"A shade better than the rest.":cool:


1948 - Peckat Auto Shades (6100 W Washington Blvd.)
http://imgzoom.cdlib.org/Converter?i...=0&w=817&h=504http://imgzoom.cdlib.org/Converter?i...=0&w=817&h=504



1948 - Peckat Shade
http://imgzoom.cdlib.org/Converter?i...=0&w=799&h=516

I found your picture on transittalk.proboards.com (just over 3/4 of the way down the page). Their description says "Los Angeles Railway, 5 Line, Car 1275, at Hawthorne Blvd & 122nd, 1948/08/15". I also found a couple of posts on cougartown.com where someone said Mastin Drugs opened in the 1930s and another said it was "on the S/E corner of Hawthorne [Boulevard] and Broadway". Broadway was the end of the 5 Line. Here's the area in 1952.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...Hawthorne1.jpg
Historic Aerials

There have been many changes on the east side of Hawthorne since then ...

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...Hawthorne2.jpg
Google Maps

Here's the end of the 5 Line on the 1934 streetcar map.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...Hawthorne3.jpg
http://www.bigmapblog.com/ I think (site is currently down for maintenance, so I can't check).

:previous: Thanks HossC.

It's such a shame that this fanciful street layout on the east side of Hawthorne has been destroyed.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...540/C0cN6Y.jpg

Does anyone have details about this unique neighborhood with the circular park in the middle of the street?
(and north of it, there appears to be another park in the center of the street...but the view is cut off)

__

:previous:

I like the street layout too, particularly the quirkiness of one circular central island and one square. It survived until at least 1972 (below), but was gone by 1980.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...Hawthorne4.jpg
Historic Aerials

This made me wonder if ANY films had ever been shot inside one of the Brown Derby restaurants, since they were still around (at least a couple of them when Chinatown was filming. (?)

:previous: I hope we hear from someone that grew up in Hawthorne Hoss. I'd love to learn more about this neighborhood with the 'island' parks.
__



"LATL W Line Car 1201, Monte Vista & Ave. 50, Looking East."

Dec. 10, 1954
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/128...661/wwYZAP.jpg
http://lacmtalibrary.tumblr.com/post...e-vista-ave-50



the same corner in 2015.
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/128...673/XdiR4E.jpg
GSV





detail of the store on the left, 1954 and 2015.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...537/WjwQsy.jpg
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...540/IPmQjy.jpg
gsv

pleasant and not-so-pleasant.

Hey, I just noticed....I think it has the same name after all these years! Barney's (it's partially hidden behind the utility pole in the 1954 photograph)
__

Thank you Tovangar2, HossC, GW, E_R and srk1941 for all the posts on the Chapman Park Hotel. I also went back and looked at previous posts about it. Until I just went through all these I don't think I really connected it all together as to how much space and all the different buildings, including the Zephyr Room, that were associated with this magnificent place in this location!

I liked learning about Martinez' lost Fresco (a shame--artists lose a lot of work in demolished buildings aka NBC at SUnset & Vine) and I enjoyed the article on Tovangar2's link about the Women's Olympic Atheletes and their perceptions of Los Angeles. (They like cantaloupe and parties!) GSJansen had a nice post featuring a couple hotel brochures. In 1964 you could get a single room in the main building for $9 up to a five room suite in a bungalow for $75! (You could also get quarters for your maid or chauffeur.)

One of the postcards mentions the Chapman Park Hotel "Where the 'Bride & Groom' Broadcast is Held." This radio show apparently had a happy couple telling audiences their love story minutes before they were married. The program also interviewed couples who had been married 50 years or more.
This LINK has a sample episode one can listen to, and a google search will bring up a couple websites about this radio series.

That's my guess, E_R, and thanks for the fantastic screen grabs. Not having as yet seen the youtube, was this particular Fugitive episode actually set in Los Angeles, or just filmed here?

I love this particular postcard HossC posted on Feb. 28th, showing the Chapman Park Hotel neon looking as though it'll always be there. Do we know what that neon sign might say in the location of the Zephyr Room/Secret Harbor? (Above the Brown Derby awning on the postcard.)

