This is one of my very favorite views of historical Los Angeles. :) It truly is an astonishing image.

I think the street at left center is Franklin. Only one city block long, it connected Broadway and Spring Street, and was the southern terminus of New High Street.

Does anyone know where the El Centenario Cafe was located?
Obviously the number is 501....but I don't know the street.



http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/674/Hlmk53.jpg
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/si...4/id/685/rec/1

I tried to find out some information on El Centenario Cafe, but so far have come up empty. I'll keep looking

Here are some before and later shots looking north at the intersection of Hill Street and Temple through the years. The images are all pretty much taken from just North of Court street

1884
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2089/...f907a652_o.jpg

1906
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2720/...b2ca0994_o.jpg

CA 1940
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2285/...7e63351a_o.gif

The label on this photo was..."Looking southwest on Aliso Street from brewery".
The date is 1899.


http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/4...southwesto.jpg
usc digital archive




Below: This is also a view from the brewery in 1899. Would anyone have an idea what brewery they're referring to?



http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/9...outhwestov.jpg
usc digital archive


I wish I could read the writing on the roof of the barn-like building on the right. It says Los Angeles.....something. :(

Hill street looking south from up on top of court hill 1951

oh my gawd!!!! pensioners enjoying a beautiful tree shaded vista in downtown.....how dare they!!!!:mad:

quick, someone call planning and zoning.....better yet the CRA. how dare we allow this kind of derelict blight to exist in our downtown area, and don't forget to get those dayum shade trees out of there as well :tantrum:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2334/...d41b0eed_o.jpg
Cal State Library

ahhhhhhh much better
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2425/...16c0dca1_o.jpg

nothing to see here....move along........sheeesh...............

Tallyho Stable on the northwest corner of 1st Street & Broadway in the 1870s.


http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/7...stablesnor.jpg
usc digital archive

I beleive that the brewery is the Maier Zobelein Brewery. They were famous for brew 102. During my Noir festival this weekend, quite a few of the street shots of police cars zooming around town, featured billboards for Brew 102.

here is a wikimapia page about the brewery showing where it was located
http://wikimapia.org/1342988/Yangna-...r-Brewery-site

here a link for a 2005 los angels times article about the brewery
http://articles.latimes.com/2005/nov...e/re-letters13

and here's one more link with images from the freeway system. the last image on the page is a 1974 image looking west on the 101 past the brewery. the caption is interesting, as the 101 makes a jog at this point to bypass the brewery which is still there while the brewery building is long gone
http://members.cox.net/mkpl2/hist/lahist.html

Wow, I didn't realize the Brew 102 brewery existed way back in 1899.



We had briefly discussed the Brew 102 Building earlier in the thread.
I'll repost this interesting photo from 1952. (view from atop City Hall)

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/3...c1vbrewery.jpg
usc digital archive


Thanks for the Maier Zobelein Brewery information and links gsjansen.

Well, gsjansen... while your amazing pictures--all of those you've posted recently, but especially those of Hill Street looking south--are indeed enough to make one weep, I do have a certain fondness for the courthouse in the second shot (the one with the Corvair)... Perry Mason helped make it an L.A. icon for me growing up.

Main Street from 3rd, 1890.


http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/6...eetfrom3rd.jpg
usc digital archive

I've recently posted a photo from this area......but this photo is much more expansive.


http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/132...nmainsprin.jpg
usc digital archive

Main Street looking north from 2nd Street in 1889.



http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/227...eetlooking.jpg
usc digital archive

Another then, later, and now set
 

3rd and grand looking North west

1952
The Nugent Hotel is on the NW corner, renamed the new grand hotel when this photo was taken. Notice how 3rd street runs uphill to bunker hill avenue west of Grand
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2468/...a437cb03_o.gif
Charles W. Cushman Photograph Collection
Indiana University Archives / Digital Library Program

1972
Grand Avenue and Bunker Hill Avenue have been obliterated, (bunker hill avenue forever, grand avenue temporarily). Hope Street is the road ahead. Bunker hill towers is on the right, and the top of the western terminus of the the third street tunnel is straight ahead
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3351/...b84c1b1e_o.jpg
LAPL

