https://img1.mashed.com/img/gallery/...1552675677.jpg
Mashed


The Founders of McDonald's.....the brothers in this 1954 photo. It all began in San Bernardino, CA
Their first stand sold hot dogs in 1940.

^^^

CBD, did you see that movie of a couple years ago about McDonald's and how it became what it is? It starred Michael Keaton and is called The Founder. I'd recommend it.

Never heard of Sing Boy Sing. Wiki says this is a musical drama starring Tommy Sands as a singing idol with a controlling manager, a la Elvis Presley and was expanded from an episode of the Kraft Television Theatre, titled The Singin' Idol, also starring Sands.

The Birds and the Bees sounds familiar, but that doesn't mean I've seen it. (IMDB Says it's a remake of Preston Sturges' "The Lady Eve.")

Now Rhubarb I've heard of.

Tom Hatten used to show it a lot on his KTLA movie programs that he hosted. It's based on a 1946 H. Allen Smith novel about a cat that inherits a baseball team. It's very Damon Runyonesque. I actually read it about ten or more years ago. I believe there was a sequel to the novel, too. I have the DVD of it, too. And if you don't know, a "rhubarb" is also baseball slang for a fight or argument among players and/or umpires.

Ray Milland and Jan Sterling are the stars. William Frawley is also in it. Sources say that "Strother Martin and Leonard Nimoy have uncredited roles in this film" as well. This film is often called a screwball noir comedy. I can see that. (!) Ray Milland also did another screwball baseball film called "It Happens Every Spring" where he is a college professor who invents a substance that, if you rub it on bats, it repels the baseballs. (I wonder what happens if you rub it on other things?)

Tom Hatten used to tell the story about a nationwide casting search for the cat to play Rhubarb, and would say that it rivaled the search for someone to play Scarlett in Gone with the Wind. And after all that they found him (Orangey) in their own backyard.

On the Cinema Cats site, for the review of this movie, they write: "We will be posting a Feature Story on the behind the scenes casting of Orangey and his illustrious career in a future article, as it’s far too detailed to include in this review." But I can't find it on there. (Can you?)

Sources say that this cat, Orangey, is the only animal to have won 2 Patsy Awards (for animal actors) for Rhubarb and for playing "Cat" in Breakfast at Tiffany's ten years later!

Martin, heard about it but have not seen it. I will look for it. Thanks so much for the good cheer.....

https://image.slidesharecdn.com/mcdo...?cb=1467038090
slideshare

How fitting that modern fast food began in Southern CA

This is one of the photos in the Huntington Library's Palmer Conner Collection.

It seems like a perfect noirish image to me! Can we decipher it?
I'm guessing it'a a double (or more) exposure. The photo was titled:

OUT ALL NIGHT!

https://hdl.huntington.org/digital/a...30/default.jpgHuntington/Palmer Conner Collection

Followed by an altered photo:

https://hdl.huntington.org/digital/a...32/default.jpgHuntington/Palmer Conner Collection

(Methinks Robert has a sense of humor!)

The original photo:

https://hdl.huntington.org/digital/a...39/default.jpgHuntington/Palmer Conner Collection

The Founder was a good movie. I've been to the oldest operating McDonalds in the world located in Downey (which was independent of McDonalds Corporation until recently) and found it funny that they had a Ray Kroc Hall right next to the restrooms :haha:

https://youtu.be/QjVDXQ6aSo0?t=10m

I think it says Lee Tex Rubber Products

While we lived on Clybourne just across the line in NoHo, my mom often shopped at the Akron in Burbank & I went for a time to Bell.Jeff High School (recently closed) in beautiful downtown Burbank, but later transfered to NoHo High. Bell Jeff had some good teachers (mostly fearsome nuns) but didn't offer all the science courses (no biology in the mid '60s!). Akron was a kind of a proto Pier 1 type of place, and had all kinds of imports. We saw "Lillies of the Field" at the Magnolia, in 1964 I believe. Won Sydney Poitier an Academy Award. Amen! Good film. One heck of a fearsome nun in that flick, much like the Bell Jeff nuns, but a heart of gold underneath. Burbank punched above its economic weight back then, in both aviation/defense and film/TV. Now most of the aerospace is gone (Lockheed left decades ago), but the film/TV stuff is still there and Disney is "YuGER" than ever and the only DOW 30 Industrial stock currently HQd in the L.A. area.

