I live in the same general neighborhood and have always wondered about those two buildings too. Most of the "old Brentwood" pictures focus on San Vicente Blvd. The few I've seen of the Brentwood Country Mart when it was new don't show those buildings on the Santa Monica side of 26th Street. I've often wondered if they weren't intended to be part of a larger complex.

I know that the Brentwood Art Center used to house both a grocery store and a hair dresser. If you go in the building, you can see where the different businesses used to be, as the floor goes up and down according to what was once a separate business. Moreover, in one room, the wall is lined with electric outlets, as it was where the hairdresser used to be.

The builder was W A Stratton, the architect J C Newsom. While the authors of the Arcadia book mention that Griswold was the contractor for the Ems, from what I can glean, Griswold was only the plastering contractor, as reference to Griswold vis-a-vis the Ems exists only in relation to his plastering work on the also-1905 Astoria Apts (about kitty-corner across the intersection of Third and Olive).

Delighted to see more mention of the Alhambra(s)! Something from the personal binders --
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5332/7...d431a7ae_c.jpg

Just to be correct, this is an image of the structure before it was moved onto those (forgive the technical term) rolly-things and northward toward the tunnel (and photographer). That they affixed a sign already printed in the past tense illuminates the greatness (or, you know, hubris) of the times.

when i was going to webster jrhs my bus would always drop kids off at this school for the kids who lived in this area.I always wondered why that sign was in the front of the building,i wonder when they tore it down,and how many schools were torn down because of the sylmar quake.My HS (University High..unihikid) got some damage to the auditorium ,gym,and cafeteria and all but the main building was torn down(the guys who tore down the aud went out of business because it took so long for them to knock it down).

http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/4784/kennedy1.jpgThe New York Times

Among the newly published Gary Winogrand photos from the 1960 Democratic convention is the one above, taken in the Biltmore's Crystal
Ballroom. Below, the ballroom in a slightly colorized vintage shot.

http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/6...llroom945a.jpgPublic Art in L.A.


Among the other newly published Winogrand shots from the convention is this one of another hotel:

http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/9...ybevhilton.jpgThe New York Times


The rest of the Winogrand shots are here: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...rand-look.html

:previous::previous:

just great reminds me of the movie "The Best Man" starring Peter Fonda

http://imageshack.us/a/img836/19/daredevilsceneebay.jpgThere were a lot of characters who shot from above the Hill St tunnels, it would seem...we covered this a little bit in this post...
...those big funnel-looking things are emerging from the roof of the auditorium of the Mason Opera House, AKA Mason Theatre. Here's a later, similar shot by Hylen, before that whole block was demo'd for this.

You mention the tripartite building, AKA 205 S B'way, I'm sure plenty of people look at it and take it to be modern -- 207-11 S Bway is the Metropolitan Water Bldg, built 1905, and the structure facing Bway and Second, the three-part one, 201-205 S Bway/300 W 2nd is the California Bldg from 1911 (as is its neighbor to the northwest, 312 W 2nd)...sooooo is anything still inside still evident from its pre-WWI vintage?

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7217/7...cdc0cb34_z.jpg

New Here.
 

I have been lurking for about a month...not in a weird way...I think. I am laid up with a back injury and unable to work so I have been surfing the web looking for images from the 1920s to do my own "then and now" comparisons. I stumbled upon this site and this thread in particular.

I'm not from LA or even California. I have visited LA when my mother lived there and have always been fascinated with it's history.

This thread is fantastic and I've probably gone through every page...more than once.

I was intrigued by a post by GaylordWilshire from well over a year ago...
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=2937
...so I did a little investigating. I found the wall at the top of the "mysterious stairs" is at the corner of Hope Plaza and Hope ST.
http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/1689/hopey.jpg
It's just my opinion, but it looks like it was at one time a modern open stairway and they decided to block it off because too many people thought it was an entrance to the parking garage.