2007
With the hill leveled and regraded, 3rd street now runs downhill west of Grand
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3591/...2c07cd27_o.gif

gsjansen: NOW you're depressing me. At least your Hill and Court street views had some '60s remnants in the form of the courthouse and the Hall of Administration. But keep posting your great finds.

and of course....another then and later set
 

Hope and 3rd looking west

1880
off in the distance is the belmont hotel which is located at belmont and 1st. this shot is taken directly on top of what would become the western terminus of the 3rd street tunnel
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3543/...309750d1_o.jpg

1939
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2697/...feaff449_o.jpg
LAPL

1987
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4013/...51020f94_o.jpg
LAPL

still trying to catch up
 

as I've been scrolling back and viewing this thread from the beginning, this particular image from page 7 absolutely blew me away.

I had never seen this image before. My best educated guess is that the image was taken sometime in 1963. The Mission hotel is still intact at the SW corner of Olive and 2nd. The Dome is still open for business at 2nd and grand. Bunker Hill Avenue still exists and terminates at 2nd street at the upper center of the photo. Flower and hope street still run straight as two separate street at this point before flower would be curved to the east and merge with hope to allow for the construction of the bunker hill towers.

WOW! what a view!


http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assets...23-2-ISLA?v=hr

Funny, because on Sunday I went to Vidiots in Santa Monica and bought a copy of "The Exiles" just for those extras. The film itself is a great documentation of pre-destroyed Bunker Hill. I saw "The Exiles" after its restoration a few years ago at the Armand Hammer Museum.

Say, you're a big film noir buff, I was wondering if you (or anyone else) could answer a question; at the last Film Noir Festival I sent to, I saw a film but forgot the title; it was set in San Francisco and is about a doctor who is married and has kids, but he has an affair with a woman, then fakes his death so that he can be with her. But of course things go wrong and it has an ironic ending. Would you happen to know which film I'm talking about? I'm wondering if it's available on DVD.

A 1951 plan for an auditorium and trade fair center.

oops! I just realized I posted this before. I'll leave it anyway. -sorry-



http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/1...auditorium.jpg
usc digital library






Below: At the same time the music center was proposed for a site at 6th & Hoover.


http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/4061/la0412pmc1951.jpg
usc digital archive

The following two I haven't posted before.


Plan for a civic auditorium 1953.


http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/4...ivicaudito.jpg
usc digital archive





Below: Plan for a civic auditorium 1954.

http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/9...vicauditon.jpg
usc digital archive



There are more cool proposals/plans here, starting at post #344. (if you missed them the first time around)

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...170279&page=18

At left are the Grand Street ends of the
"Perry Mason" courthouse (at 1st St.) and the Hall of Administration
(btw, the great Paul Williams had a hand in the design of both).

Here is the facade of the the courthouse:

http://www.lacountyarts.org/civicart...art_mosk1L.jpg lacountyarts.org photo

And going up at right is the Water & Power Building by Albert Martin:

http://latimes.image2.trb.com/lanews...0/49703935.jpg L. A. Times

The DWP building is great when lit up at night...
that is, if they still light the whole thing up these days.

I guess it's not Bunker Hill... but by now, these
buildings are practically Old Los Angeles...Chief
Parker was still in power...

The "Perry Mason Courthouse", that's how I think of it too. That should really be its official name. :D

The Perry Mason Courthouse: the entrance at right is at Hill and 1st.
Note the clock, which echoes the clocks on previous L. A. County Courthouses.
http://www.paulrwilliamsproject.org/.../CHS-31367.jpg
USC/Doheny Library/California Historical Society

And here is Mr. Mason in his courthouse annex at the studio:
http://edhird.files.wordpress.com/20...ry-mason-1.jpg

More on the courthouse:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thed...se_of_the.html

http://www.paulrwilliamsproject.org/...vic-buildings/

Noir images of and from city hall
 

all images are from the UCLA Library Digital Collections

war time dim out images October 29th, 1943

North
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4001/...dbdef681_o.jpg

East
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4045/...86edbba6_o.jpg

West
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4067/...e3ce3dcf_o.jpg

North/West
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4040/...5a1d2045_o.jpg

