noirish Los Angeles

[HossC]

This is the Regent Apartments at 2401 W 6th Street in 1931. The first two images below are from the same USC photoset where Tourmaline found the Tu-way Market in post #27344. I've kept the pictures quite big to show more of the details.


USC Digital Library

The signs in the left first floor windows appear to advertise the Westjoy Dance Studio, although I couldn't find it in the CDs. The one on the right is for a three day health treatment by Dr E W Riley. The middle word says "Super ...ation", but I can't read the whole word.


USC Digital Library

I found the advert below in the June 14, 1914 edition of the Bisbee Daily Review. If the Regent Apartments were "second to only one if the city in furnishings", I'm trying work out what was number one.


www.newspapers.com

I'm not exactly sure how long the Regent Apartments survived. Although it's not mentioned by name, the listing in the 1973 CD has at least one resident that was in the same apartment back in the 1956 CD (when it appeared as the "Regent Apt Hotel"). Here's what you'd find if you went looking for 2401 W 6th Street today.


GSV

[ethereal_reality]

I found this slide on ebay....it wasn't listed under 'Los Angeles', which makes me think there's a good possibility it hasn't been seen on NLA.


eBay

My question is:
Even though the ground appears to be level, why is one street-car so much larger than the other? I thought they were all pretty much uniform in size.
__

CBD, that photo of you and brother wearing hats is wonderful. I like how your brother is holding your hand. It's so sweet.
__

[ethereal_reality]

This was posted on Vintage Los Angeles / facebook...with the following comment.

"A Market Basket in 1967!"
"Can anyone identify this location?"

..................................................................................................................................................................color adjusted by Guillermo Mendiola

https://www.facebook.com/VintageLosA...390211384366:0

Some thought it may be Culver City, but I'm not sure.

__




https://www.facebook.com/VintageLosA...390211384366:0

[oldstuff]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

I found this slide on ebay....it wasn't listed under 'Los Angeles', which makes me think there's a good possibility it hasn't been seen on NLA.


eBay

My question is:
Even though the ground appears to be level, why is one street-car so much larger than the other? I thought they were all pretty much uniform in size.
__

CBD, that photo of you and brother wearing hats is wonderful. I like how your brother is holding your hand. It's so sweet.
__

The hats were high fashion. That is a great picture.

As to the streetcars, the one on the right is a "blimp" interurban which sat higher off the ground than the other. They were also longer. There is another picture online of PE 311 head on, passing through the Santa Ana junction in Watts.

The other car was built in 1922 by the Saint Louis Car Company. It was rebuilt a couple of times and in 1950 it was numbered as 5112. That car is still around as Car #637 and can be seen at the Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris.

It appears that your picture was taken in Watts at the Watts Station, a corner of which is seen in background to the right of the cars. That station is still standing and is located at 103rd and Graham in Watts, although somewhat remodeled. It is now a Metro stop

[Wig-Wag]

[QUOTE=ethereal_reality;6971966]I found this slide on ebay....it wasn't listed under 'Los Angeles', which makes me think there's a good possibility it hasn't been seen on NLA.


eBay

My question is:
Even though the ground appears to be level, why is one street-car so much larger than the other? I thought they were all pretty much uniform in size.
__

ER, the car on the left was built for city/suburban service. This style was initially used on the PE's Western District including Hollywood Boulevard and the whole class became known generically as "Hollywood Cars". The type had both end and center entrance doors. Also note the large front windows and the destination sign on the roof. Eventually used system wide, they ended their days on the LAMTA Watts LIne in 1958.

The car on the right is a "Blimp". The Blimps were the largest cars on the PE System, hence the name. They were built strictly for interurban service on SP's Bay area operations and came to the PE via the U.S. Maritime Commission during WWII to move workers from LA to the wartime shipbuilding plants in San Pedro and Terminal Island. These were the last PE cars to serve Los Angeles, being withdrawn from service on April 9, 1961 See my missive on these cars in post #26856.

Cheers,
Jack

[tovangar2]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

This was posted on Vintage Los Angeles / facebook...with the following comment.

"A Market Basket in 1967!"
"Can anyone identify this location?"