I hope y'all don't mind me jumping in and you can tell me to get lost if I become too much of a bother.

So we're all familiar with the Old Central No 1, as seen in the image above and below:

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5012/5...31dfbf79_z.jpgmine

It stands out in lots of images taken from the Hill near Court looking toward Broadway...largely because of its striking two-tone character:

http://americanfilmnoir.com/_wp_gene...f690c5d_05.jpgamericanfilmnoir

heavy rusticated stone at the bottom, and what appears to be stucco above. Which always kind of bugged me, so I did a little digging...

...and I was right, it was a solidly Romanesque building of all wrought stone. Here's an image from the Times in 1896, accompanying a blurb about the new jail.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7258/7...fe562d21_b.jpg

Here's a shot from the Los Angeles Herald, September 1908 (folk are gathered at the station to hear word of Captain Auble) --

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7073/6...b3f7947d_c.jpg

-- A bit about the jail: the front of the first floor was for the officers and detectives offices. The back of the first floor was all jail, a 10x30 corridor lined with 24 cells on either side. Attached was a receiving hospital, basically a white tiled room with a big skylight. The courts, judges chambers, witness and jury rooms, clerks offices and the like were on the second floor. There was a second floor jail area for the high-security inmates, a female ward (with special accommodations for insane female prisoners) and a juvie ward.

I was shocked that, in my investigations, I found that while I'd deduced the building to be Caukin & Haas (they famously of the City Hall and first Times building, etc.) it was in fact a Charles L. Strange. Strange was the City Superintendent of Buildings, and an architect, known for the red sandstone courthouse (not ours -- theirs), & much of Pasadena's Castle Green.

Love to know when it got modernized -- I would've assumed that the pointed parapet came down after the '49 ordinance but it was obviously gone when they shot Shockproof in '48. I'm guessing it's a late-30s remodel but more digging needs to be done...

The Ems Apartments - 1940 Census
 

Who was living at the Ems Apartments in 1940?

The files are large to you can read the details.

http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/9...0037800347.jpg
1940 Census

http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/8...0378003481.jpg
1940 Census

Check out columns 28 & 29. They show the tenants occupation and where they worked. Very interesting.

http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/1673/centraljail1.jpghttp://img839.imageshack.us/img839/6...ntraljail2.jpghttp://img337.imageshack.us/img337/1...ntraljail4.jpgLos Angeles Times, April 13, 1931

Old Central Station still had its full Romanesque façade in 1931, but, after years of being called obsolete, varmint-infested,
and dangerous, it was condemned by the Health Commission in 1930 but not totally abandoned for another 25 years. There
are dozens & dozens of articles in the Times pertaining to the station over its lifetime (1896-1955), many about its
inadequacies. Here's one:


http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/205...aljail1939.jpgLos Angeles Times, May 24, 1939


And yet it remained in use for another 16 years...

I could find no specific references to the change in the building's façade, such as if it might have been due to the 1933 Long
Beach earthquake, but your estimate of it occurring in the late '30s could easily be right, Beaudry. In May 1938 the
city's police budget included $50,000 for "improvements" to Central Station.


In the latter days...
http://img864.imageshack.us/img864/772/centraljail5.jpgLAPL

Homeowners Review Fall/Winter 1976
 

Last week I purchased an old photo album that has a lot of interesting old photos of Hollywood and Laurel Canyon, most about 100 years old. I'll be posting many of these in the weeks to come but there were a number of other goodies in the album including 3 issues of this periodical, called Homeowners Review. It's 6 pages long and will use up a lot of screen space but I found the photos and stories quite interesting. Actually, it's sort of like a print version of our very favorite discussion thread. ;)

If you check the credits on the bottom of Page 2 you'll see that the publishers thank (among others) Milt Larsen, Bruce Torrence, Rudy Vallee, and Frank Lloyd Wright Jr.