After all this and some brief searching, I still don't think we answered Tovangar2's question:

I'm curious, too. Is this one of those cases where "Equitable" had no actual plans to save the hotel and planned to demolish it all along, only giving lip service to those who may have been opposed? One of those "we're closed for remodeling" memes?

Chapman Park Hotel/Equitable Plaza
 

Thank you HossC for the construction shot. I had mistakenly thought the main Chapman Park Hotel building also had frontage on W 6th street:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-c...22031%2BPM.jpg
uscdl

The postcard view finesses it with a fade-out:

One can the see a corner of the elusive W 6th Street building here:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Q...31401%2BPM.jpg
uscdl (detail)

Thanks for ID-ing it as the "Fugitive" building.

I gotta admit I was more than a little suspicious that it was all PR.

HossC's construction photo answered my question :-)


P.S.

Not previously focused on the question of the 6th St building, I missed the significance of this version of the postcard view before:

Same here t2!! I had no idea the shorter building even existed (the one between the Chapman Park Hotel and 6th Street).

So Hoss thinks it's this building, right?

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...538/njlv1L.jpg
'The Fugitive', Death Is The Door Prize. 1966

Union Station....All Aboard...
 

Maybe this Fred Harvey restaurant will reopen. No one knows yet for sure. Seems to have a lot of atmosphere with the high ceiling and mezzanines. I can just imagine a cozy lunch in the foreground booths. A table for two...a cocktail or two... as the old song goes. On second thought...Tea for Two.

Los Angeles Union Station 1939.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...psklx73mea.jpg
lamagdot com

Oh my ER....just who are these slatternly women?....:cool:

Fred Harvey Restaurant at Los Angeles Union Station.

originally posted by CityBoyDoug
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/102...540/VG00jA.jpg

:previous:

Everything appears in pristine shape. Even the hanging light fixtures are in place. (you can see them through the glass)

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...538/njlv1L.jpg
'The Fugitive', Death Is The Door Prize 1966

Well the one on the left is anything but slatternly. She's the very attractive co-star of the episode, Lois Nettleton (below).

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...673/8lUKUk.jpg
Lois Nettleton in 'The Fugitive', Death Is The Door Prize. 1966

..and the other woman is an extra.
__

It's not abandoned or anything, it's used regularly as a venue and filming location. It's very popular, as are the other spaces at Union Station.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-3...52057%2BPM.jpg
delabuzz-unionstation

Nice view of one of the side walls in the Fred Harvey space (Squawk!):
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-l...53205%2BPM.jpg
elizabethannedesigns

Union Station filming location reel is here

Sorry ER, I didn't mean to disparage that lovely lady. It was just the movie look that I mistook.

Thanks for posting the photos of the Union Station restaurant. That floor is certainly spectacular. No wonder people use it for movies and wedding receptions as Tovangar reports. Lovely for sure and with lots of ambiance.

Here's Judy Garland as a Harvey Girl....

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...su6oepfrf.jpeg
stationtostationdotcom

[QUOTE=Ed Workman;6991767]https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8763/...fe561e8f_h.jpgThe Lark, Los Angeles, 1940

Southern Pacific train 76, The Lark, engine number 4429, engine type 4-8-4.

photographed on August 1, 1940 at Los Angeles by Otto Perry,1894-1970.

DPLdc

Oh my, try to find a copy of George Cukor's 1932 "What Price Hollywood?" (an early version of his 1954 "A Star is Born") starring Constance Bennett, Lowell Sherman and Eddie Anderson (it's sometimes on Turner Classic Movies). There's coverage of both the interior and exterior of the Brown Derby at its original location, before the Chapman Park Hotel bungalows bumped it across the street.

Or is it a set? (note the concrete brim at left). I think it's real:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Q...81315%2BPM.jpg

How about the inside? They never pan up to the dome (but who could take their eyes off Bennett?):
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-B...81709%2BPM.jpg

I like the central kitchen with the booths all around it, the cashier at the cigar counter between the two front doors and, omg, the curtains:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-U...14459%2BPM.jpg

You decide. The pix are from a 3 min preview reel of "What Price Hollywood?"