..................................................................................................................................................................color adjusted by Guillermo Mendiola
[/URL]
https://www.facebook.com/VintageLosA...390211384366:0

Some thought it may be Culver City, but I'm not sure.


https://www.facebook.com/VintageLosA...390211384366:0

Culver Center 1955. Said to be Southern California's first shopping mall (both Culver Center and Westside Pavilion were built in 1949)
It's diagonally across the W Washington/Overland Ave intersection from Sony Studios:

http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/hist...oad-school.htm

Set-dressed as a 1940s southern town for MGM's "Ada" (1961) starring Dean Martin and Susan Hayward:

http://www.culvercityhistoricalsocie...back-to-1940s/

Culver Center, 2014:

gsv


More info here

View of Culver Center from the Producers' Building:

gsv

There used to be a Ships restaurant at the corner of Culver Center facing on Overland.
I bet you used to eat there e_r. I did.


http://ellenbloom.blogspot.com/2014/...friday_30.html

The sign says "never closes", but they all did.

[ProphetM]

Originally Posted by Tourmaline

Choices when staying in Santa Monica?


Olympic Auto Hotel - conveniently located at Lincoln and Olympic Blvd

http://www.idaillinois.org/cdm/compo...d/4307/rec/528

Thanks for all the postcards, Tourmaline! A number of these will be appreciated over at the Route 66 Los Angeles Facebook group, so I'm going to nick them.

The Olympic Auto Hotel is the most interesting of the bunch to me. The corner of Lincoln & Olympic was the official end point of Route 66 from 1936 (when it was extended from downtown LA) to 1964 (when it was cut back to Pasadena). So that makes the Olympic Auto Hotel the very last motel on Route 66. Despite the "RT66" notation on the Hotel Windermere postcard, no part of Ocean Ave. was ever part of 66.

[Tourmaline]

Hotel Windermere may have pre-dated Route 66 by a handful of years and most likely predated the Olympic AH. Judging from contemporary photos, one can only guess the Windermere's R66 connection was because it stood as a must-not-miss landmark. It may also be noteworthy that AutoClub maps from the mid-late '20s gave the Windermere an "official" endorsement. In fact, in the few maps I looked at, the Windermere was the only Santa Monica hotel listed. (BTW, the notes on the Olympic Auto Hotel card seem like a written report from a competitor or someone looking to remodel the place.)

Hotel Windermere By-The-Sea was built in 1909 on a bluff at 1431 Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica, California. It was owned by Mrs. Rosamonde Borde, who also commissioned Eugene Durfee to build the famous Art Deco style Georgian Hotel in 1933. The Windermere Hotel was demolished in the early 1960s

http://digitalcollections.lmu.edu/cd...chgface/id/862


From December '61, Evening Outlook.

Windemere to vanish soon from SM scene. Demolition starts 12/4, to make way for twin towered 15 story apartment. Hotel is the only one in SM to be built, owned and operated by a woman, Mrs. Rosamonde Bored. She acquired the property in 1902 and in 1909 the present structure was erected. It was then called Windermere Hotel.

Undated, Windermere standing watch over the bluffs.

http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/si...id/19879/rec/6






1920s (?)
http://digital.smpl.org/cdm/singleit.../id/1771/rec/2



January '62. Sad

http://digital.smpl.org/cdm/singleit.../id/3547/rec/2


Excerpt from Nov '23 trip map

http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/co.../id/116/rec/11

[CityBoyDoug]

Tourmaline;6972350]Hotel Windermere may have pre-dated Route 66 by a handful of years and most likely predated the Olympic AH. Judging from contemporary photos, one can only guess the Windermere's R66 connection was because it stood as a must-not-miss landmark. It may also be noteworthy that AutoClub maps from the mid-late '20s gave the Windermere an "official" endorsement. In fact, in the few maps I looked at, the Windermere was the only Santa Monica hotel listed. (BTW, the notes on the Olympic Auto Hotel card seem like a written report from a competitor or someone looking to remodel the place.)


Route 66 California.... 1955 map.







theroadwanderer

[Martin Pal]

Originally Posted by tovangar2

There used to be a Ships restaurant at the corner of Culver Center facing on Overland.
I bet you used to eat there e_r. I did.


http://ellenbloom.blogspot.com/2014/...friday_30.html

The sign says "never closes", but they all did.

I was employed at a place on Jefferson Blvd. and I ate here almost every work day for five years! Were there more than three SHIPS in the area? I always only knew of three. This one, the one on La Cienega and the one in Westwood, where one lady was named the worst waitress in Los Angeles one year by the L.A. Weekly. (Apparently she was quite mean and people actually went there to have her wait on them.)

