--below, bad paraphrasing by me, sorry. just shortening an amazing post by FW.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyingwedge
Max Neft was born in Latvia in 1874.
[...moved to LA, built Neft Apartments building near USC (later Park View Apts) across from where now is the Natural History Museum...]
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Here's the Neft Apartments in 1925 just west of Hoover at 901 W. Exposition; the building on the left is the county museum taxidermy lab:
USCDL -- http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/re...ll170/id/68201
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USC expanded in the 1960s and acquired a number of properties adjacent to the campus, and the former Neft Apartments was undoubtedly one of them.
There are a few LA Times articles from the mid-60s that discuss the possibility of building a new taxidermy wing for the county museum, so perhaps that's when USC acquired the taxidermy lab and the Neft Apartments.
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The 1989 aerial at HistoricAerials.com is rather blurry, but the Neft Apartments and the taxidermy lab seem to be standing. The 1994 aerial shows two vacant lots. ... |
I have little to add about the Neft/Park View Apartments, however USC still had students housed in similarly-aged buildings in the mid-1980s. There were about four multi-story brick/concrete 1920-30s housing removed around 1986-1988. Park View was one of them, however just Touton Hall and Harris Plaza are mentioned in this LA Times article from 1986 :
http://articles.latimes.com/1986-03-...esidence-halls Harris Plaza was just east of Park View by a block, whereas Touton stood where the new Cinematic Arts buildings have been built.
But somewhere during 1986-1988, I visited the strange "unknown" taxidermy laboratory building - retrofitted with an excessive amounts of earthquake-damage-preventing I-beam girders and tiebacks - which had no markings that it was affiliated with the campus. And no security. It still just had aged painted signs declaring it was property of History Museum and no easy means of entry. Locked doors, dusty windows, unused all day, dark all night. Many rumors but no facts. (Wish i could remember the exact year now.)
The tiny old barn out back that you see on the Sanborn Map was even still there, with, between the Lab and barn, an old rusted truck sunk a half foot into the ground - the barn's wooden building walls decaying in a manner that i could have shot a depression-era tiny ol' opry without a production designer. Heavy, light-killing, old bushes completely hiding it from campus view. Usually, the barn's porch was used by drama's Greenroom Theatre staff for a smoke break, by the numbers of modern cigarettes butted out amongst the weeds.
Oh, but the hulking laboratory, what a frightening hidden gem. Also hidden by dense green plants all around it. Some of us decided we had to see a way inside and discover its treasure. Unfortunately, in night sleuthing, we forewent our 35mm SLR flash cameras as to not attract attention, so no pictures.
Under a full moon, a couple of us climbed up the closely-spaced outside I-beams to the roof, to find a rooftop stairway door unlocked ('certainly this was safe, else the university would have removed the whole building by now, right?' - was our late-night teenage reasoning)... a single flashlight between the three of us (others waited downstairs outside for us to come open the door). Rough wooden staircase without railings to the second floor. Shelving units built out for hefty weight. Thousands of jars covered in dust lining the shelves. Each with a pickled animal or body part. Some vaguely humanquese. Some very not so.
[Cue lightning and thunder]
We realized the building really was a leftover lab of the Natural History Museum, just like the faded sign claimed. Didn't seemed entered for a decade, at minimum. Salamanders, Skinks, Snakes, Fish, Birds, creatures of all sorts and of all parts, each lovingly hand-labeled and carefully pickled in formaldehyde. Thousands filled the building.
Quickly moving to the first floor (another open staircase without railings) and seeing even more of the same, and getting squeemish, we rushedly left through a regular push-button lock door to the outside, promising the others they really didn't want to take that particular trip through the building.
The Lab building and barn were gone within a year, definitely before 1990. I intended to sneak back in and shoot a short film for a film class, but by the time i had the class, the land was cleared. I can't remember if the Neft/Park View went before or after the Lab - the University lent Neft and Harris Plaza to some pre-Homeland Security 1980's anti-terrorism governmental agency to practice with live ammo in urban spaces over the summer before they tore them down.
I'd bet the NHM would have a drawer full of photos somewhere. cheers, brett
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-brett
So perhaps Mr. Mathenson's bungalow was located here. (red circle above)
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