Hello All! Stumbled across this thread a couple of weeks ago and have now been through all pages. What an incredible place to immerse myself in both Los Angeles and Film Noir history. I have lived in San Diego for 30 years now but have always been fascinated in LA history, especially during the war years. My mother lived and worked in LA for over two years during WWII while my dad was in the Marines and either in the South Pacific or stationed here in San Diego at Camp Elliott. Mom always regaled me with wonderful stories of life in LA as seen through the eyes of a 19-21 year girl old from Albuquerque NM. During mom's time in LA, she lived in an all women's boarding house that was in a converted mansion on St Andrews Place, just a block or so off of the intersection of Wllshire and Western. Mom worked at Schwabacher-Frey and Co. which was at 736 S. Broadway (I tried seeing if I could find 736 in any of the pictures on the thread, but couldn't. So if any of you have a picture in your files, I would love to see it!). In the late 80's, I drove mom up to LA and we were unable to locate the boarding house as it looks like it was replaced by a really ugly 60's apartment complex. When we drove downtown to see her old workplace, we were unable to as Broadway was torn up and that block was closed off. Mom took a look at some of the people on the sidewalks and decided that she did not want to get out and walk to see it! As we drove around the downtown streets, she got very upset about all the beautiful buildings she remembered that were no longer there. She eventually said "let's get out of here" and we left. Sorry that my first post is so long but I am a journalist by trade and can be very verbose.
