The first was California Bank, 600 S Spring, by Claud Beelman—

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1781/...58e71da5_o.pngusc

https://www.cardcow.com/images/set233/card00157_fr.jpgcardcow

—broke ground in '58 immediately after the repeal, opened in '60, and was eighteen stories, and 267'.

still standing
 

Mordigan Nurseries? (6285 W Third Street, formerly at 4900 S La Brea - and eventually at 7933 W 3rd St)


https://i.pinimg.com/736x/f7/6e/83/f...9d9653a665.jpghttps://i.pinimg.com/736x/f7/6e/83/f...9d9653a665.jpg





http://lainsidertours.lainsidertours...s-1024x651.jpghttp://lainsidertours.lainsidertours...s-1024x651.jpg



I think the amusement rides were semi-permanent and were east of the bank parking lot. These posts may prompt a few additional thoughts:

http://skyscraperpage.com/forum/show...postcount=9179

http://skyscraperpage.com/forum/show...postcount=9180




http://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/230772...-1/s-l1000.jpghttp://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/230772...-1/s-l1000.jpg





1938
http://waterandpower.org/2%20Histori...ium_ca1938.jpghttp://waterandpower.org/2%20Histori...ium_ca1938.jpg


1945
http://waterandpower.org/1%20Histori...arket_1945.jpghttp://waterandpower.org/1%20Histori...arket_1945.jpg



1950s
http://waterandpower.org/7%20Histori...ket_ca1950.jpghttp://waterandpower.org/7%20Histori...ket_ca1950.jpg




1960's
http://waterandpower.org/9%20Histori...rket_1960s.jpghttp://waterandpower.org/9%20Histori...rket_1960s.jpg




https://wonderland1981.files.wordpre...t-cbs_1969.jpghttps://wonderland1981.files.wordpre...t-cbs_1969.jpg



http://www.paris-la.com/wp-content/u...09/Fruits1.jpghttp://www.paris-la.com/wp-content/u...09/Fruits1.jpg






http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...4.jpg~originalhttp://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...4.jpg~original




Farmers Mkt photo op for George HW Bush
http://www.trbimg.com/img-56bd1aab/t...20160-007/1300http://www.trbimg.com/img-56bd1aab/t...20160-007/1300

The street light in the photo is a Union Metal 1193, a member of their "Metropolitan" family. The "Metropolitan" models were developed especially for Hollywood, but ultimately found their way onto the "best" streets of surrounding communities.

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1733/...04b4a7ff_c.jpg


Putting a "Noirish" spin on the UM 1193, this September 1925 ad reminds us that every street light guarded us against "thugs and highwaymen."

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1754/...ae77b463_c.jpg

Vintage advertisements from a reprint of the 1924 Union Metal Catalog. Union Metal Corporation, Canton OH.


There are plenty of the "Metropolitans" still to be found in Hollywood. This one is on Ivar Avenue, just south of Hollywood Blvd. My photo of 11-24-17.https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1830/...316da967_h.jpg

When I was a kid I had a large collection of PopularScience mags from my older brother. In a late 1940s issue, say around '48-ISH, there was a pic and a caption. The pic showed two matrons in furnecked heavy coats, hats, and a mountef motorcylce officer out in the street to scrutinize the wavy line. The caption explained it was being tried as a warning for an upcoming stopsig. My recollection is that it was captioned Burbank

E R - I believe the unusual paint markings were used in cities with close proximity to the coast, cities prone to episodes of dense fog. The markings provided a visual warning to motorists driving in the fog that an intersection (perhaps controlled by a stop sign or signal) was almost upon them.

I was an accountant with the Transamerica Property & Casualty Insurance Group from August 1974 to December 1977. The building maintained its "Occidental Center" signage the whole time I worked there.

I think Transamerica made its big push to rename all the insurance subsidiaries (including Occidental Life) in the 1980s.

That makes sense to me......and it avoids language road signs, which people may not understand.

1945 ! My favorite cars !
 

Every car is beautiful and they are distinct from each other. They look all today like soapboxes. Why did they waste this 1945 imagination ?

Pedestrian safety regulations (see https://www.caranddriver.com/feature...fatter-feature) and the aerodynamic consequences of fuel efficiency regulations.

Cheers,

Earl

Its all about money. The modern car is made as cheaply as possible. Changing body styles and the tooling for it is very costly. The car makers want to keep the body shape the same for many years. The only year to year changes are cosmetic. Plus cars today in 2018 are made to last longer and have added safety featured that older cars never had.

One big cost of cars today is advertising, health insurance and pensions for the workers.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...924/eq3oBO.jpg
Thanks guys.
The 'fog' theory makes sense August Marathon.
I wasn't entirely sure it wasn't a mistake. (huh?)

Let me reword that: I thought it might have been a mistake..but part of me thought it wasn't. :no: Oh boy, I give up. I'm tired.

1959 slide. Possibly taken from one of the lower floors* of City Hall.

EKTACHROME Slide 1959 lots of cars car parked on street, old air raid siren Los Angeles California

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...922/W41vUj.jpg
EBAY

I'm not entirely sure which corner this is.

