noirish Los Angeles

[Flyingwedge]

Originally Posted by Beaudry

In fact, I look to be wrong about my 1948 date; 1948 is when Walt's Auto Parks took out a permit to build their parking attendant shed. The actual demo permit to demolish Conservative Life was issued in 1940 and again in 1941, so, demolished probably closer to late 41 (building still appears in the August 1941 aerial):

Yes, it looks like the building fell in the fall of 1941:



September 20, 1941, Los Angeles Times @ ProQuest via LA Public Library


The "Walt" of "Walt's Auto Parks" was Walter Briggs, who began acquiring LA parking lots in the 1930s. More on Walter Briggs:


"There was Walter Briggs; thin lipped and gangly, he wore his pants too short, strutted like a cowboy from Kansas, cheated on his
wives and landlords, and ended up running the LAX concession along with a hundred other sites."
- Dave Gardetta, "Between the Lines," Los Angeles Magazine, December 1, 2011.


"Also in Los Angeles, Walter Briggs hired on as a parking lot attendant to pay his way through the University of Southern California.
On graduation, he managed the Coliseum parking for the 1932 Olympic Games, investing his earnings in a leased downtown parking
lot. In 1961, his Saf-T-Park corporation operated at over 100 Los Angeles locations, mainly downtown."
- John A. Jakle and Keith A. Sculle, Lots of Parking: Land Use in a Car Culture, University of Virginia Press, 2004 @ Google Books


"Walter Briggs, who once was among the biggest if not the biggest owner of automobile parking lots in the United States, has died.

His daughter, Kim, said this week that her father was 84 and died Sunday in Tulsa, Okla., where he had been living in retirement.

In the 1940s and ‘50s, Briggs either owned or operated the Saf-T-Park, Continental and Walt’s Parking lot operations in the Los Angeles
area. He also at one time was the controlling stockholder of the Pershing Square underground garage. When it opened in 1952 it was
considered the most ambitious parking structure on the West Coast.

Briggs--as secretary of the Auto Park Assn. of Los Angeles--was at the forefront of the parking lot operators’ battle against parking
meters when they were in their infancy in the late 1940s. At the time, the lots were charging $1 for all-day parking downtown while
it only cost a penny or so to use the meters for shorter periods.

In 1962 Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown named Briggs to the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Board of Directors.

Besides his daughter, he is survived by his wife, Jessie, another daughter, Doris, and three sons, Timothy, Walter Jr. and John.

A funeral service is scheduled Monday at 1:30 p.m. at Forest Lawn Glendale."
- Los Angeles Times, December 20, 1991

[rick m]

Originally Posted by odinthor

Beaudry, do you happen to know the circumstances of the Conservative Life Building being demolished? Perhaps it had had fire damage? I don't seem to be able to track down information about its latter days. It seems like too fine a building to just be razed for a parking lot for no particular reason.

Did you know that 232 So. Hill had the mid Fifties offices of Mattachine Society for the L&G community such that it was back in those days-- a helpline and small library with a meeting room-- upstairs on third floor I believe---

[odinthor]

232 S. Hill, across the street from the YWCA, would be this building (foreground left), I think?


from https://home.csulb.edu/~odinthor/socal8.html

which replaced this building (called "The Abbey"):


from https://home.csulb.edu/~odinthor/socal8.html

of which a better look would be:


from https://home.csulb.edu/~odinthor/socal8.html

That's a bit of Broadway City Hall in the background at right, I believe.

[Flyingwedge]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

.


Not to change the subject but what pray tell do you think is on the roof of the building next to the Conservative Life Building?



detail of Beaudry's 1941 aerial.

Is something being hoisting onto the roof.

Revisit Beaudry's aerial here

.

It looks like a water tank with SAVOY on it. The 1940 City Directory shows the main office of Savoy Auto Parks was at
240 S. Hill, on the north side of the Conservative Life Building at the NEC of 3rd and Hill, so that must be the connection.

This is a closeup from a c. 1940 photo looking SW from City Hall. At bottom center is the "Civic Center Bldg" on the
SWC of Broadway and 2nd; at the top is 240 S. Hill.



2005-0020 @ CA State Library

[odinthor]

Thanks for all this great work, FW!

***

Meanwhile, I'm still mousing through the neighborhood to find interesting tidbits. The Hill St. YWCA building was nearby. I ran across this item, which ran as that building was being torn down, and I thought it had certain points of interest . . . it turns out the YWCA was in the Conservative Life Bldg. for a time:


LA Times, 7/4/1971

[Ossrae]

Ethereal_Reality, those were my first thoughts, too, the crib district and the original Chinatown. Olvera Street also came to mind, though in all those cases there are no signs of those reinforcing pillars.

