:previous:


Here perhaps is a little of the interesting detailing that was stripped over the years.

This is one of the building's doors in 1992 as seen in a documentary on cult film director Ed Wood Jr. called Flying Saucers Over Hollywood: The 'Plan 9' Companion.

Wood took an office/apartment in the building in 1947.


https://i.imgur.com/k3zAsEi.jpg
Youtube


That likely original door has a mundane replacement these days.

https://i.imgur.com/fgfvtU8.jpg
GSV

https://oi1381.photobucket.com/album...pskmmyanca.jpg

Gary Winogrand captured the drug store building on the next block in the early '80's when it was a porn store....I haunted the seedy side of Hollywood around that time, classic Bukowski country...I was in this place....can't say I recall any "maritial" aids.

Remodeled , What A Shame
 

I sold newspapers (Herald Express) in front of the restraunt in about 1956, it was Burl's, a popular place then. The building had already been modernized then. What a shame to ruin a beautiful building like that. Now it is a vacuum store, times change..Up the street at Hillhurst and Franklin my Grandfather died in an accident in his Graham-Paige touring car, that was in the 30's. Accross the wide intersection was a Drive-Inn and part of a movie studio lot. Down the street was the Vista theater and further a movie studio so there was a lot of people around there to sell newspapers to.

Good Luck Bar
1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles

From the article link, it says that "the Good Luck Bar is closing to make way for a new development, which is rumored to include a hotel and new restaurant."

I know that a scene from the Coen Bros. movie Hail, Caesar was shot inside the bar: "Mannix (Josh Brolin) has a clandestine meeting among the Chinoiserie of this East Hollywood bar modeled after Chinatown’s long-gone Yee Mee Loo." In the film the location was known as the "Imperial Gardens Chinese restaurant."


Beaudry, do you remember if this particular photograph from the film is something you recognize inside the place or was it embellished by the production designers?

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/...3MzY@._V1_.jpg

I liked the way the management wrote of their closing:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D30CjZFV4AAJfv3.jpg

...although they perpetuate the rumor Joni Mitchell was talking abut the Garden of Allah with her famous song lyrics...

http://jonimitchell.com/music/song.cfm?id=13

Yee Mee Loo
 

:previous:


The original Yee Mee Loo

https://oi445.photobucket.com/albums...0mee%20loo.png
A Vanishing World


The "world's ugliest mini mall"

https://oi445.photobucket.com/albums...Capture1_3.png
Google Street View

:previous: You made me think of this snapshot from one of my old posts.

"Removing the old art deco bar out of 'Yee Mee Loo' chop suey joint, 690 N. Spring St. Los Angeles."

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...924/xpI23N.jpg
tigertail

"Yee Mee Loo went out of business and some friends of mine, Mark Bautzer and Brett Witke bought the interior of the bar.
They asked me if we could store it in my studio. So we got a bunch of volunteers together and a flatbed truck
spent a Saturday taking it apart. Nothing had been removed or cleaned. Actually, I don't think it had been cleaned
in a VERY long time. We dismantled the backbar, light fixtures, the bar, barstools. We even tried to remove the paneling
(which was so caked with smoke and oil that it looked like Peking Duck and smelled like an ashtray!) but it broke apart.



Opium Den?

"We took the opportunity to go down into the basement, which was dark and dirty and filled with wooden packing crates with Chinese markings.
Then we found the door to the SUB BASEMENT, and this was VERY weird. A small, windowless room with a linoleum floor and old fluorescent lights.
Solid color vinyl seating.The room had three doors, each one exited to a DIFFERENT address. Plus, there were cigarette burns on every surface,
the seats, the floor, the side tables. It really felt like a shooting gallery or old opium den where the clients nodded out with lit cigarettes hanging from their fingers."[

............................................................................................................................................................................................................................tigertail

From the 'Yee Mee Loo' thread at TIKI CENTRAL

Ha! Thanks. And the metadata at LAPL even has Vista theater in it...plus Hollywood/Sunset...I don't know if I'm lazy or unlucky or both, but glad you found it, and thanks again. Thank you everyone for your responses! I'm thrilled by the Ed Wood connection of course. And yes, the Hail Caesar production embellished a bit, but not overly so. The fish tank they added I'm sure.

Speaking of Yee Mee Loo, I have some slides somewhere that've never been seen, I'll have to dig them out and share them here.

Signs
 

Oh boy, if I couldn't have the bar from the Yee Mee Loo. I would have loved the neon Chop Suey sign.

https://oi445.photobucket.com/albums...hop%20suey.png
lamag.com



I think the only Chop Suey sign left in L.A. is on the Far East in Little Tokyo?:shrug:

https://oi445.photobucket.com/albums...op%20suey1.png
Google Street View

I'm pretty sure I related this story years ago: My wife is from Taiwan, so I asked her if she knew how to make chop suey. She looked at me like I was nuts...and not for the first time.