Christmas Night 1947
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2534/...d34a3e07_o.jpg

New years 1951
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4024/...a3e38b61_o.jpg

Winter time snow fall February 1944 Spring and 1st
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4039/...e8f07ee0_o.jpg

here's a 1950 presentation for a great new better tomorrow bunker hill, featuring the new auditorium for 4th street
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics26/00032503.jpg
LAPL

It appears that clay street remains, olive street becomes the main North/South artery, hope street becomes some kind of vista permiter road which links up with 2nd, (nice trick, how did they plan on dealing with the tunnel......or is there no hill left in this plan to require a tunnel :whatthefuck: ) and grand street disappears entirely......very strange indeed. i hope the CRA bought enough Kool-Ade for everyone, or at least whatever she appears to have had!

Dangerous Noir
 

There is a scene in Criss Cross where Yvonne De Carlo is walking down hill street to visit Burt Lancaster at his home. In the scene she is noticeably having difficulty walking down Hill street .

This photo of the house 215 N. Hill street, clearly shows that Noir performed in heels can be quite the treacherous business

http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics14/00026605.jpg
LAPL

http://dlproj.library.ucla.edu/deriv...0060804a_j.jpg
UCLA/L.A. Times

In his great book L.A. Noir (Three Rivers Press, 2009),
John Buntin suggests that the look of film noir was influenced
by the smog attacks of the '40s that began on July 26, 1943--
so after seeing gsjansen's pictures of the Civic Center during
wartime dimouts, I wonder if the noir mood was sparked
by both the dimouts and the smog....

http://dlproj.library.ucla.edu/deriv...0061583a_j.jpg
UCLA/L.A. Times


Another smoggy day, this one as seen from the Perry Mason courthouse at the corner of Hill and First, March 1962. (Take note of the peripatetic statue of Stephen M. White in the foreground--more to come on that.)

http://www.metnews.com/articles/2006...oldcthouse.jpg
MetNews Photo

http://www.metnews.com/articles/2006..._statue-mn.jpg
MetNews Photo

http://www.metnews.com/articles/2006/Statue--SP.jpg
MetNews Photo



The 8-foot bronze statue of Stephen M. White, onetime Los Angeles D.A. (preceding Hamilton Burger by about 75 years) and later state senator, lieutenant governor, and U.S. senator, was originally placed at the southeast corner of Broadway and Temple, in front of the 1888 L.A. County Courthouse. Senator White stayed there even after the 1888 building was demolished several years after the Long Beach earthquake, eventually winding up on the northwest corner of 1st and Hill at the 1958 Perry Mason courthouse. Then the poor old guy was put in storage before being moved back to the courthouse, this time to the Grand Street end. He finally wound up in San Pedro, which, though a loss for the Civic Center, seems appropriate since he was apparently responsible for getting the breakwater built there, giving the city its great port. Let's hope the old man can finally rest by the sea.

More at:
http://www.metnews.com/articles/2006...ives103006.htm

It still is lit up at night, as well as the fountains. But there was a period a few years ago when they had drained the moat around the building to refurbish it. Now it looks pretty brand new. And of course it's now officially called the John Ferraro Building or something.

Back in 1967 it was featured in a Nancy Sinatra music video (if it can be called that) for her cover of "This Town." In it you can also see the now gone Richfield Building in the background, and the Union Bank Building as well, which was brand new then. It also shows her at LACMA when it was only a few years old and had the moat with fountains. Notice the landscaping around the DWP building back then with the birds of paradise (LA's official flower). It's all different now, probably more drought-tolerant.

• Video Link

I just love those old long-gone street signs, with the curlicue thingies added to them.

GaylordWilshire
Perhaps smog did play a role in 'film noir'.



Below: Smog in Los Angeles 1947.

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/780...4smog1947a.jpg
usc digital archive





Below: More smog in 1947.

