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  #55061  
Old Posted Jul 28, 2020, 2:48 PM
nadeau nadeau is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ethereal_reality View Post
.
Mystery building.




I was looking at the amazing aerial Hoss posted and one nearby building caught my eye.



It appears to be a turn of the century house . . . what with the chimneys and all . . . (it might have a red tile roof as well)




but when you look at building in question from a different angle (shown below / same year) it appears to be something else, entirely.


1963 / W & P

. . .like, perhaps, an old train station that might have been moved to this spot.



Super-Duper Close-Up


Sorry about the blurriness..........................................

I've been trying to find information but I haven't figured out its street address. I imagine it had a Vine address, right?

I'm also interested in the two vintage homes just northwest of the mystery building. (the one-story 'ranch' home is practically next door)


.
That train stationy looking building does appear to be at the site of the Greyhound Station that operates in Hollywood until the built the Arclight Cinema around the Dome. Many hopefuls came into Los Angeles there. Many dreams dashed as photogs would snatch them up as they got off the bus.
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  #55062  
Old Posted Jul 28, 2020, 4:06 PM
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HossC HossC is offline
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The 1962 CD has a business called "Joe the Train Doctor" at 1485 Vine Street (I was looking for a train connection). A Google search led me to a German model railroad forum, so it looks like Joe was a model train doctor with a store on Vine. Nothing to do with our mystery building.
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  #55063  
Old Posted Jul 28, 2020, 4:12 PM
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HossC HossC is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by badrunner View Post

What is that structure in the upper left corner of the picture? Looks like a trestle bridge. Railroad?
Quote:
Originally Posted by ethereal_reality View Post

Good eye, badrunner. It does look like a trestle.


detail
Based on the the buildings in front of the "trestle", I'd say that it's the support for the under-construction elevated section of 4th Street as it crosses Flower and Figueroa Streets. The 1956 image below shows the completed road on the left, while the 1956 aerial I posted a couple of days ago shows work yet to begin on the elevated section, so that narrows down the timeframe of Beaudry's image.


LAPL
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  #55064  
Old Posted Jul 29, 2020, 4:10 AM
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ethereal_reality ethereal_reality is offline
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.
I don't believe we will ever be able to figure out where this one room school house was located but it's a great old cabinet card so I decided to post it.

"1912 one-room schoolhouse Los Angeles, California; real photo postcard RPPC"........



ebay

Does this one-room schoolhouse look familiar to anyone?



Here's the reverse with the Los Angeles postmark [1912]

ebay


It's Ray writing his uncle (Peter Lind) in Michigan. ....March 27, 1912.


.
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  #55065  
Old Posted Jul 29, 2020, 4:38 AM
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ethereal_reality ethereal_reality is offline
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mystery location

Here's another wonderful old photograph and this one has numerous clues.


eBay

Magnificent pic!

On the left, if you look closely, there appears to be a sign on the roof of a building in the distance.


Through the ropes tethered to the balloon you can see a name(s) on the Coca - Cola billboard.


The sign on the basket appears to be advertising a 5 & 10, although I don't see the 10 (I think the sign might be folded over or it's billowing out from the wind)
The location is on Towne Avenue. Below that is the altitude the balloon will attempt.






Let's take a closer look.



eBay


The reverse.


Aug. 16, 1910....Los Angeles, California





Here's that roof-top sign, I mentioned.


detail

....................................................................Good luck deciphering that!




And here are the letters as seen through the ropes.



hmmm. . .is that a young Stan Laurel over there on the right - - - - >





And, finally, a super-close up of the sign on the basket.



There also appears to be something written beneath the altitude.





eBay Link
.

Last edited by ethereal_reality; Jul 29, 2020 at 5:15 AM.
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  #55066  
Old Posted Jul 29, 2020, 4:51 AM
nadeau nadeau is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ethereal_reality View Post
.
mystery location

Here's another wonderful old photograph and this one has a few more clues.



Magnificent pic!

On the left, if you look closely, there appears to be a sign on the roof of a building in the distance.


Through the ropes that are tethered to the balloon you can see a name(s) on the Coca - Cola billboard.


The sign on the basket appears to be advertising a 5 & 10 (but I don't see the ten) on Towne Avenue. Below that is the altitude the balloon will attempt.






