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Old Posted Sep 10, 2010, 5:13 PM
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GaylordWilshire GaylordWilshire is offline
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On many trips to Los Angeles over the years, I've gone on architectural expeditions armed with various guides, always more interested in residential development than any other aspect of the built environment. I've always tried to conjure what the streetscape must have been like long ago, and there are literally dozens of guides and histories that do a good job of describing what seems to be an idyllic way of life (if politically a nightmare by modern, or at least my, standards). But even actually driving around old L.A. neighborhoods hour upon hour fails to give the feeling I sought--too many changes, modern cars, architectural gaps etc---and, of course, what I seek isn't really obtainable. Now that I've done some of the same "drives" using Google Maps, and employing Street View (which enables me find a shot of a street that excludes as much as possible cars, blue garbage bins etc), suddenly I've found that sense of L.A. past I've been seeking all along. I am going to post a link to a slideshow of such shots later--they're really much more effective when viewed in a series, full-screen--but want to start with this one above of 1631 S. Wilton Place (south of Venice Blvd.). Most of the pics I've put together have ordinary or at least unknown stories, but this house is where Marion Parker was living with her family at the time of her death in December 1927. The house, as sopas pointed out a year or so ago, seems eerily unchanged. The pic above is meant to evoke what it might have been like to walk by the house in 1927. (I hope all the shots you see after this will have the effect of looking as though they were taken many decades ago rather than literally just the other day.) Here is the same shot of the Parker house, but wider, to give the house some context:

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An excellent summary of the sad case of Marion, including a link to a shot of the house in 1927: http://www.cemeteryguide.com/gotw-parker.html

And another site with the story: http://markgribben.com/?p=288

Last edited by GaylordWilshire; Apr 17, 2012 at 12:41 AM.
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