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/8...smog1947bh.jpg
usc digital archive





Below: More smog in 1948.


http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/145...smog1948a1.jpg
usc digital archive




Below: Again.....smog in 1948.

http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/1...14smog1948.jpg
usc digital archive






Below: Two unidentified men pointing at the smog in 1948.


http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/6...og2men1948.jpg
usc digital archive

Even with the help of Miss Smog Fighter 1951, the smog persisted.


http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/2...ssmogfight.jpg
usc digital archive




Below: Smog from City Hall tower in 1951.

http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/3...og1951view.jpg
usc digital archive




Below: More smog in 1951.

http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/6...og1951hofr.jpg
usc digital archive






Below: Another view in 1951.

http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/2...smog1951h2.jpg
usc digital archive

It's fun to post the old smog photos.

But my personal experience is just the opposite.
I felt L.A. was most mysterious in January, when the warm Santa Ana winds swept the smog away.

Everything seemed magical....the lights of the city sparkled and the trees and bushes rustled in the breeze throughout the night.
It was beautiful and scary all in the same breath.



It's my fondest memory of Los Angeles.

I remember visiting LA as a kid in the 60's and I remember pink skies and burning eyes. And going into la one would often see the pollution above LA way before you would get there....same thing for the Bay Area driving in from Sacramento. It was bad back then.

I wonder if people still burned their trash in the 1960s; to think that used to be a common practice. When I was a small kid in the mid-1970s, my family lived in a house in the Miracle Mile that was built in the 1920s. In the backyard was an incinerator, but of course we weren't allowed to use it; by the 1970s, burning trash had already been banned. Of course some people converted their incinerators into barbecues. But even into 1980, I remember some days during school when we couldn't go outside during recess or lunch because the air quality was very unhealthful, so we had to spend lunch inside the cafeteria and we couldn't play outside.

Fort Moore Hill and the Broadway tunnel
 

Sopas EJ, your fabulous then and now series looking south from the intersection of Broadway and Sunset, as well as all the postings i had missed earlier on the Los Angeles School building, got me interested in the leveling of fort moore hill and the demolition of the broadway tunnel fro the construction of the 101 freeway

all images are LAPL (except where noted)

this 1871 view is on top of fort moore hill. the tunnel would be excavated directly below where this photo was taken. This view is of Sonora Town looking north up broadway past sunset

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4059/...8dd8cab9_o.jpg

This 1881 view is on top of Fort Hill looking south down broadway past temple. Note the Los Angeles School building on the left prior to it's relocation to the top of fort moore hill

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2281/...02d2e55c_o.jpg
USC Digital Archives

This 1902 image is looking north west from the old courthouse building at the los angeles high school building on fort hill. The tunnel has either opened os is close to opening

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4001/...e38df5af_o.jpg


1903 view of fort Moore hill and the broadway tunnel

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4018/...1a5b9764_o.jpg


This image looking east at the south portal shows the stair system to provide access to the top of the hill

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2781/...903cea47_o.jpg


This 1925 view is looking south from on top of the tunnel past the hall of justice building

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4054/...9e10f337_o.jpg
USC Digital Archive


1940 view looking north at the south portal from temple Note the historic examiner sign

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4061/...352deef1_o.jpg

This 1948 north looking view of the south portal is taken in the waning days of the hill and tunnel's existence

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2782/...cb956e54_o.jpg

The last train exiting the north portal. The leveling and grading operations on the left side of the photo, (where justica street used to be), is providing a new level area to re-rout the trains around the tunnel demolition

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2792/...bea06a02_o.jpg


In this 1949 photo, the hill leveling operations are in full swing. The south portal of the tunnel has been barricaded

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4007/...d0e7dd58_o.jpg

1949 looking north west at the south portal

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2776/...5b76b23d_o.jpg

1949 looking north east at the south portal. note the re-routed rail lines to the east of the tunnel

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4023/...d0c2905e_o.jpg


Rerouted yellow car around the tunnel and hill demolition operation

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2681/...993cce5f_o.jpg

1951 view looking north up broadway where the tunnel used to be. The remainder of Fort Moore hill will be leveld in the next 3 years

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4034/...60c18a8e_o.jpg

Fort Moore Aerial 1947

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4069/...90619617_o.jpg
LAPL

The North portal of Hill street tunnel No. 2 at sunset is visible in the upper right hand portion of the photo

the same aerial view, 2009 bingmaps
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2689/...09337585_o.jpg