There's a scene, not included in the reel, of Bennett coming out and walking towards Wilshire. One can see a bit of the landscaped billboards.

Here's the real deal in 1932 with its two pairs of doors (I love the tangle out the back):
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-N...92448%2BPM.jpg

3427 Wilshire Blvd, built 1926, in 1932:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_...00255%2BPM.jpg

above pix: islandora depository ucla



"I Love Lucy" famously managed some coverage of the Brown Derby:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-2...72834%2BPM.jpg
youtube



And was the Prince really supposed to be the Derby in "Chinatown"? Do they ever actually say that in the film? Just wondering b/c it doesn't look like the Derby (they could easily have dressed it w/ the famous framed charicatures) and they exit from the Biltmore.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-W...74536%2BPM.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-p...74948%2BPM.jpg
both pix: paramount
:previous:
The Crocker-Citizens Bank tower/"611 Place" (William L. Pereira, 1969) is looking very anachronistic down there at the end of the shot, next to the Checkers/Mayfair Hotel


What about this one?

Moved or completely rebuilt (?)

Maybe the concrete brim is the only truly original bit.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-7...83333%2BPM.jpg
pinterest

Willie the Giant relocates the Derby:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-o...04416%2BAM.jpg
fun and fancy free @1:00:07

Neft Apartments @ 901 W. Exposition
 

Max Neft was born in Latvia in 1874. He and his wife Paula immigrated to the US in 1901. While living in Seattle, where he worked as a jeweler, he
obtained several patents, a couple of which were for knives:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...j.jpg~original
Worthpoint.com -- http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedi...1920-rare-find

You can google his patents if you're interested; e.g.: http://www.google.tt/patents/US1358097

After that, things were looking up for Max and his family:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...n.jpg~original
November 1921 Western Machinery World -- https://books.google.com/books?id=Id...page&q&f=false

In 1923 or 1924 Max moved his family to Los Angeles and bought property around Exposition Blvd. and W. 37th Place at Hoover. He soon built
a two-story building with four flats at 904-906 W. 37th Place, and the family moved into 904-1/2.

Here is the 1922 Sanborn Map of the area, pre-Neft. McClintock Avenue intersects Exposition just east of Vermont. Hoover Street stops at 37th
Place. University Avenue, one block east of Hoover, is shown here as a short dotted line in the upper right corner. The "Laboratory of Los Angeles
Museum" is, according to a March 25, 1933 LA Times article, the taxidermist building for the LA County Museum across the street in Exposition Park:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...p.jpg~original
LAPL

Meanwhile, around the same time, Max was making other plans:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...w.jpg~original
December 9, 1923 LA Times @ LAPL

The plans changed:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...u.jpg~original
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...h.jpg~original
May 18, 1924 LA Times @ LAPL

I don't know what happened to Mr. Mernstein; perhaps he sold his share of the property. What was eventually built did not go anywhere near University
Avenue. 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:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...z.jpg~original
USCDL -- http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/re...ll170/id/68201

Here's a closer look at the entrance:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...v.jpg~original

This January 5, 1925, aerial view looking NW across Exposition Park shows the Neft Apartments above the museum dome, on the north side of Exposition,
with the flats occupied by the Neft family just to the north. You can barely see the corner of the taxidermy building. Hoover has not yet been built through
to Exposition just to the east of the Neft Apartments and flats:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...n.jpg~original
LAPL -- http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics24/00031939.jpg (date per Seaver Center, LA County Natural History Museum)

The 1930 census shows the Neft family living at 904-1/2 W. 37th Place; Max, Paula and their six unmarried children. Sadly, Neft seems to have lost his
properties to foreclosure by 1933. By 1936 the Neft Apartments had been renamed the Park View, and the Nefts were no longer living in the home they
owned on 37th Place but were instead renting 916 S. Dunsmuir. The Nefts' youngest daughter, Eleanor, married in 1939, but her five older siblings, all
still unmarried at ages 34-42, were living with their parents on Dunsmuir according to the 1940 census. There was some legal action concerning the
former Neft properties, which you can read about here: http://www.lawlink.com/research/CaseLevel3/14518