According to Wikipedia: Chop suey (/ˈtʃɒpˈsuːi/) is a dish in American Chinese cuisine and other forms of overseas Chinese cuisine, consisting of meat (often chicken, fish, beef, shrimp, or pork) and eggs, cooked quickly with vegetables such as bean sprouts, cabbage, and celery and bound in a starch-thickened sauce.

Translation: Wikipedia has no idea what chop suey is either.


By the way, can anyone make out this roof top sign? I don't have a clue

https://oi445.photobucket.com/albums.../Capture_2.png

mystery bar.


Here's an intriguing glimpse inside a bar in old Chinatown. (there was no date with the photo, but I'd wager a guess of ....hmmm...the early 1930s(?)

"Inside of a Chinatown bar, Tommy Ou and Dick Chung. On Alameda Street and Marchessault Street."

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/G3rRz3.jpg
USC

Do you think we're sleuthy enough to figure out which establishment this is?

USC says it's a restaurant, but it definitely looks like a bar. (perhaps a bar adjoining a restaurant) ....... In fact, I believe Mee Yee Loo's bar was next door to the restaurant.


.

:previous:


Dragon's Den was pretty close

https://oi445.photobucket.com/albums...ragons_Den.jpg
lapl

https://live.staticflickr.com/7912/4...f6acd3b0_b.jpgdwp

Seems to be the Vista rootop next door

re: mystery bar at Alameda St. and Marchessault St.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...923/G3rRz3.jpg
Yes it was, FredH...at 206 Marchessault. (it's right below where it says Apablaza, right?) nevermind...I got confused.



This map of the old Chinatown area was posted back on Page 3! (almost 10 years ago!)

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...921/VkpWIn.jpg
sopas_ej

It will give newcomers an idea of the general area. (of Chinatown)

.

Thanks. I thought it might be Vista, but none of the letters seemed to match up. I came up with nothing.

^^^

The VISTA's neon sign seems to have kept moving around and changing on the rooftop up there, but could just be a function of different camera angles. ALso, notice the roof line in the photos.

In this undated photo the neon sign includes "East Hollywood."

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5cngO0Qmc...L-00015505.jpgLAPL

1980:
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-X3AKCPQe6...L-00028704.jpgLAPL

1991:
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z3ajQKb6v...sta-Graver.jpgLATheatresviaFlickr

2007:
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hu5B83gKf...ta-Jantzen.jpgLATheatresviaFlickr

Although this 2008 view shows how taking photos at different angles makes it appear the sign is in a different location when it isn't.
http://cinemasightlines.com/Photos/V...ossStreet2.JPGCinemaSightLines

A 2018 shot of the back of the building showing the rooftop sign is double sided. Also shows the 96 year old building's seismic retrofit!
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yw_2xMkvh...-Hume-1858.jpgHistoricTheatrePhotos

If this hasn't been posted before, here it is: A Brief History of a Hollywood Landmark - The Vista Theatre
• Video Link

Hello all. I hope I'm not breaking protocol by jumping in here to introduce myself. I'm an outlander, from up the coast in Seattle, who has become besotted with LA urban history, particularly downtown LA, a fever that has intensified to the point of madness after taking an Esotouric tour some months ago, at the end of which I purchased Jim Dawson's Los Angeles's Bunker Hill.

When I discovered this thread, the insanity only deepened, to the point that I now carry a little notebook with five or six (oh, god, I just checked, and it's EIGHT) maps of various vintages, all of which I discovered on this thread. Obviously the massive 1909 Birdseye map is too large to carry in a small pocket notebook -- but don't think I haven't thought about it.

I've been reading the thread steadily for a while now, starting at the beginning, when I was politely informed that sensible people start at the end and work backward. Not being sensible, this doesn't apply to me; so it is my intention to read both backwards and forwards until I've read all 2,554 (and counting) pages.

I won't have a lot to contribute myself; I don't live in Los Angeles, I don't have any caches of wonderful images, and I don't really know very much about the subject. But I am PROFOUNDLY GRATEFUL to all of you, who have devoted so much time and effort and expertise, and posted so many wonderful pictures and maps and stories. Thank you all. I would call you all out by name except I know I would miss some of the best, so let me just say that if you're reading this, you're included. I honestly think this is the best urban history and architecture thread anywhere in the world. It's only fitting, since Downtown LA has arguably the finest collection of pre-war commercial blocks in the country -- and as many again ghosts of buildings and streets past.