Did you see "The Founder" about how Ray Krok got the brothers to sell out? Pretty good film. Not sure if it is completely accurate. As you are aware, there is also an early McDs in Downey still in operation, but it might be an early Krok franchise. The original is the San Berdo one of course.

mystery location. [January 1972]

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/B5i9z4.jpg
Ebay

There are street signs but they're too blurry to read. (for me, anyway) ...




Here's a close-up the signs.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...921/B9BFWC.jpg
DETAIL

hmmmmm....:shrug:


This is the only information. [INSIDE THE YELLOW RECTANGLE]

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...923/ZE1vHc.jpg


.

Doris Nieh
 

On eBay, By Doris Nieh, 1962
http://www.califaztlan.org/LANoirPics/NiehCars.jpg

OK, here's another mystery location, folks. [June 1972]


https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/OiMDD4.jpg
Ebay




There are numerous street signs in this slide as well. (four, count'em, four)

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq90/923/bj9nfe.jpg

Above Guy's Cleaners and over by the stoplight at far right. (circled)



Info.
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...922/rR868q.jpg

Evergreen area? :shrug:

.

I think the sign reads Brooklyn (Cesar Chavez) and Cummings, looking southeast across Brooklyn.

Wabash and Forest, Looking southwest.

While taking the Googlemobile around the vicinity of the corner of Cesar Chavez and Cummings, pictured above, I saw some quite tall California Fan Palms in the distance, which betokened great age. Curious, I ran them to ground a block or so away on New Jersey St.:

https://i.postimg.cc/Bv5YvxK1/New-Jersey.jpg
gsv

More or less in front of 2012 New Jersey St.

https://i.postimg.cc/76mK3wXH/New-Jersey2012.jpg
gsv

of which:

https://i.postimg.cc/RF5WgHsG/New-Je...-4-25-1919.jpg
LA Herald April 25, 1919, via UCR Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research

But nothing about the palm trees. :(

Page 3 of the following publication, dated 1900, shows retired mayor Henry Workman at his Boyle Heights home showing off the palms and Silk Oaks he had just recently planted all over the neighborhood:

https://archive.org/details/beautifu...00losa/page/n5

http://www.califaztlan.org/wp-conten...8/workman1.jpg

These particular trees still stand.

Of the mayor, it reads:

"Mr. Workman has, by his liberal expenditure of money, time and energy in improvements, been the leading person in making Boyle Heights what it is today, he having expended in cash over two hundred thousand dollars in streets, railroads, piping water all over the Heights, grading streets, constructing sewers, sidewalks, shade trees, and innumerable other improvements that adorn the Heights. ”

I think that sign says "Ivy's Cleaners."

:previous:

I was wondering if just maybe the Green Burrito restaurant above was the original location of the chain now owned by Carl's Jr. but it wasn't. That started on Carson Street in Hawaiian Gardens.

https://i.imgur.com/8mSBxK3.jpg?1
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/don-...NfV9z7qlPl3f5Q

Downey McDonald's
 

The Downey location was not a Kroc franchise. Kroc was a Multimixer salesman who was already planning his own Illinois franchise when he came to Downey in 1954.

The Downey location opened in 1953. It was the third location in the chain at that time.

This sign sits out front of the Downey location that answers the most common questions about when it was built, did Kroc build it, is it the first one, etc...


https://live.staticflickr.com/3312/3...b6c50ed57d.jpg
McDonald's History Tour by Abby, on Flickr

The one thing the sign doesn't address is that it was the only location that still fried its Apple pies. I am not sure it is still the only one, but a coworker drives from Westchester (near LAX) to this location occasionally just for the fried Apple Pies.

New to NLA.

Here are three amateur slides showing a command center that was set up after the Baldwin Hills dam break. [1963]


#1
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/50kM5d.jpg
Ebay (found about a week ago)






#2
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...921/o5VXDL.jpg
Ebay






#3
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...922/sjgcHX.jpg
Ebay



I believe this is the same area that was initially under water. [SEE BELOW]

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...921/ZFhj3m.jpg
srk1941 at flickr

You can clearly see the towering Thrifty sign. :previous: [shown in slide #3] .......but I can't find the gas stations.






Did you notice the people standing on the roofs?

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/7erTPw.jpg
DETAIL


.