[Flyingwedge]

Originally Posted by Noircitydame

Tho it has probably been discussed here before (?) it was news to me that the building at 3rd & Main, which had been built by/for Al Levy for his first cafe in 1906 is actually a remnant of the old Levy building - another one that had been chopped down from 3 stories. I'd assumed it was a 50s replacement. I think there was a dance hall in the 3rd street side of this building in the mid-30s, but the address doesn't quite match up with the Baist maps.

c. 1938, already minus the cupola that had housed Levy's old oyster pushcart (img from USC digital):


Today with a lot of the tile and some ceiling features intact:




The noirish alley veiw:

I couldn't find where the NW corner of 3rd and Main, which doesn't seem to have been photographed very often before the 1930s, had been discussed here elsewhere, NCD.


June 25, 1905 Los Angeles Herald:


LOC -- http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lc...d-1/seq-11.pdf

To digress for a moment, the architect mentioned in the article, A. M. Edleman (1864-1941), was the son of A. W. Edelman, Los Angeles' first rabbi. A. M. Edelman's
buildings include the synagogue at 9th and Hope (1895; pictured below in 1897), which replaced the 1873 synagogue next to the City Hall on Broadway. He also
designed the replacement for the 9th and Hope building, the Wilshire Boulevard Temple (1929):

Art Institute of Chicago -- http://digital-libraries.saic.edu/cd...id/10151/rec/1

More on Edelman: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?i...ew=1up;seq=193 and https://digital.lib.washington.edu/a.../partners/375/

NW corner of 3rd and Main is in lower left corner; Main runs left to right across the bottom:

1906 Sanborn @ LAPL


1909 LA City Directory @ Fold3.com

Al Levy's old oyster cart is mentioned at the end of this Feb 19, 1906 LA Times article:


Looking west on 3rd from Main; I guess that's the old oyster cart on the roof under the cupola:

Los Angeles, the Old and the New (J. E. Scott, 1911) @ HathiTrust -- http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?i...iew=1up;seq=39

This is supposed to be Al Levy in a push cart, but it doesn't look like the one on the roof:

LAPL -- http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics18/00008719.jpg

Al Levy's building at the NW corner of 3rd and Main is in the middle of this closeup of a 1910 balloon photo:

USCDL -- http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/si...d/4020/rec/176

I'm not sure when the cupola was decoupled from the roof (though before '39); this is from 1954:

CA State Library -- http://catalog.library.ca.gov/exlibr...RB4NID7P3F.jpg

1959; I think this is the 3rd Street side:

CA State Library -- http://catalog.library.ca.gov/exlibr...SLCFD7T472.jpg

June 1, 1960; the source says the building, "Old Boomer" (no explanation), is being cut down to one story:

Huntington Digital Library -- http://hdl.huntington.org/cdm/single...d/8560/rec/316

June 30, 1961:

Huntington Digital Library -- http://hdl.huntington.org/cdm/single...d/8551/rec/136

The Los Angeles County Assessor says this building was built in 1905:

GSV