I have a vague recollection of it being there, although I never actually went there. I do have another recollection of there being a miniature golf place in Glendale, which backed up to the Verdugo Wash. I think it was between Central and Pacific on Arden. Long gone now, replaced by boring buildings, it was probably there into the early 1970's.

As to abandoned amusement parks, in the 80's I took my kids to see the ruins of Marineland. All the buildings, tanks for fish and animals, and the tower were still there, rusting away in the ocean air. It was fascinating as I could remember going there as a child and loving it.

Aren't you glad you weren't the neighbor who lived down the hill below that cantilevered car thing!! In earthquake country. Your house is fine and then boom! a car lands on top of it.

Some friends of my parents had a house with a variation on that theme. They built their house with a channel coming off of the pool and opening up in the dining room. You could swim along this river thing, duck under the glass wall of the house and into the dining room. You then could duck under the other glass wall and swim back to the main pool. They finished the house in the early to mid 1960's and I was one of the first to swim in the pool after they moved in. I thought it was great at the time. They did not have a bomb shelter. That house is still there in the Burbank Hills although who knows what has been done to it in the intervening years.

I played that miniature golf course a couple of times with my GF. Small, and sort of tucked away off the beaten path. Though not an amusement park, the Verdugo Pool near the Verdugo Road and Canada Blvd. split (adjacent to the Civic Auditorium), commonly known as "The Keyhole" (for its shape), was built in 1938. Closed in 1987. Been there many times.
Andys

Bartmus' Miniature Golf at 10660 Riverside Drive.


The site housed Doc Crew's Sports Center from 1947 until the Bartmus family took over in 1957. They had another miniature golf course at 2703 Magnolia Blvd, Burbank.


Here's an aerial from 1971.

https://i.imgur.com/Kfl2dEY.jpg
UCSB - Flight TG_2755, Frame 25-26


https://i.imgur.com/z1ufzDn.jpg
Cloudfront


Pictures from the early 1980's. It was demolished in 1985.

https://i.imgur.com/IJoBzNJ.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/c5hFgtJ.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/cKWfUds.jpg


These are from a Facebook group post where people share their memories of the place.

Facebook - Valley Relics Group

In the '50s stations KFWB and KRLA used to run an ad for Nu-Pike "on the beach at Long Beach." It mentioned "Kiddieland" and a "free zoo." SoCal was rich in amusement parks before the Mouse absorbed everything.

:hi: Beverly Park has been mentioned several times on NLA.

For example
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=8016
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=22262


http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=7547


https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...79&oe=5BB8658Ahttps://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...79&oe=5BB8658A


https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...20&oe=5BB358D2https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...20&oe=5BB358D2


https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...78&oe=5BA7A38Ehttps://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...78&oe=5BA7A38E

https://www.facebook.com/groups/41435512560/

http://laist.com/2015/02/24/beverly_...ey.php#photo-1

You're amazing, Noir_Noir - first you solved my ship-on-the-roof mystery, now you've solved this one! You're really good at this stuff! :worship:

This image is exactly how I remember it - seeing this photo is like going back in time:

https://i.imgur.com/IJoBzNJ.jpg

Thanks so much for helping me with this mystery of mine - I (literally) don't know how you do it!

Earl da man! Thanks. :)

This article says the Sons of Hermann met above the Turner Hall saloon on S. Main St.

MARCH 5, 1901
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...921/bKWNCU.jpg
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...921/i9UPxX.jpg
CDNC

It's a bit humorous at the end...with the keystone-like cop chasing the poor waiter.


1893
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...922/Cz77vy.jpg
_

Turnverein (Turner) Hall [c.1888]

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/NME8Dc.jpg
LAPL

A large group posing in front of the new Turnverein building in 1888, located at 321 So. Main Street.
This was a club of German Americans.



Class assembled inside Turnverein Hall, located at 321 So. Main Street. [c.1888]

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/c9dHPs.jpg
LAPL

The interior looks huge in this photo.

_

Jungleland was in Thousand Oaks, it closed in 1969. The Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza and The Lakes at Thousand Oaks is now at it's former site.

I'd really like to see you and your brother driving that car Scott. :)

Here are a couple of ebay snapshots taken at Kiddieland in 1970.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...923/J8igrc.jpg
EBAY

I have to confess...the Mom is the most interesting thing in the pic.




Is this the car you and your brother drove Scott Charles?

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...923/susvS3.jpg
EBAY




Not to be sexist or anything...here's a closer look at Mom.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...924/NXp3Bg.jpg
detail

She definitely looks familiar to me. I'm thinking television guest star.

__

MISLABELED photograph currently on Ebay.

"Vintage 1940's L.A. photo / Graham BIG BAND Banner at Ivy's Tavern by KNX Radio."

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...921/r9ckRH.jpg
EBAY

The seller could only see part of the sign in the mid-distance. It's Al Levy's Tavern not Ivy's Tavern.

And the banner is actually hanging ouside of the IT CAFE!
_________________________________________________________________

I couldn't find any information on Johnny Black or Al Graham's Orchestra.

Graham fronted one of the lesser dance bands of the 1930s and 1940s. Here's a brief review from Billboard Magazine, January 23, 1943.

https://s22.postimg.cc/ml266135t/AG-1.jpg

https://s22.postimg.cc/cazr6sl01/AG-2.jpg
[source: Google Books]

I haven't found any evidence that Al Graham's Orchestra ever made any records, which helps explain why they are virtually unknown now.

