Bricks
 

There's a nice opportunity for a noirisher. Dig 'em up and we'll buy 'em. I wonder if every sixth one says "SIMONS"? They need saving for sure.


https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-W...805%2520PM.jpg
http://calbricks.netfirms.com/brick.simonssimons.html

Orpheum Parking/Avadon Ballroom - Main/Spring
 

Thank you so much e_r for answering my question. http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=12182 The answer was even better than hoped for. You're the best :-)

P.S.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-7...225%2520PM.jpg
http://silentlocations.wordpress.com...n-los-angeles/

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-x...441%2520PM.jpg
google maps

Please read Jane Jacobs.

At home in downtown LA....and paying no rent.
 

A Drive Through Bunker Hill...1940s era
 

Silent footage of Bunker Hill from the late 1940s. Full screen mode was an interesting trip into the past.
The first two minutes of this footage is the background process plate for Douglas Sirk's film "Shockproof", 1949.
Click on link:

http://youtu.be/kbatKYDuksg

Still photo from the film
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ps8e1762ee.jpg

Bunker Hill
 

Thanks so much. I really appreciate the sparkling clarity, even with the smog.

I remember a small original woodface Victorian cottage about here on Fremont until it vanished - possibly circa 1990 - never carried a camera to record it - Was not trashed with graffiti - but likely had its squatters - Nobody then to share this spot with as I was a lone rambler therabouts...

I do admire Jane Jacobs, but no amount of wishing for a diverse population is going to save a given city's aging infrastructure, even if civic reformers such as Moses and those who went after Bunker Hill, are chased off. It takes money to keep ever-older buildings standing, and lots of it. I've lived in Greenwich Village for nearly 35 years; it's now the Upper East Side, and, while I might dislike the overgentrification, it has saved many hundreds of 150+-year-old buildings...and I'm not going to be foolish enough to complain that the value of the apartment I bought in 1986 is now worth six times what I paid for it. The bones of an historic neighborhood have been saved, and it's the money of the newly homogenized population that has done it. We'll see if what Jacobs predicted comes true--that eventually even the rich will get bored with luxury and move on--but I don't know why, being human, they would. I see no signs of it yet, anyway.

Fremont, Court, Mignonette & stairs in 2002
 

Strangely enough, Google Earth's 2002 aerial is somehow a better-looking pic than the more recent ones. It's a little large but I wanted the stairs and such to be clear:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-U...752%2520PM.jpg

rick m, do you think this comment from lacurbed is referring to the same victorian cottage that you remember?

http://imageshack.us/a/img818/8671/aabdavincivic.jpg
http://la.curbed.com/tags/geoff-palmer

(the 'Palmer' they speak of is developer Geoff Palmer)

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It's always a good day when I stumble upon another archaic roof-top sign. This one features a large stylized A. :)


I present the poor man's art deco Hotel Adelphia.

http://imageshack.us/a/img138/7952/a...ardowntown.jpg
gsv






below: It's located on 8th Street adjacent to the Valencia Triangle.

http://imageshack.us/a/img341/5088/a...ard1valenc.jpg
google aerial





A few more views of this somewhat forlorn area.

http://imageshack.us/a/img35/1551/aa...ard1alibra.jpg
gsv





Looking north across 8th Street from Green Avenue.

http://imageshack.us/a/img7/5599/aab...lookingnor.jpg
gsv

Take note of the red Hotel Adelphia sign over the front entrance. (I bet it hasn't lit up for over 60 years)





Cattycorner to the Hotel Adelphia is another apartment building with an obsolete sign, not on the roof this time,
but near it's entrance facing 8th Street.

http://imageshack.us/a/img268/1872/a...8thstreetn.jpg
gsv






I would love to see this sign when it was in working order (preferably late at night when the Santa Ana's are blowing)

http://imageshack.us/a/img19/5422/aa...8ths1oldsi.jpg
gsv


....thus is the life of noirish Los Angeles.



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Great footwork, Procab! Too bad about the poison oak.

Is the tunnel where the "water works" is, or is that something else? I know the area has changed tremendously since this 1921 map:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4f1a10a2.jpg
Historic Mapworks (http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/19434)/Plate+028)

Marchessault (the street) was named to honor Marchessault (the mayor) after his death. He was a founder of the first city-owned gas company, and the first gas streetlights were installed during his tenure. He is also credited with helping establish Drum Barracks in Wilmington.

Damien Marchessault was born in Canada in 1818. He came to Los Angeles about 1850 and went into partnership with Victor Beaudry (Prudent's younger brother) bringing ice to LA from the San Bernardino Mountains. Marchessault served as Los Angeles Mayor from 1859-60 and 1861-65. In 1866-67 he was LA's Water Overseer, was again mayor for four months in 1867, then resumed his duties as Water Overseer.

