as Western Air Express prior to that.

Maynard Parker photographed the offices for Architectural Forum, May 1946, so they more than likely were constructed ca. 1945.

There is mention of Kelley doing the redesign of the Western Air Lines office in Beverly Hills, at Wilshire and Canon, in June of 1946.

The glass is at such odd angles because Kelley thought that the view of the marvelous ticket office interior would be the airline's best advertisement, and because conventional glass would have distracting reflections, he angled the glass to avoid those reflections.

I think H. Roy Kelley was one of the finest Southern California architects, and is sadly forgotten today, for the most part. He was very innovative and versatile.

[fhammon]

Greetings from Court 6, Steve.
I'm a fellow VG resident.

Thanks for the great info on H. Roy Kelley.
...and thanks for your blog too!

[Andromeda]

As I said...he got around!

I wouldn't doubt that he was guilty in the will case. He might have made some unwanted advances against a woman that would constitute sexual harassment today, but I don't think he would have ever beat a woman up. He didn't have a temper. He had a very mild demeanor and there isn't any history of male domestic violence in the family. I'm not aware of him having an apartment, but if he did, he did not stay out overnight in it. He had a guest house in the back of the main house that he occasionally let some friends or students stay in with my great (step) grandmother's knowledge, and he frequently had business associates and the likes over for dinner or a swim in the pool.

He was associated with the owner of the Pussy Cat theater at one point. So it's possible he might have been in the possession of some contraband reels, and might have been screening them for profit, or someone else might have been using his facilities for that.

So he might have been a bit of a colorful character in some respects but definitely not a psychopathic murder!

As for the paternity case.....this I will look into!

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

Thanks for clearing things up. The whole Dahlia story seems--IMO--to be confused all the more by the individual who strangely (if not pathologically) exploits his real or convenient belief that his father murdered Elizabeth Short. How refreshing to find someone not trying to get in and cash in on the act! Welcome to the thread. More importantly--thanks for adding to the real-life dimension here on noirish.


On the other hand...there is a noir dimension to Maurice's life. The Times was full of good stories:

Los Angeles Times

[ethereal_reality]

A few days ago I came across this intriguing Los Angeles Press Photography Annual from 1958.




found on ebay



below: One of the 'sample' photographs from this annual was this confrontation with the L.A.P.D.







below: I would love to know the back-story of this photograph. (he appears to be a rather handsome 'hannibal lecter' type)









below: The other 'sample' photograph from the 1958 annual.






below: detail





below: another detail.






Somehow the 'Beacon parking only' photograph seemed familiar to me so I searched some of my past posts.
Sure enough...way back in May of 2010 I covered this robbery.

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

A robbery at 930 W. Manchester in Inglewood, 1957.

I love the different venues with their 'noir' sounding names....The Beacon, Vida's Cafe, and the Mayflower Ballroom.





All the following images are from the UCLA digital archive.

[Fab Fifties Fan]

Great job recognizing the robbery by the restaurant name e_r!!! I recognized it by the '55 Plymouth Plaza parked out front, of course

~Jon Paul