There was a pianist in the 1920s and 1930s named Johnny Black who was well known as a stage performer. He also wrote a song called "Paper Doll" several years before the Mills Brothers turned it into a huge hit record. However, Black was murdered in 1936, a year before Clara Bow's It Cafe opened. So the Johnny Black that appeared with Al Graham must be a different one.

Interesting, e_r--thanks. Patrolman Abbott is almost certainly Frank Abbott, of a most notable and notorious family.

From my notes:

Abbott, Frank; ca. 1879-1880, born; father, furniture-maker William Abbott; mother, Maria Merced Garcia (she of the Merced Theater); 1894, perhaps the boy who was fined for jumping onto a moving train; and, in 1897, said to be his mother’s “pet”; 1898, presumably the Frank Abbott who was a park policeman in Elysian Park who had his shoulder dislocated in a struggle with a suspicious person in the park; 1902, now patrolling as a policeman, had his shoulder dislocated by a horse at 7th and San Julian; 1904, while chasing mischievous boys on 23rd St., tripped and again injured his much-tried shoulder; 1904, after having studied at Berkeley as a theological student, returned to L.A. and married Miss Lucy Collins—on Catalina Island—in the face of the bride’s parents’ aggressive dismay (story in L.A. Times, 8/6/1904); 1908, in self-defense, killed his nephew W.E. Johnson (insufficient evidence to charge, said the indulgent court); “Mrs. Lulu C. Abbott was denied a decree of divorce in Judge Avery’s court after a hot contest yesterday. She claimed that her husband, Frank Abbott, called her names; that he remained out at nights and threatened her with a butcher knife. A former nurse and a former maid in the Abbott home in Santa Monica were witnesses for the wife. Mr. Abbott denied all the charges. The court ordered him to continue paying his wife $50 a month for the support of herself and their four children. He is a member of an old family, which, at one time, owned large tracts on both sides of Alameda street and now has heavy holdings on North Main street” (L.A. Times 8/30/1917); February 23, 1918, part of police honor guard at the laying-in-state in City Hall of former mayor W.H. Workman (L.A. Times 2/24/1918); “Paris. September 5. (AP)—[…] Mrs. Frank Abbott obtained a divorce from Frank Abbott, who is listed as an American but with only a Paris address given. Mr. Abbott originally applied for a divorce on the ground of indifference, but his wife made a counter-claim on the same ground and won the decree” (L.A. Times 9/6/1927); June 22, 1937, “Injured: […] Frank Abbott, 58, 327 Bonita avenue, Pasadena. […] Orin M. Woodruff, 36, of Buena Park, is in the County Jail on charges of suspicion of hit-and-run driving as the result of an accident early yesterday at Lakewood and Carson boulevards near Long Beach. Woodruff’s car, according to Norwalk station deputy sheriffs, collided with one driven by Frank Abbott, 58, of 327 Bonita avenue, Pasadena, who had as a passenger Edward P. Marrow, 28, of 2570 First avenue, San Diego. […] Both Abbott and Marrow were injured slightly and treated at the Community Hospital, Long Beach” (L.A. Times 6/23/1937); September 4, 1940, at the Plaza, introduced with other representatives of old Angeleno families by Leo Carrillo at a ceremony marking the city’s 159th anniversary (L.A. Times 9/5/1940).

The Abbotts en masse were . . . quite a dynamic bunch . . . ;)

Turn Verein Halls
 

The cornerstone for the Turn Verein Hall on South Main was laid on October 22, 1893, and the building opened in
early 1894, so the LAPL has misdated that photo. Ve vill make them pay for this!


1894 LA City Directory:

http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...psomfmjzjn.jpg

LAPL



In 1888 Turn Verein Hall was on the west side of South Spring between Second and Third Streets, as noted above
(its address prior to the 1890 city renumbering was 137 S. Spring). Here is an 1895 photo of that building, marked
"Music Hall" at left next to the taller Los Angeles Theater (aka Neal Building):

http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...psfvdniweu.jpg

00015031 @ LAPL

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ps49550d96.jpg
Photobucket album

I've posted this before but here I am at Kiddieland. That's my brother in back.
I guess I thought this was all very serious business. The place had a rather rough edge about it.
After this we would go to some restaurant which were packed
to the ceiling after WW II. People had more money to spend on eating out than they do now. It was a very prosperous time.

The family photo albums are currently in storage - meaning that they're inside a box somewhere, in a stack of a great many boxes.

BUT if I get the chance to dig through things, I definitely will post pics!

Teutoburg Forest battle was one of the greatest upsets in military history. Augustus lost 3 of his Legions and the loss drove him into a deep depression. The historian Suetonius said Augustus would shout out "Varus, give me back my legions!". Varus was the losing Roman commander. It ended the Roman attempt to move much beyond the Rhine. Interestingly, even in Augustus times, the Imperial guard was made up largely of Germans. For those who remember the "I Claudius" BBC series from the 1970s on public broadcasting, there was an entire episode largely devoted to this disaster and the effect it had on Augustus. "I Claudius" can still be seen on youtube. Still entertaining.

Jungleland had "Clarence the cross-eyed lion" who, at one point had a TV show and also a movie. He really was cross-eyed. Jungleland was the first place I ever rode on an elephant. I have a picture somewhere at home. I would have gone there in about 1962.

Louis Goebel of "Goebel's Lion Farm" owned the property from about 1925 and trained animals for movie work. Leo, the MGM Lion lived there.

Here's a picture of Hermann the German, exhorting the good burghers of New Ulm to battle:

https://www.ci.new-ulm.mn.us/vertica...3E90D02%7D.JPG

Lots of interesting urban legends about how that thing survived two World Wars. New Ulm was, when we lived in Minnesota, a very German place.

Cheers,

Earl