I was sad when these all closed. The food was high quality. My favorites were the beef brisket sandwich, the Bouillabaisse and on Fridays, their clam chowder which seemed to be a combinaton of white and red with a mexican influence. A recipe that I wish I could uncover cause there was nothing like it.

It was known for having toasters at every table that you could toast your own bread in. Occasionally this would provide merriment when someone would leave it in too long and it would catch on fire, or pranksters that would adjust the spring so the bread would pop out two feet in the air.

I haven't verified these things, but the Westwood location appears in a Dennis Christopher film called Fade to Black and I believe a film with Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis had a scene or two filmed in the one on La Cienega. It was called Into the Night.

[ProphetM]

Originally Posted by CityBoyDoug

(BTW, the notes on the Olympic Auto Hotel card seem like a written report from a competitor or someone looking to remodel the place.)

I was thinking it reads like a report from a salesman of some sort in the gas industry, like he's on a research trip inspecting different setups.

[Tourmaline]

Fascinating glimpse of a family's Santa Monica visit Source approximates dates 1905-20, all part of the same collection.


"Harry M. Rhoads with Julia Rhoads"

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm...id/17672/rec/9






"Mrs. Harry M. (Julia) Rhoads in Santa Monica"

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm...id/17679/rec/3






"The [same] Mrs. Julia Rhoads (Knapp) in wheelchair, Santa Monica"

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm...id/17551/rec/1


















Mrs. Julia (Knapp) Rhoads in Santa Monica

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm...id/21148/rec/4





Ocean Park 1905 - 1910

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm...id/18446/rec/2

[tovangar2]

Originally Posted by Martin Pal

Were there more than three SHIPS in the area? I always only knew of three. This one, the one on La Cienega and the one in Westwood

That's right. Emmett Shipman built the three (Nina, Pinta & Santa Maria?) over about 10 years in the 50s-60s. They all closed in the 80s or 90s.

Martin Stern, Jr. (1917-2001), known for his Las Vegas casino designs and googie-style coffee shops was the architect

Do you remember this? Shipman's son reopened the Culver City restaurant, but I don't know how long it lasted:
http://articles.latimes.com/1995-10-..._1_culver-city

[Tourmaline]

The Douglas Company produced the Dauntless SDB (Scout/Dive Bomber) from '40 through '44.

Exact location unknown, but those oil derricks and those peaks offer plenty of clues. Source only mentions "Santa Monica." Route 66 is probably in the mix too.




http://cdm16038.contentdm.oclc.org/c.../id/424/rec/10





Hollywood sign?






http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=19246

[Lorendoc]

This is not particularly close to Santa Monica.

The key is the rows of tanks above the bottom plane's left wing. They are roughly bounded by Avalon (W), 120th (N), Central (E) and El Segundo (S). This is today Willowbrook Park.

The N-S street making a slight bend in the center of the picture to the east is San Pedro, as it connects with Avalon and Olive St (now Alondra).

[CityBoyDoug]

Originally Posted by Tourmaline

Fascinating glimpse of a family's Santa Monica visit Source approximates dates 1905-20, all part of the same collection.

Its hard to imagine but in those days it was against city regulations for men to have bare chests at the beach. Beach Cops patrolled all beaches and issued citations and fines for such brazen naughty behavior.

[Tourmaline]

Thanks LorenDr

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

This photograph, also from 2005, shows the Ambassador Hotel shortly before its demise.
The hideous addition from the 1950s protrudes out of the original hotel built in 1921.



http://www.flickr.com/photos/chris-y...n/photostream/



below: This vintage photo of the Ambassador Hotel surprises me. It looks as if an ugly front entrance has already been tacked onto the hotel.
The sign advertises the very famous Coconut Grove (home to the Academy Awards) as well as Guy Lombardo's Orchestra.



http://hiddenlosangeles.com/wp-conte...mbassador2.jpg

Why didn't they hire an architect to design an entrance that was sympathetic to the original design?
Maybe I'm wrong.....perhaps this IS the original entrance, but I highly doubt it.
____

http://cdn.archinect.net/images/1200...1tcw3udsoj.jpg



See: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=5633




Auld. Lang Syne for the Ambassador



November 19, 1926 - H. L. Mencken with friends in courtyard of Ambassador Hotel (Because Prohibition was in effect, no alcohol was consumed - while the photo was taken )