*I said "lower floor" because I didn't think the photographer is high enough to be on the observation deck. (maybe I'm wrong)
__

I just found this 2nd Ektachrome slide from the same seller.

EKTACHROME Slide 1950s 1959 Los Angeles CA California car bus cars big building.

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

All kinds of interesting things in this slide of Stanley Mosk courthouse looking NW from city hall. I think that's the Law Building at 135 N. Broadway at the bottom center edge. It was demolished in 1967.

This is Temple & Spring from City Hall.

Still standing
 

1933 photo of 2039 Bay Street LA
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/xh...y=w866-h936-no

That's taken from the observation deck, the roof you see at the bottom left corner is just a few floors beneath the observation deck. Lorendoc's right, the intersection is Temple and Spring. From the view from the GoogleMobile it looks like an air raid siren's still there as well.

I remember those air raid sirens. They were all over the city until at least the 1980s. Every Friday at 10AM they would test them and they would wail for a minute or two. And in elementary school we had "duck and cover" drills. The 1950s and early 1960s were in some ways scary. Khruschev banged his shoe on the desk at the U.N. and had a tizzy when Disneyland wouldn't let him visit. Noire indeed.

delete

On the lower right that conical thing might be a corner of the roof of the castle-like old Hall of Records, probably built before the 1920s. Very gothic and noire looking. Maybe someone can post a pic of it. I recall it was set at an angle to the other buildings. Not sure why.

It was built along the old diagonal alignment of New High St., and remained after they straightened the old streets and other buildings set to that alignment were gone. Both New High and Spring were at an angle to the other streets. If I'm not mistaken, the original diagonal Spring St. more or less followed the line of an Indian trail; and the (original) alignment of Spring doubtless was responsible for the original alignment of its immediate neighbor to the west, New High. When they straightened streets so that everything was on a right-angle grid (bah! to that kind of thinking, sez me), that portion of New High disappeared.

I can't view this image. Can anyone else?

There are a number of old air raid sirens of various types still existing all over Los Angeles.

http://www.coldwarla.com/sirens.html

Find sirens in your neighborhood using this handy google map

http://wirechief.com/sirens/map.htm

I can’t see it either, Lomara. All I can see is this:

https://i.imgur.com/Pyq1qtc.jpg

I can see it, a nice then/now combination on Bay Street. Using MS Edge browser.

The original post contains a mile-long URL starting with lh3.googleusercontent.com. I think it might be improperly truncated, or something that can't be hotlinked. I pulled it out of the page source and tried various things but no joy.

Cheers,

Earl

In the early 1980s I briefly worked at a cheesy car rental company near LAX. One of those air raid sirens was across the street. I heard the weekly test several times. It's difficult to describe how terrifyingly LOUD the siren was. All conversation stopped until the test was over.

PS - I'm also not seeing the image rentatrip tried to share.

In Long Beach, the Cold War--and the air raid sirens--continued until 1991:

https://s26.postimg.cc/g837vkkmx/LBAir_Raid.jpg
Long Beach Press-Telegram https://www.presstelegram.com/2015/0...of-long-beach/

I don't believe we have seen this air raid siren location on nla.

Sunset Blvd. at Pacific Coast highway. [c.1970]

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/Hb0mdc.jpg
PINTEREST / BUT THE LINK IS BROKEN



Here's the same intersection today.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/GG1HqK.jpg
GSV

As you can see the air siren is gone. In its place (although on a different spot on the island) is a tall flagpole.



Or is it a flagpole?

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...923/IytI3P.jpg
DETAIL

I'm not sure what it is.
_______________________________________

If you look HERE, you can see [up close] where the air raid siren used to be.

_

Whoop there it is.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...922/fC8viq.jpg
GSV


It appears to be hooked up.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...923/BhHNk1.jpg

I assumed the remaining sirens were simply old relics. Are they still used on occasion?

_

Long Beach food stand. 1930s? (I'm guessing by the automobiles) THE SMALL SIGN HANGING FROM THE FRONT AWNING SAYS "HOT PUPPIES"

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...921/h76tCT.jpg
longbeach_historicalphotos

I couldn't help but notice that the food stand appears more 'modern' than the cars that surround it.

What first caught my eye is that square area on the front of the stand.


Is this an automatic drink dispenser?

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...922/KQGFaO.jpg

If not, what else could it be?



Also note how the two bread-basket-like compartment on the counter face the customers.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...922/HMTpQk.jpg

Initially I thought it was for self-service (you know, reach in and retrieve your steamy hotdog),
but if you look closely the compartments angle downward in the back. Now I'm guessing they're for trash instead.
(so the trash is going in to where the food is prepared. :yuck:
__


All very important questions ;)

Oh wait. I forgot about the mystery building that looks like a fort.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...923/7Lft01.jpg

I believe there is a tall flagpole on top.

I was aiming my Instamatic at the "Mission Bell" street light on Temple, but caught a bit of the City Hall siren. It would have still been functional at the time of this October 1969 photo.


https://farm1.staticflickr.com/880/4...899a485b_b.jpg

L.A.'s gothic-noirish "castle"--the kooky old Hall of Records & Courthouse, demolished in 1973. Note the angled line of the building from the old alignment of New High St. This view from the L.A. Times not long before it was torn down to make way for the mall extension. The building on the right under construction is the new Superior Courts building.

https://latimesphoto.files.wordpress...rdsfile500.jpg

I'm on a Mac, so no microsoft browser here.