The south portal is visible at right in this shot from the '20s. There's the old WCTU at center.
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assets...A0EEB00C1?v=hr

From farther south, higher up, and before the Hall of Justice was built in 1925.
http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/9130/latimesbldgm5.jpg
Calif State Library

The Dave Clark Five
 

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-u...2520PM.bmp.jpgUCLA Special Collections

I came across this 1931 shot of the notorious deputy D.A. "handsome Dave" Clark--second from right--strolling southward on Broadway alongside the Hall of Justice (note the union-jack railing at left). In the background is the south portal of the Broadway tunnel. This picture looked familiar to me--I went to my bookcase and found that I'd seen a cropped version of it before in another must-read for L.A. noir fans: A Bright and Guilty Place by Richard Rayner (Doubleday 2009).

Ethereal: You MUST stop whatever you're doing and watch the DVD "Atomic Filmmakers", produced by Peter Kuran of VCE (the company you linked to in your post). It tells the story of the Lookout Mountain facility, and the men behind it. What a fascinating little corner of L.A. cinema history that place was.

Kuran made several other "Atomic" movies, my favorite of which was "Trinity and Beyond". All of the films include some absolutely spectacular A-bomb footage, and are narrated by William Shatner (FTW).

I love all of the VCE films. My only minor criticism is that some of the footage was enhanced by visual effects post-processing. VCE started out as a visual effects house, after all. But all of the DVD's are well worth viewing. They used to be available from Netflix, but they don't appear to be at the moment (although they're still in the catalog; you can "Save" them to your queue).

You can also purchase "Atomic Filmmakers" from VCE here.

I thought I'd post some then and now pics of Venice; I went there this past Sunday.

Windward Avenue at Pacific Avenue, looking west, circa 1920s
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._2787782_n.jpg
USC Archive

Windward Avenue at Pacific Avenue, looking west, April 11, 2010
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._8122012_n.jpg
Photo by me


Arcade along Windward Avenue, 1906
http://hphotos-sjc1.fbcdn.net/hs451....1_363014_n.jpg
USC Archive

Arcade (what's left of it) along Windward Avenue, April 11, 2010
http://hphotos-snc3.fbcdn.net/hs451....2_258977_n.jpg
Photo by me

View looking east along Windward Avenue towards Pacific Avenue, 1929
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._2119955_n.jpg
USC Archive

View looking east along Windward Avenue towards Pacific Avenue, April 11, 2010
http://hphotos-sjc1.fbcdn.net/hs451....3_465047_n.jpg
Photo by me

Windward and Pacific Avenues looking northwest, 1927
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-...6_756343_n.jpg
LAPL

Windward and Pacific Avenues looking northwest, April 11, 2010
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._1884367_n.jpg
Photo by me

Pacific Avenue looking north from Windward Avenue, 1953
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._5551865_n.jpg
LAPL

Pacific Avenue looking north from Windward Avenue, April 11, 2010
http://hphotos-snc3.fbcdn.net/hs471...._2789735_n.jpg
Photo by me

^^^Those are fantastic sopas_ej!! I enjoyed them immensely.
Your Venice before/after photos are the best I've seen.



Interesting 'noir' tale in the L.A. Times.
It includes many of the shady characters we have recently discussed.


http://www.latimesmagazine.com/2010/...ow-caster.html

More Reflections on Noir
 

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3171/...7280d3f5_o.jpgfarm4
"Straight down the line...."


I've mentioned John Buntin's suggestion in his book L.A. Noir that the origins of noir might be in the smog attacks starting in 1943. Gsjansen posted images here of the wartime dimouts, which made me wonder if they contributed to the noir effect in films. I remembered that Richard Rayner had something to say about noir in A Bright and Guilty Place, which I went back and found:

"... the expressionless blue of the sky and the unchanging rhythm of perfect days that followed each other one after the other added to the melancholy. 'Outside the bright gardens had a haunted look, as though wild eyes were watching me from behind the bushes, as though the sunshine itself had a mysterious something in the light,' wrote Raymond Chandler.

