noirish Los Angeles

[Beaudry]

I might be wrong, but I don't think anybody's mentioned the Mell Kilpatrick book. Read about it here and here and here.

Here are some photos that aren't in the book:


Main & Newport, Tustin, 2/4/55, looking west on Newport.


I'm guessing this one is Santa Ana, given the Santa Ana University Beauty School neon.


Note the Orange Drive-In in the bg. It's 1951 and they're running New Mexico and Lost Continent.


Somewhere near Garden Grove, evidently.


Somewhere near beer, evidently.


For my next trick, a little piece of then & now, courtesy of Google Maps Street View...


...4th & Bristol, Santa Ana...hard to believe it's still there and this intact!

[ethereal_reality]

^^^That's so cool....and what a great before/after photo.
Some of the original deco signage is still intact.

[sopas ej]

I'm also amazed by the then/now photo. The utility pole even looks like it's in the same place.

And Beaudry those were really interesting articles about the Engstrum Hotel. I'm not sure when it was torn down, I assume it was when the Library Tower was approved for construction?

[ethereal_reality]

I like the people in these two photos.


usc digital archive

Above: The only info on this one was Hill Street.






LAMAT

Above: Hill at 6th St. in 1946

[gsjansen]

Originally Posted by Beaudry

The idea that we could have one remaining Bunker Hill hotel enchants me. Especially since it was apparently in good hands.

[

what year was the Engstrum torn down?

the latest photo that i can find that i definitively see it in, is this aerial from 1983


LAPL

I can't tell for sure if it's still standing in this 1986 aerial photo of the library fire


UCLA Digital Collection

[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.

[gsjansen]

The victims being loaded in to the ambulance at that Inglewood bar robbery in your 2nd to last photo above, here are two closeups of the care and treatment they received


LAPL


LAPL

I love how the paramedics tend to em with with complimentary lucky strikes in the meat wagon......LSMFT BABY!

[LASpaceCadet]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

I like the people in these two photos.


usc digital archive

Above: The only info on this one was Hill Street.

This is actually the SW corner of Hill & 11th, catty-corner to the Belasco Theatre.

[ethereal_reality]

^^^Thanks for the info LASpaceCadet.

Amazingly, the Mayflower Ballroom (the second to last photo in post #1266) is still open for business.
It is the only original, freestanding ballroom left in Southern California.

[gsjansen]

Bus crashes into bar at Western and Century January 25th, 1962

I love this photo


USC Digital Archives

no one seems to notice that a bus just crashed through the storefront of the bar, (you hear anything?...no not me, i'm just wondering why the cigarette machine don't work)................ i hope that customer seated 2nd to the end brought some credible identification!

The scene outside


USC Digital Archives

uh-boy, i sure hope she's got insurance.
Proprietor Duane Allingham looks disconsolately at damaged bar after car driven by Mrs. Claudia Parker had 're-opened it' for him early yesterday morning.


USC Digital Archive

Both king and knave will drink with joy

Car slams into Ole King Cole Room of the Monarch Hotel at Figueroa and 5th Streets, 18 June 1957


USC Digital Archive

I love the quote behind the bar, "I only drink on occasions and this is an occasion"!.....................true.....true.......



New years party at a bar at Western and Melrose gets crashed...............(no one seems to mind.....or care)


USC Digital Archive

The scene outside


USC Digital Archive

[Beaudry]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

Besides the Mayflower Ballroom, guess what else is still alive? Well...sort of. The for sale sign must mean its future is uncertain.



And the car wash is still a car wash...though googieized with big fins, now...(that's the Jet Car Wash at 941 Manchester)...

[Beaudry]

Originally Posted by gsjansen

I love how the paramedics tend to em with with complimentary lucky strikes in the meat wagon......LSMFT BABY!

Their course of treatment probably also included lots of bourbon and red meat!

[Beaudry]

Originally Posted by gsjansen

I can't tell for sure if it's still standing in this 1986 aerial photo of the library fire


UCLA Digital Collection

That is hard to tell. But I think the Engstrum is gone because you've got the Edison against Grand, and next to it that big square abuts Hope. It could be the roof of the Engstrum but the footprint of the Engstrum didn't extend to Hope. I think it's a construction pit (or, more accurately, a demo pit). Of course, First Interstate Bank didn't buy the air rights from the library til after the April '86 fire, and I've read that construction began in June of '87. Hmmm.

[ethereal_reality]

OMG....Beaudry that's a great find.
Even the Beacon Lounge is still there.


gsjansen, the 'cars in bars' photos are great.
I like your captions....you're pretty funny.

