[Flyingwedge]

Originally Posted by Wig-Wag

Thanks, Flyingwedge for posting,and Longrfile for the link to the photo showing the Mount Lowe advertisement at the north portal of the Pacific Electric Hill Street Tunnel.

A similar advertisement once graced the south abutment of the PE over crossing of the Southern Pacific Railroad's Sunset Route along Valley Boulevard. The Company saw the abutment as a perfect venue for an advertisement for their Mount Lowe excursions and the supporting hotel and tavern. It offered the enticement of a Southern California mountain adventure to automobile drivers on Valley Boulevard and to the patrons of passing SP passenger trains as well.

Believe it or not, there was a time when the taggers in East Los Angeles had respect for a bit of history. Although surrounded, if you will, his advertisement for the long vanished Mount Lowe line survived into the early 1970's unfazed by the gang graffiti that was rapidly covering the walls throughout the city. Unfortunately, the respect for history would not last. By mid decade the writing was, "on the wall" and another bit of history had been all but obliterated.

My photo dates from 1971.

Cheers,
Jack

[IMG]http://[URL=http://s1315.photobucket.com/user/jgn151/media/Mt_Lowe_Ad_zps0f8af57a.jpg.html][/URL][/IMG]

Your photo is awesome W-W!

Here's a closer view of the Mt. Lowe ad from the 1958 photo I posted; perhaps the right panel also said Marvelous Panoramic Views:


Speaking of Mt. Lowe:

From Los Angeles Then and Now (Geo. Rice and Sons, 1897) @ HathiTrust -- http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/imgs...=1190;orient=3

A somewhat random sampling of previous posts on Mt. Lowe:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...&postcount=745
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=5890
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=6653
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=7002
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=10262

For more:
http://www.mountlowe.org/
http://waterandpower.org/museum/Mt_Lowe_Railway.html

# # #

I found another view of the Sunset/Hill intersection, dated July 23, 1961. The source identifies the brick building as the Croyden Apartments @ 620 W. Sunset and the larger building behind
it as the LA School District HQ at 450 N. Grand. The Hill St. tunnel portal was just off the left edge of the photo:

Huntington Digital Library -- http://hdl.huntington.org/cdm/single.../id/7936/rec/2

The concrete wall at the base of what is now N. Hill Place is the same, as is the railing above it and at least the base of the streetlight (and Sunset is now Cesar Chavez Ave):

GSV

The School District HQ has been replaced by the Ramon C. Cortines School for Visual and Performing Arts. The block is bounded by the 101 at top left, Cesar Chavez at bottom right, and
Hill and Grand at lower left and upper right, respectively. Above the lower right corner, N. Hill Place hits Cesar Chavez from the north/right, with the southern end of N. Hill Place coming
down from the other side to meet Cesar Chavez:

Bing