Marchessault planned to install a system of pipes to deliver water to the city. But he gave the contract to a business associate, which prompted charges of corruption, and the pipes, made of hollowed-out trees, often leaked or even exploded, which prompted charges of incompetence.

The problems with the pipes -- along with bad business investments, gambling debts, and excessive drinking -- took their toll. Early in the morning of January 20, 1868, Marchessault went to the empty LA City Council Chambers, wrote his wife a suicide note (reproduced at link below), and shot himself in the head.

No photograph of Damien Marchessault is known to exist, but here's a photo of LA's first City Hall at Spring and Franklin in its later guise as a railroad ticket and real estate office:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...ps57d4da9c.jpg
USC Digital (http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/si...d/14083/rec/10)

Damien Marchessault bio from "If City Hall’s Walls Could Talk: Strange and Funny Stories from Inside Los Angeles City Hall," by Greig Smith (Xlibris Corporation 2010): http://books.google.com/books?id=7D5...page&q&f=false

Collette Apartments, Glendale
 

Has anyone heard of the Collette Apartments? A relative of mine bought these in around 1937 and continued to manage them until his retirement in the mid 1950s, when he and the family moved out of Los Angeles to elsewhere in California. I believe that they were located in Glendale (which I guess would not fall within the geographical area covered by this 1941 directory).

City directories of the late 1930s have him listed living in Riverdale Drive, Glendale, but there is no reference in the address listed to the name "Collette Apartments", so I don't know if these two could be the same.

There is an outside chance that they were located in South Los Angeles, as there was a residence listing for him there in the early 1940s. However, a 1970s press cutting does specifically mention the Collette Apartments and Glendale in the same breath (but again, no street address given).

It would be great if anyone has any period photos of the Collette! Wishful thinking...? Any help gratefully received.

I am continuing to enjoy greatly this thread -have now caught up to current page after 2 months intensive reading! Great stuff!

Thanks

Alester

I totally forgot about this area.
 

I'm so glad you mentioned this area, I totally forgot about it. The first time I noticed the Hotel Adelphia and it's surroundings I was driving home from work on a late night, it was foggy and no other cars or people were out on the street. As I slowed down for that little jog in the road, I saw the Hotel Adelphia through the haze and thought this would be the perfect location for a film noir. That little twist in the road really makes the Adelphia and rest of the block stand out. I think when I get some time on a foggy night, I will try and go snap some photos.

I hope my earlier post wasn't misunderstood. I was referring to the architecture, not the people that live there.

http://imageshack.us/a/img202/1125/aabpoorman.jpg
http://www.usingenglish.com/referenc...something.html
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That is or was the Melbert Hotel.... You'd think there might be a few noirish items in the paper about it, a death from smoking in bed or some such...but I haven't seen any.

http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/8...ercarcompl.jpgLAT

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/409...frieshouse.jpgLAPL

http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/8...rieshousec.jpgLAPL


Alexis C Jeffries came from Ohio with his wife and brood in 1891 (one source indicates 1882). It appears that the family settled above downtown on considerable property that they eventually subdivided, with Jeffries Avenue as a main street--now part of L.A.'s Cypress Park neighborhood. While at least one son continued the family interest in real estate, another took an altogether different track. In 1899, James Jackson Jeffries (the "Boilermaker") became boxing's World Heavyweight Champion. While the stairs in the Times article above appear to be those in the photograph below it, the same wall--made of stones presumably taken from the Arroyo Seco just a stone's throw away--continued, with portions continuing today, from nearly North Figueroa (née Dayton Avenue) three blocks to Idell Street. The location of the Jeffries "big house" at the top of the stairs is now taken up by the Florence Nightingale Middle School. Below are a few samples of the extant wall--the first surrounds 571 Cypress Avenue, the 1911 house of Charles Jeffries, one of the Boilermaker's brothers (L.A. Historic-Cultural Monument 735).


http://img805.imageshack.us/img805/5...lcomplpic2.jpgGSV



He looks shorter in this picture, but to top it all off, I present all 6'-1½" and 225 pounds of the pulchitrudinous James Jackson Jeffries, Heavyweight Champion of the World of 1899:

http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/4...sjjeffries.jpgwikipedia

Marchesseault/Marchessault
 

Thank you Flyingwedge, but my question:

"Why did Marchesseault (the mayor) turn into Marchessault (the street)?"

...was actually just about the spelling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Marchesseault

That's it in a nutshell.

Orsini Apartments
 

The Victorian cottage was at Sunset and Figueroa. Palmer likes to build against the freeways.