Standing from left to right are American film producer Walter Wanger (1894-1968); H. L. M.; and American writer John Hemphill (1891-1957)--the three appear to be examining the brain of writer Joseph Hergesheimer (seated center); and vice-president and editor of Photoplay magazine James R. (James Reddy) Quirk (1884-1932) (far right). Seated from left to right are American actor, playwright, producer, and director John Emerson (1874-1956), the husband of Anita Loos (in crib); American writer, critic and actress Helen Klumph (b. 1896); American writer Joseph Hergesheimer (1880-1954), who appears to be watching over a wedding cake; American film and stage actress Aileen Pringle (1895-1989), who was later rumored to be romantically involved with H. L. Mencken; and American film and stage actress May Allison (1890-1989), the wife of James Quirk. Lying in a baby's crib is actress, novelist, and screenwriter Anita Loos (1888-1981), John Emerson's wife, who claimed H. L. Mencken was the inspiration for her story Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

Guy Lombardo (marquee) was known for ringing in the New Year from New York's Roosevelt Grill. 1935 was one notable exception with one George Raft breaking an ankle. https://news.google.com/newspapers?n...,7723453&hl=en I'm sure Guy played the Cocoanut Grove on many other occasions though.


http://alienistscompendium.com/wp-co...rdo8A_crop.jpg



http://nowandthengeoclass.weebly.com...78996_orig.jpg



Al, Marilyn and Salvador
https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/...jpg?1370380170

[Tourmaline]

Lucretia Garfield's First Lady tenure: 4 March, 1881 - 19 September, 1881

After moving to South Pasadena, California in 1901 because of its milder winters, she joined a literary club, where she delivered frequent talks on books she had read. Lucretia Garfield took a direct role in the design of her extraordinary Pasadena home built in the Arts and Crafts style, designed in 1904 by a distant relative of the prestigious Greene & Greene firm. She was also a prominent figure driven in the annual Tournament of the Roses parade on New Year's Day in Pasadena.http://www.firstladies.org/biographi...x?biography=21

1001 Buena Vista Street, Pasadena. Former First Lady's picturesque abode.
http://www.family-images.com/ca/CA%2...ld%20Color.jpg



1853 - "Lucretia Rudolph (second from left) sat beside James Garfield (left corner) with fellow students in Greek class"
http://www.firstladies.org/images/bi...rfield%205.jpg

Lucretia Garfield in 1911 with her adult children; she died two years before women got the right to vote, but supported the Progress

http://www.firstladies.org/images/bi...field%2026.jpg

[tovangar2]

The two-story site of the Coconut Grove wasn't an addition, it was original. The main hotel entrance was on the west (Mariposa Ave) side:

charles champlin

(notice there's no pool in this view)

The configuration is echoed in the school now on the site. It contains the auditorium:

wiki

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

below: This vintage photo of the Ambassador Hotel surprises me. It looks as if an ugly front entrance has already been tacked onto the hotel.
The sign advertises the very famous Coconut Grove (home to the Academy Awards) as well as Guy Lombardo's Orchestra.

http://hiddenlosangeles.com/wp-conte...mbassador2.jpg
____

I knew the hotel best after it had all but ceased operations in the early 80s, but still operated the Play Deck pool area as a private club. A friend was a member. We went often.

The last time I was there was during the demo. A gate on 8th street had been left unattended and open, so I drove in. It was awful. The Play Deck, once so glamorous, was rubble. I got as far as about the back of the main building before a security guard stopped me. I said I was looking for Wilshire Blvd and he gave me directions out.

My brother-in-law and his wife lived at the Embassy Apartments on the Ambassador block, a nice, generous building. Lovely rooms.

[pwrof3]

Originally Posted by KevinW

For years as I've lived and worked in Hollywood and L.A.'s Westside, I've taken walks through the neighborhoods. One of the things that has always fascinated me on these walks are the stamps in the concrete left there by the Contractor. When I lived in Venice, the stamps were dated back to the 20's. Now that I live here in Westchester (by the airport), most of the stamps are post war, 46-50 or so. Just to start things off, I'll post a few I took on my corner because they are replacing the old curb with a new wheelchair friendly one. And gone will be a few stamps. So I thought I'd run out and snap them today. Here's my street with it's stamp there at the bottom.

[IMG] IMG_1737 by KevinWCuts, on Flickr[/IMG]

Goodbye old corner of Georgetown and 85th Pl. At least now you'll be handycapable.

Hey, Kevin. I know this post is old, but my grandparents used to live on 87th St. right near Visitation Catholic Church! This photo brought back many memories! I'll never forget those odd curbs.