I have 2 more of these newsletters. If you would like to see them, let me know.

http://dkse.net/david/HR_FW1976/HR_FW1976.1.jpg

http://dkse.net/david/HR_FW1976/HR_FW1976.2.jpg

http://dkse.net/david/HR_FW1976/HR_FW1976.3.jpg

http://dkse.net/david/HR_FW1976/HR_FW1976.4.jpg

http://dkse.net/david/HR_FW1976/HR_FW1976.5.jpg

http://dkse.net/david/HR_FW1976/HR_FW1976.6.jpg

The Ghost of Berkeley Square
 

http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/1...sqredblock.jpgLos Angeles Department of City Planning


My history of Berkeley Square, which you can read online here, has attracted much new information since its completion last fall. And I have just discovered something curious: On its maps, the Los Angeles Department of City Planning has retained to this day delineation of the Square's central roadway (in line with West 22nd Street coming from the east) as well as the delineations of the street's 15 south-side lots. The lines remain unexplained to the casual observer; I have added the red square rectangle above to outline the Square's borders of Gramercy Place on the west, Western Avenue on the east, the outer edge of the community's south private service alley, and where the outer edge of the corresponding north alley (and north Square border) now lie under the 10 freeway.

Must have been a while ago. I moved to the neighborhood in 1994 and it has been the Art Center for as far back as I can remember.

Damn, that's good research. I was on the same track till I saw you beat me to it, and bless you for that. I still like playing the first several "beats" of LA Noire because they commence at Central No 1.

The story of Lincoln Heights jail...hell, that deserves its own Arcadia book, or website, or something.

It looks like Berkeley Square and St. James' Square lasted 20-25 years before they began to become less fashionable. Any idea why they lasted such a brief time and why Windsor Square/Hancock Park developed so quickly?

I think Brentwood was pretty much ranch land until the 30s. I've heard Beverly Hills was developed because so many of the lots in San Marino, Pasadena, Hancock Park, and Windsor Square had anti-Jewish covenants and even discouraged people in the film industry in general.

Having been away moving to Dallas, I've been offline for a while. I'm sitting here watching "The Turning Point" from 1952 when I recognize a favorite locale from this thread...
http://www.electricearl.com/af/turning-1.jpg
http://www.electricearl.com/af/turning-2.jpg
http://www.electricearl.com/af/turning-3.jpg

(From www.electricearl.com)

The page http://www.electricearl.com/af/index.html has a lot of similar stuff. And if this is already in the thread, let me know and I'll delete this. After 372 pages, it's hard to keep track. :)

Well, I'm not a sociologist, but from what I've read, there are many reasons for the decline of West Adams; as for Berkeley Square and St. James Park in particular, I'd say the main ones are more widespread affluence in the '20s, meaning the car (which allowed servants to live beyond the radius of the old Yellow Car system) and the desire for the affluent to have more space around their houses. Both Berkeley Square and St. James Park were very small individual enclaves of large houses surrounded by less glamorous neighborhoods, unlike many of the newer, more expansive districts of larger lots and houses. The population of Los Angeles more than doubled between 1920 and 1930, driving up property values and causing saavy property owners to sell at a profit and decamp to newer, roomier parts of town to the north and west (or to consistently fashionable Pasadena). The new owners often divided houses into apartments or replaced them with larger multi-unit buildings. The Depression held back maintenance on the aging housing stock, causing demolitions and replacements with higher-density units; the war years repeated the housing pressures of the '20s. When the Supreme Court struck down deed restrictions in 1948, white flight from West Adams really took off. The sociological history of West Adams is fascinating; there's even the story that the routing of the Santa Monica Freeway was moved south away from Windsor Square and Hancock Park (through declining neighborhoods including Berkeley Square) and deliberately designed with limited south-north access.

http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/4254/gramercy.jpgGoogle SV

The trend of large houses in once-affluent areas of central L.A. being subdivided into apartments or replaced with newer multi-unit
buildings continued into the '50s and beyond. This example is in the 1400 block of S. Gramercy Place.