That picture you included of the adobe house seems to match one that was on the grounds of the San Fernando Mission. That sloping hill in the background matches one behind the mission. I just don't know why a film crew in those days would travel all the way out to the SF Mission just to do such brief shots.

Thank you for your thoughts!! I appreciate getting input from others.

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

.
If I had to guess, Ossrae, I'd say. .um. .somewhere near Chinatown(?)

My first thought was the 'crib district' in downtown Los Angeles. . .



. .but the bricks aren't buttressed (for lack of the correct word) like the bricks in your two mystery screen-grabs.




And I believe you're correct that the movies mostly used sets but I believe the building in the screen-grab (below) is a real building
and as you can see it is in a rural setting.


37:47


As is this one.

30:19

This scene (shown above) with the fake donkey roaming around in what I presume to be the Santa Monica Mountains.

Why do I think it's the Santa Monica Mountains?

Because there is also a quick shot looking down on a beach with a scattering of real building but I CAN'T FIND THE BEACH SCENE AGAIN. *pulls hair out*...*jumps out window*

I'll post the image when I find it.

[Ossrae]

Ethereal_Reality, I suspect that beach scene was filmed at White Point. The buildings in the foreground match some of the ones at this resort. Although the hotel didn't open till the '20s, I suspect the smaller buildings may have already been there.

Prior to the resort, the beach was unpaved and very rocky as in the shot from the movie. (It's rocky now, too.)



Source: http://blogs.dailybreeze.com/history...-spring-hotel/

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

.
I hope I don't give anyone whiplash.


Good news!..I found the elusive beach scene in The Magic Cloak of Oz. (1914)

It lasts all of two seconds.

38:24 - 38:26



And here's a bit of information on the National Film Corporation of American.



"In 1918 National expanded its production and took over the space of the former Oz Film Manufacturing Company studios (1914-1915) , and Famous Players-Lasky, on the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Gower Street (1116 Lodi Place)."

So it only makes sense that the bulk of The Magic Cloak of Oz was filmed in the Santa Monica area.


Now, about those bricks walls, Ossrae. ..They're obviously part of a set so maybe they're fake too



But I have to admit they do look real. . .especially compared to the painted backdrops in the back.


Ossrae's original post here.
.

[riichkay]

Screen grab from "Lucky Jordan", a 1942 release starring Alan Ladd....the picture is set in NYC, according to the plot this is a botanical garden on Long Island.

But other than a few establishing shots of NY nothing was filmed in the city, I have to think this location is out here.







A greenhouse....








Could that tree on the right be anything other than a palm?....if so we are definitely not on Long Island.







The film is here, the garden sequence starts at 1:00:28...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXET...UniversalVideo

[ethereal_reality]

Once more.

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

Does anyone know what is on the roof of the next to the Continental Exchange Building?

Originally Posted by Flyingwedge

It looks like a water tank with SAVOY on it. The 1940 City Directory shows the main office of Savoy Auto Parks was at
240 S. Hill, on the north side of the Conservative Life Building at the NEC of 3rd and Hill, so that must be the connection.

This is a closeup from a c. 1940 photo looking SW from City Hall. At bottom center is the "Civic Center Bldg" on the
SWC of Broadway and 2nd; at the top is 240 S. Hill.



2005-0020 @ CA State Library

Excellent sleuthing, FlyingWedge!..You da Man.

.

[ethereal_reality]

.

Here's an interesting image currently listed on eBay



eBay


And here's the nearly illegible writing on the back.



If I'm not mistaken the writer is saying that they're renting the house which is a bit surprising (to me anyway)
because it appears that the photograph was taken many years ago. I thought the owner would be living in it.
Also. .help me with the name of the writer. It's a whopper!


The seller included this little nugget at the end of the listing.





And as most of you know the mansion still stands at 2243 Crenshaw Boulevard.

In 2009.




Below: The shrubs have grown and there's a pop-up evergreen tree.

And today.


.

[odinthor]

e_r,


LA Herald, 8/19/1920.

[ethereal_reality]

.

Good sleuthing, odinthor. ..I always wondered how the interior was laid out.

.

[HossC]

I'm confused. I know streets get renumbered, but the house in e_r's picture is 2241 Crenshaw Boulevard. It's listed on the property websites as 8 apartments, but sady no interior photos. They all give a build date of 1927, which is seven years after odinthor's clipping from the LA Herald.

