Originally Posted by riichkay
I have been lurking on this forum for a couple of years. You guys are so good at identifying "mystery" locations that I never had anything to contribute.
Well, finally, I have a chance to help out. The coffee shop pictured here is located at 8445 W. 3rd St., just east of La Cienega. When I went to work at this corner in 1974 the subject property was Gottfried's Deli. I was in the place hundreds of times. The Shulman photos are apparently tagged "demolished" according to the original post, so Gottfried's Deli I guess was a completely different bldg. But I don't know, the interior of Gottfied's was laid out just like this place.
Poster HossC is precisely right, he guessed that the bldg to the left of the subject was a Mode O'Day location in 1956. In 1974 old timers in the neighborhood told me that was the case. When I worked there the bldg had been converted to office space, as the Mode O'Day usage was more of a warehouse, from what I was told.
In the 3rd photo down you can see in the distance, between Johnny's and the Mode O'Day bldg, some of the offices of Dart Square. Of course on the Beverly/La Cienega corner of Dart Square was the Rexall store (Rexall, Owl Drug etc were all part of the Justin Dart empire, he really established the model for the modern drug store). Dart was also instrumental in the political career of Ronald Reagan.
I worked on the ground floor of the old Mode O'Day bldg for the now defunct Transamerica Title Insurance Co. Yes, that Transamerica, founded by A.P. Giannini, as a holding company for B of A. The people in the S.F. pyramid.
The 2nd floor of the building, when I was there, was the offices of David L. Wolper Productions. In about 1976, we saw actors like LeVar Burton hanging around the Wolper office. We were told that Wolper had a project in the works, a TV mini series of an Alex Haley novel called "Roots". I think you all know the rest of that story.
At the far end of the Mode O'Day/Transamerica/Wolper bldg, right at the La Cienega corner, was United California Bank, which later became First Interstate Bank.
Across 3rd street from Gottfied's Deli was a Chuck's Steak House location. That was demolished for an office bldg in the early '80's. Across from the parking lot you see here was a variety of small retail bldgs, including the space for The Record Plant recording studio, one of the busiest studios at that time. It was the first "living room" type studio. The address was 8456 W. 3rd. Long since torn down and assembled with adjacent properties for a strip mall.
Look up the Wikipedia page for The Record Plant, every big name in the industry was there in the '70's. The Wiki page tells the story of one of the studio's owners, Gary Kellgren, who had a noirish death. He drowned at his home in '77, along with his secretary/girlfriend. There's also a photo of the front of the building during a 1978 fire.
The Gottfried's Deli bldg is still standing, it's still a restaurant. The Mode O'Day/Transamerica bldg is now retail, TJ Maxx etc is in there, part of the Beverly Connection development. As are the Dart Square bldgs, all of which were torn down for what I have always thought was a pretty awful mall.
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