Here's the 1950 Sanborn. The former Neft Apartments are just to the right of the Laboratory of Los Angeles Museum, and the old Neft flats are just
to the north ("4F"). One of the three industrial buildings from the aerial photo above is still standing on the SE corner of Hoover and 37th Place:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...h.jpg~original
LAPL

November 6, 1958. The intersection of McClintock and Exposition is in the lower left corner. The taxidermy building and the former Neft Apartments are
to the right of center, next to the parking lot. Hoover intersects with Exposition to the east of the Neft Apartments:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...t.jpg~original
USCDL -- http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/re...oll44/id/54019

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.

1967. Many homes east of Vermont are gone, but the Neft Apartments is still standing to the left of center. University Avenue, which looks here like a
pedestrian mall -- it's now known as Trousdale Parkway -- hits Exposition in the lower right corner:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...o.jpg~original
USCDL -- http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/re...ll170/id/21770

You can see the Neft Apartments and the taxidermy lab in the lower left corner of this 1984 photo looking south at Exposition Park and the Coliseum:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...g.jpg~original
Seaver Center -- http://collections.nhm.org/seaver-ce...php?irn=511657

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. Here's the area now, with Vermont on the left. Hoover Street is now Watt Way, and 37th Street is now Bloom Walk:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...a.jpg~original
GoogleEarth 2015

Rest in Peace, Max:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...z.jpg~original
Findagrave -- http://image2.findagrave.com/photos/...7291560166.jpg

:previous: Oh my, what a fantastic post! Thanks so much FlyingWedge.

__

Herman J. Schultheis - neon - lapl - group of faves
 

Remembering when neon was everywhere. Much of this still exists.

"Herman J. Schultheis was born in Aachen, Germany in 1900, and immigrated to the United States in the mid-1920s after obtaining a Ph.D. in mechanical and electrical engineering. He married Ethel Wisloh in 1936, and the pair moved to Los Angeles the following year. He worked in the film industry from the late 1930s to the mid-1940s, most notably on the animated features Fantasia and Pinocchio. His detailed notebook, documenting the special effects for Fantasia, is the subject of a 14-minute short-subject included on the film's DVD. In 1949, he started employment with Librascope as a patent engineer. Schultheis was an avid amateur photographer who traveled the world with his cameras. It was on one of these photographic exhibitions in 1955 that he disappeared in the jungles of Guatemala. His remains were discovered 18 months later. The digitized portion of this collection represents the images Schultheis took of Los Angeles and its surrounding communities after he relocated to the area in 1937." -LAPL

Al Levy's Tavern, 1937:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_...02128%2BPM.jpg
http://photos.lapl.org/carlweb/jsp/F...Number=5092592

Al Levy's Tavern, 1937:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-m...11750%2BPM.jpg
http://photos.lapl.org/carlweb/jsp/F...Number=5092591

Searchlights on neon, Pantages, n.d.:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-c...15526%2BAM.jpg
http://photos.lapl.org/carlweb/jsp/F...olNumber=13146

Beverly Hills Hotel sign, 1937:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-4...03004%2BPM.jpg
http://photos.lapl.org/carlweb/jsp/F...olNumber=23080

Wilcox North from Selma at Night, 1937 [Hotel Mark Twain/Warner Brothers' Hollywood Theater/KFWB masts]
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-7...13807%2BPM.jpg
http://photos.lapl.org/carlweb/jsp/F...Number=5080316

Vista Theater at Night, 1938:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-B...03314%2BPM.jpg
http://photos.lapl.org/carlweb/jsp/F...Number=5146410

Walking in the Rain by the Warners Downtown, 1938
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-k...23556%2BAM.jpg
http://photos.lapl.org/carlweb/jsp/F...Number=5111267