Kooky-gothic & noirish
 

CaliNative you seem very interested in the Hall of Records. Just leaf through the first pages of Noirish Los Angeles.

35mm Slide Los Angeles 1963 Street Scene IHOP House of Pancakes Sunset Blvd

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...922/47p0zr.jpg
EBAY

I don't remember this IHOP on Sunset Boulevard. The only IHOP I remember is the one at Santa Monica Blvd. and Holloway Drive. THIS ONE

p.s. Is this even Sunset Blvd?

Here's another 1963 slide.

35mm Slide Knotts Berry Farm 1963 Street Scene Sign

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/rpdw6B.jpg
EBAY

This must be Grand Avenue (in Buena Park, of course), but Knotts has grown so much over the years it's rather difficult to be 100% sure.
The statue appears to be on a corner (the cross street is visible behind the miner & his mule), so perhaps this isn't near the actual entrance to the park. :shrug:

I just noticed the Highway 39 sign.

P.O.P. Ocean Park with a nice view of the old dome in the distance.

35mm Slide Pacific Ocean Park Santa Monica POP Diving Bells 1960

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

To be honest, I thought it (the dome) had burnt down by 1960. (and I thought there was only one diving bell) MY MEMORY SUCKS.




close-up - Sorry about the lint storm. :yuck:

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...922/mmGD7V.jpg
DETAIL

The dome is rather beautiful.

_

That IHOP is still there:

https://i.imgur.com/Gwnpy99.jpgGSV

The Sunset Orange Hotel was where the IN-N-OUT Burger is now.

https://i.imgur.com/mrSw1aa.jpgLINK

The building seen beyond the palms on the left is the Blessed Sacrament church, next to the Crossroads of the World. To the right of it can be seen the rooftop of the Hollywood Athletic Club. Behind the palm trees to the left is Hollywood High School.

Long Beach
 

I think that might be the Pacific Coast Club, which was built about 2 years before its still-extant neighbor Villa Riviera which would place the photos about 1927...are any of the cars parked at the hot dog stand later than that? Maybe the car experts can weigh in...I think the "flagpole" might be an artifact.

KCET has an article https://www.kcet.org/history-society...-of-long-beach

It does look fort like:

https://i.imgur.com/DZ46WgK.jpg
KCET

https://i.imgur.com/rIhahqk.jpg
and more at https://www.flickr.com/photos/ocean_...7626899926476/

Have you heard this month that IHOP changed their name?

http://dehayf5mhw1h7.cloudfront.net/...ob-220x145.jpg

IHOP, which recently changed its iconic name to IHOb, has revealed what the new consonant stands for: "burgers." The name change accompanies a line of new burgers at the chain.

IHOP seems to be hedging its bets by saying the IHOb name is "for the time being," suggesting the effort may be more of a marketing ploy rather than a true rebranding campaign. Stay tuned.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ihops-n...d-for-6-11-18/

Will check the pages out.

Nice pics Ethereal! Must of been where detective Giddes in "Chinatown" tore out the page of a S.F. Valley land record with a ruler and coughed to hide the tearing noise. Great neo-noire film.

More classic Hall of Records pics. Lots of gems in the original pages from years ago that deserve a relook. Love those old diagonal streets. Right angle grids with no diagonals and meandering streets may be logical but boring. Salt Lake City strict street grid and numbered names may be logical but sooooo boring in my opinion. At least L.A. still has Spring & Broadway meeting in a diagonal--perfect location for an L.A. "Flatiron" building. And of course many streets outside of downtown meander because of the topography. Sunset Blvd. is a prime example.

It's La Palma and Beach, e_r, just before Beach splits into Beach and Grand. We're at the northeast corner of Knott's.

OH NO is the familiar old miner and mule statue gone now?

https://s26.postimg.cc/dau51gbt5/Kno_Be.jpg
gsv

Yep--gone!

That's a Home Savings across the street. There's another Home Savings building across La Palma from that. I forget which one was the earlier one.

The original Dome Theatre was destroyed by fire on 01-06-1924. It was rebuilt in 1925, eventually becoming the show building for Pacific Ocean Park's "Magic Carpet Ride" in 1958.

The building was demolished in the summer of 1969, along with the two adjoining structures a couple of years after P.O.P. closed. It was an abortive attempt to begin a redevelopment scheme by John (Jack) Morehart. The great fires that swept through the P.O.P. ruins from time to time did not begin until 1970.

Source: Christopher Merritt & Dominic Priore's "Pacific Ocean Park: The Rise and Fall of Los Angeles' Space-Age Nautical Pleasure Pier" (Port Townsend, WA: Process Media--2014). Pages 15-16 & 233-234

Never knew Knott's Berry Farm was once Knott's Berry Place...from the 1941 CD


https://s22.postimg.cc/b2nwvl8bl/knotts41_CD.jpg