The house below used to stand at 2234 Crenshaw Boulevard. It was demolished some time in 2021 to make way for an apartment building.


GSV

[odinthor]

Hmmmm. Right, it is confusing.



How do we construe the date on the message on the back of the photo? I take it as Feb 5, 21. The writer was in a "connect things" mood: We see the "5" connecting, flamboyantly, with the following comma; I see the line between the 2 and what I'm regarding as a 1 to be a similar connection, rather than a part of a numeral 7. The writer bears down on such connectors with less force than with the "real" part of what he is writing.

But if we take it as a 27 rather than a 21: Are we to construe the letter's statement that the renter has been in this structure since last December (or simply that he has been in L.A. since then)? Renting it "for the winter" sounds long-term; in February, winter ends in the following month. If he has rented it since last December, that would be December '26. That of course doesn't fit if it was built in '27. Also, if the year is 27 and the house was built (or completed?) in 27, and it's only February, in the photo it looks to me as if those plants have been established longer than a few weeks. For instance, there's some sort of well-grown border of plants at the base of the palm trees on the property (as opposed to the palms on the street).

Lots to scratch one's head about here!

[GaylordWilshire]

Real estate operator and building contractor John H. Vail owned 2243 Crenshaw in 1920. He was renting it for the winter of 20/21 to New York businessman Louis Lichtenheim, who later lived in Windsor Square at 455 Lorraine Boulevard—later Noman and Buff Chandler's "Los Tiempos" —before he bought 627 S Irving Blvd in 1936.

It looks like 2243 Crenshaw was numbered 2117 before the annexation-related address and street changes of 1910-12 (Vail was listed at 2117 Crenshaw in the 1912 CD and at 2243 in 1913)

[Noir_Noir]

On the 1921 Sanborn map the house has four numbers assigned to it - 2239, 2241, 2243, and 2243½.



loc.gov



From 1921 to the late 1930's it's listed as the residence of Samuel E. Riskin, a jeweler/pawnbroker.


In 1942 it's the Dixie Lee Lodge.


cdnc.ucr - Daily News (Los Angeles), 15 December 1942

[Bristolian]

Originally Posted by Ossrae

Ethereal_Reality, I suspect that beach scene was filmed at White Point. The buildings in the foreground match some of the ones at this resort. Although the hotel didn't open till the '20s, I suspect the smaller buildings may have already been there.

Prior to the resort, the beach was unpaved and very rocky as in the shot from the movie. (It's rocky now, too.)



Source: http://blogs.dailybreeze.com/history...-spring-hotel/

This closeup from a 1928 UCSB Framefinder aerial seems to confirm the White Point location. The rectangular basin and the rock outcropping in the distance seem to be a match.

https://mil.library.ucsb.edu/ap_imag...c-300_m-64.tif

[Beaudry]

Originally Posted by Flyingwedge

Yes, it looks like the building fell in the fall of 1941:



September 20, 1941, Los Angeles Times @ ProQuest via LA Public Library


The "Walt" of "Walt's Auto Parks" was Walter Briggs, who began acquiring LA parking lots in the 1930s. More on Walter Briggs:

Something else interesting about the Conservative Life/Exchange Building. When Clifford Clinton came to Los Angeles in 1931, he famously opened Clifton's "Cafeteria of the Tropics" at 618 South Olive. But because there were so many hungry in Depression-era Los Angeles, a year later Clinton opened the "Penny Caveteria"—


LAT 14 Oct 1932

—and, because it was in the basement, and the lot having been paved over in the fall of '41, one wonders if we tore up that parking lot what archaeological treasures might be lurking beneath...



Another shot of it and the FP Fay beyond, ca. 1906—


lapl

[Beaudry]

Originally Posted by rick m

Did you know that 232 So. Hill had the mid Fifties offices of Mattachine Society for the L&G community such that it was back in those days-- a helpline and small library with a meeting room-- upstairs on third floor I believe---

232 is proving to be a bit elusive. I figured it would show in one of those shots from Angels Flight but I haven't found it. This is as close as I've come, just a sliver of its north side on Hill—



lapl

[Ossrae]

I'm researching aspects of this historic NELA house but am having trouble identifying the style. The expert I asked thinks it could be contemporary to Victorian but a different style than Victorian.

Thank you.


Source: https://www.google.com/maps/place/13...4d-118.2791789