"Cities have characters...states of mind that run through daily life.... Chandler's 'mysterious something' was a mood of disenchantment, an intense spiritual malaise that identified itself with Los Angeles at a particular time, what we call noir. On the one hand noir is a narrow film genre, born in Hollywood in the late 1930s when a European visual style, the twisted perspectives and stark chiaroscuros of German Expressionism [at a time of a vast influx of German filmmakers fleeing Europe and settling in Los Angeles], met an American literary idiom [Chandler, Cain etc].

"...L.A. is city of big dreams and cruelly inevitable disappointments...it's a counter-tradition, the dark lens through which the booster myths can be viewed, a disillusion that shadows even the best of times.... Noir...was born when the Roaring Twenties blew themselves out and hard times rushed in; it crystallized real-life events and the writhing collapse of the national economy before finding its interpreters in writers like Raymond Chandler."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thed...f_violence.jpgL.A. Times
Act of Violence, 1948

http://filmforno.com/wordpress/wp-co...gel-tracks.jpgFilmforno

http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuille.../bradbury3.jpgJohn Coulthart
Can you identify this?

:previous:

The Bradbury Building?

BTW I have the book "A Bright and Guilty Place." I got it last year, put it aside, and actually forgot I had it. I do indeed want to read it though.

Thanks! Going through those archives of old photos, I have so many ideas for before and after shots I want to do that could keep me busy for a very long time.

Bradbury Building, Broadway & 3rd
 

http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuille.../bradbury3.jpgJohn Coulthart

That's right, sopas--I'd never seen a shot straight up toward
the ceiling before. At first glance this picture looked to me
sort of like a cell block in a futuristic prison or a set from
an old science-fiction movie.

The Bradbury Building was the first thing I wanted to see
on my first trip to L.A. ca. 1970--in those days you could
just wander right in, which I did, walking all over the
building, going up and down in the elevators, practically in
a trance.

http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/history/...dbury_20cm.JPGUSC

http://vpeipics.com/yahoo_site_admin...734052_std.jpgvpeipics

Soon after its 1893 completion--no hint as to what's inside
http://helios.library.ca.gov/soca/fl...gs/g58-131.jpg
USC

During a fire, May 3, 1947/California State Library
http://dlproj.library.ucla.edu/deriv...0327084a_j.jpgUCLA
Taken from Spring and 3rd toward Broadway

Is this the Bradbury Building mid-block on the right hand side?


http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/4...broadwayfr.jpg
usc digital archive



View north on Broadway from 4th Street in 1898.

Douglas Sirk's SHOCKPROOF 1949


http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/5...ydouglassi.jpg
unknown


Interior: Bradbury Building

Yes, that's the Bradbury Building--interesting that the roof appears to be solid, not glass.
Apparently alot of buildings painted over their skylights during WWII (the Tiffany-
glass lights of the Alexandria's Palm Court, for example), but your shot is, of course, way before
that, only five or six years after the Bradbury was built. Here are couple of other shots up
Broadway, the old City Hall tower also at right:
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assets...DD9CA78B5?v=hr


http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assets...CHS-14089?v=hr


And a shot south:
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assets...CHS-14418?v=hr

Couldn't help but notice Coulter Dry Goods on the west side of
the street--which reminded me that it was the rare store that
gave up a downtown presence entirely and moved to the Miracle
Mile in 1938:
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assets...CHS-31091?v=hr

Thanks for the photos and info GaylordWilshire.
I was pretty sure it was the Bradbury Building, but like you said,
the roof of the atrium appears to be solid.
It appears as opaque as the roof on the old City Hall tower.




Boy, wasn't Coulter's a beautiful example of streamline moderne.
Here are a few photos I have of the store.

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/126...s1938thent.jpg
usc digital archive

Above: At this point it was no longer Coulter's.



Below: A close up of it's wonderful lines.


http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/5...s1938detai.jpg
usc digital archive


This elegant building survived until 1980.

More shots of Coulters on Wilshire, this time toward the east. The first is from the roof of the Prudential building (now called Museum Square). I think the street-level color shot is great--a reminder that while we tend to think of noir as being strictly black and white, we shouldn't.

http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assets...CHS-31126?v=hr
USC

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j2...hrbachsVDK.jpg
ellenbloom