[gsjansen]

I happened to stumble upon these two photos which appear to each have been taken from the same room in the Westminster hotel at the corner of 4th and main.......30 years apart


1887

USC Digital Archives


1917

USC Digital Archives


this next photo is taken from the Westminster in as well in 1885. This photo is looking due west towards bunker hill. I am only including it, as i was stunned by this particular perspective, that truly shows the Victorian beauty of the core of los angeles in the 19th century.


USC

[gsjansen]

I have been looking since we discovered the exact location of Prudent Beaudry's house, for an aerial or a eastward looking photo from Fort Moore Hill showing the house.

Every image that i viewed, either the angle just missed showing the house, or it had already been demolished.

i just found this aerial looking north east up main street showing chinatown as the proposed location of union square.

the roof of the beaudry house is clearly visible at the intersection of republic and new high streets at the lower left.


USC Digital Archives

i do not know the exact year that the photo was taken, i am guessing, (as it has to have been taken from a high elevation of city hall), that this photo is dated around 1928.

as a bonus, the open courtyard of pico house is clearly visible

[gsjansen]

Photograph of a Rendall panoramic drawing of Los Angeles, ca.1869. The buildings and streets of the panorama are individually numbered and listed above the panorama, (bless their little hearts!).

the panorama is taken from poundcake hill, future site of the high school, then the court house, now the criminal courts building


USC Digital Archive

i am currently sufferin' from clinical LA historical mode euphoria! (i don't need no doctor, for what's ailin' me!)

[gsjansen]

this 1910 view looking east must be from the Engstrum as that is definitely the intersection of 5th and grand.

a very nice view of Pershing square before this view was obliterated by the construction of the Edison building. boyhowdy! man did this joint get hemmed in but quick by surrounding structures down the road.

what with beaudry's posting of the happy fella on the north side of the Engstrum, and this image on the east side.....dayum, this joint offered at one time, some of the finest view wise hotel rooms in town! I'd love to find a view looking west before the construction of the Sunkist building


USC Digital Archive

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by gsjansen

this 1910 view looking east must be from the Engstrum as that is definitely the intersection of 5th and grand.

a very nice view of Pershing square before this view was obliterated by the construction of the Edison building. boyhowdy! man did this joint get hemmed in but quick by surrounding structures down the road.

what with beaudry's posting of the happy fella on the north side of the Engstrum, and this image on the east side.....dayum, this joint offered at one time, some of the finest view wise hotel rooms in town! I'd love to find a view looking west before the construction of the Sunkist building


USC Digital Archive

Great pic! Looking at it, I can see the back of the First German United Methodist Church, which was completed the year that photo was taken. It was next to the San Carlos Hotel, which I see used to have a more ornate facade, though this backside of it has a more utilitarian brick facing.

Here's the San Carlos Hotel some 40 years later. By then the ornate details had been stripped. Next to it in the left of the photo is the Biltmore Garage, which dates from the 1920s; I find it interesting that it's a multi-level parking structure from the '20s, and they even made some effort to make it look like an ordinary building. I also find it interesting that for the Googies restaurant on the corner, they mimicked the roofline of what would be a free-standing Googies restaurant. You can barely make out the top of the Edison Building, as well as the bottom floor of the Methodist Church.


yesterdayla.com

Here's the San Carlos Hotel and First German United Methodist Church in their waning years, circa 1985. These and the adjacent Biltmore Garage would be demolished for construction of the Gas Company Tower, which opened in 1993, I think. In this photo you can also see the construction of the tower addition to the Biltmore Hotel, which would also include parking for the hotel.


USC Archive

The church has since moved to Glendale; apparently they are a German-speaking congregation: Welcome to the First German 'Speaking' United Methodist Church in greater L.A.

Here's that block from its more halcyon days, circa 1928:

LAPL

The building to the right is a telephone exchange building. Believe it or not, it still exists, it's just been reskinned and now forms one of the three connected buildings of the Madison Complex, which over the years used to say Pacific Bell, then SBC, now AT&T; I'm sure many of you know it as the building with the huge microwave tower on top of it. It's still one of the largest telephone central offices in the nation. The microwave tower was in use from the early 1960s until the 1990s.


thecentraloffice.com


thecentraloffice.com

You can read about it here.

[Beaudry]

Originally Posted by gsjansen

this next photo is taken from the Westminster in as well in 1885. This photo is looking due west towards bunker hill. I am only including it, as i was stunned by this particular perspective, that truly shows the Victorian beauty of the core of los angeles in the 19th century.


USC

Wow, tons of cool stuff this morning! I especially like this one because it really shows the majesty of Bunker Hill, on the left you have the Rose Mansion (whose view would be obscured when the Fremont was built right in front of it in 1902, and then razed in the 30s) and in the middle is the magnificent Brunson (which only lasted to 1917) and at far right is the Crocker which one always sees in early images of Angles Flight (it only lasted til '08).