I'm looking forward to seeing your city again with the images of those ghosts imprinted on my brain. We (my wife and I) visit a few times a year. She is slightly less thrilled by the idea of standing in front of an empty parking lot and hearing me sigh mistily about the lintels of a building that was torn down sixty years ago, but she's very patient.

Thank you for introducing yourself to NLA, Fnarf, and welcome!
(Your Seattle Mariners are hopping right now! Must be something in the coffee. :) )

"A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking." --Jerry Seinfeld

https://i.pinimg.com/280x280_RS/fe/9...aa041f7603.jpg

. . . . . . . . . .:(

The last Samuel French Bookshop has closed.

Samuel French Bookshop
7623 Sunset Blvd.

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...63&oe=5D2F92C1Samuel French/Facebook

It originally opened in downtown Los Angeles in 1929 and moved to this location in 1947. In Los Angeles for 90 years. A Studio City location closed in 2012.
I was trying to find a photo of it from 1947, but no luck so far. (I also haven't discovered the address of that original downtown location.)

In the above photo, the building at the left side is on the corner of Sunset and Stanley. It is currently vacant. (Google shows that some remodeling is currently
happening.) Before that it was the Mediterranean influenced restaurant Acabar which opened in 2013, but only lasted until 2015.

Acabar
(the entrance)

https://www.gayot.com/wp-content/upl...or-420x560.jpgGayot

Before that was the Moroccan restaurant Dar Maghreb, which opened in 1974 and was there for 39 years.

http://images.citysearch.net/assets/...d/01/e2/b4.bmpCity Search

(The entrance to these restaurants is on Stanley. Across the street is the former Preview House where studios had audiences to test out various pilots and commercials and such. It is now the Harmony Gold Theater which bills itself as a landmark screening and event facility.)

To the east of Samuel French in the above photo used to be "Ye Coach & Horses" -- what was described as "a historic watering hole designed in a classic Britain meets Hollywood style which opened in 1937 and was popular with British expats in Hollywood including Richard Burton and Alfred Hitchcock."

https://www.lataco.com/wp-content/uploads/coach.jpgL.A.Taco

https://www.lataco.com/wp-content/uploads/coach3.jpgL.A.Taco

It closed in 2010 after 73 years, apparently due to increasing rents and some poor business decisions from the elderly owner.

It was reborn a couple years later as The Pikey.

https://goop.com/wp-content/uploads/.../thepikey2.jpgGoop

The Pikey calls itself a Cafe & Bar, but is still a British pub restaurant. I like the place and I ate there recently for some fish & chips
and that's when I discovered Samuel French had just closed. We were going to visit the place as well.

To the east of The Pikey, on the next corner, is Bonham's Auction House, which often has showings of the items it is auctioning off.

Ninety seconds of drone footage of this area:
• Video Link


___________

I read that part of the reason Ye Coach & Horses closed is that Samuel French owns the building and they were trying to evict them for a new tenant who'd pay more rent, which they succeeded in doing. Ironically, Ye Coach & Horses lasted 73 years and Samuel French ended up one short at 72 years.

The reason given for the Samuel French Bookshop closing is the same reason all the bookstores I've frequented the past fifteen years have given. People come into the store, look around for things they want, take out their cellphones and find what online store they can get it for cheaper and then order it from them.

MY LAMENT: I miss all the stores where you'd come into contact with people with like minded interests and talk about the books (etc.) that you were interested in and all of the fantastic employees in these places who worked there because they were interested in their products and had so much information to offer a customer. Many of these places, like Samuel French, had lounges to sit in and coffee to drink and environments to inspire.

All those folks who used to work in bookstores, video stores, record/cd stores...what kind of work will they be doing? Are they doing? There is no replacing the kind of browsing and shopping one does in person with sitting in front of a computer screen that offers you: Customers who purchased apples also purchased oranges.

:previous:

The CDs have a Samuel French Inc, Publishers of Plays, listed at 306-307 Fine Arts Building, 811 W 7th Street between 1929 and 1942.

I wonder who the joke is on here. In Britain and Ireland, pikey is a derogatory term for members of the Irish Traveller community, and is viewed as an ethnic slur.

big sombrero restaurant
 

Hey guys, have any of you seen this photo before? I'm trying to locate where it was. Apparently it was included in the book "California Crazy. American Pop" by Jim Heimann

https://martinturnbull.com/wp-conten...restaurant.jpg

Welcome Fnarf, you're right this is one of the best resources for LA History I've found on "the nets". While I've lived here in LA most of my life(I'm a native), I did spend 3 years in Seattle for gradual school at the U. Seattle's probably my second favorite city, I loved my time up there.