Let's take a closer look.



eBay


The reverse.


Aug. 16, 1910....Los Angeles, California





Here's that roof-top sign, I mentioned.


detail







.
5th & Towne Ave is an intersection in downtown LA. None of the buildings in the photo seems to remain, thought there is a cafe in a building on one corner. The LA Mission is on another.
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  #55067  
Old Posted Jul 29, 2020, 5:19 AM
ScottyB ScottyB is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ethereal_reality View Post
.
mystery location

Here's another wonderful old photograph and this one has numerous clues.


eBay
"Delicious Refreshing" Coca-Cola!
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  #55068  
Old Posted Jul 29, 2020, 7:30 AM
CaliNative CaliNative is offline
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[QUOTE=ethereal_reality;8987745][SIZE="1"].[/SIZE

If I were to wager a guess that this was building a little real estate office.

Why was/is one area of the club named 'The Belly Room'?

"The Comedy Store has multiple showrooms, including the main stage and a space known as the Belly Room. Though nothing online explains the name for the upstairs area, general manager Jody Barton said it may have something to do with the back-alley abortions performed on pregnant prostitutes during the building’s time as a club."

If the white building were in Vegas I'd guess wedding chapel but in L.A. probably real estate office. As far as the belly room goes, belly laughs or belly dancing????
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  #55069  
Old Posted Jul 29, 2020, 4:54 PM
Engineeral Engineeral is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ethereal_reality View Post
.

And here are the letters as seen through the ropes.




.
I think the letters to the left of the trademark, behind the ropes, read "Delicious" and "Refreshing".
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  #55070  
Old Posted Jul 29, 2020, 6:47 PM
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HossC HossC is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ethereal_reality View Post

mystery location

Here's another wonderful old photograph and this one has numerous clues.


eBay
I found this image which seems to match the basket of the image above. The banner says "5th & Towne, 2200ft High". The real estate board behind is for R A ROWAN & CO, 200-207 H W Hellman Bldg. The caption reads:
"Hot air balloon rides at the corner of 5th Street and Towne Avenue for prospective real estate investors. Photo, circa 1911."
.


Bizarre Los Angeles at Facebook.com

USC has five aerial pictures taken from a balloon and dated circa 1910. Here's one of them - I wonder if they used the same balloon:


USC Digital Library
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  #55071  
Old Posted Jul 29, 2020, 9:08 PM
Martin Pal Martin Pal is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ethereal_reality View Post
.
Mystery building.

I was looking at the amazing aerial Hoss posted and one nearby building caught my eye.



It appears to be a turn of the century house . . . what with the chimneys and all . . . (it might have a red tile roof as well)
.
_________________________________________________________________

I was looking at the LAPL site at the other photos of the construction of the Cinerama Dome in 1963. HERE. The site also has 4 color aerial photos of the area from 1965 and, for what it's worth, ALL of the buildings on that corner block (the block with red circle) are gone in the 1965 aerials. (Except one in the corner blocked by the Sunset Vine Tower in the above photo.)

Quote:
Originally Posted by BDiH View Post
Lots of sites of former businesses that are aren't there anymore in those photos: Wallich's, Pep Boys, The Hangover, Norm's, Hollywood Canteen, etc, etc. I was hoping to see the Shack on Cole, but it's not shown.
_________________________________________________________________
Am I correct that the Hollywood Canteen building in the above 1963 photo is the building with the red awning/canopy (above the RCA Building under construction) pictured here?

I found this May 25, 1963, Los Angeles Times ad for the 1451 Cahuenga Blvd. address (where the Hollywood Canteen was) as Le Grand Comedy Theatre with Lenny Bruce:

Lenny Bruce was nominated for an Emmy yesterday. Rather, the actor playing Lenny Bruce in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Newspapers.com

This is the only photo, dated 1966, I've ever seen of the Le Grand Comedy Theatre and there's no awning. It was demolished in 1966. (Missing photo in previous NLA post.)

HistoricHollywoodPhotographs

The second ad from above is for the Ivar Theatre playing Under the Yum-Yum Tree...I didn't find the marquee, but I found a Playbill for the production.
It starred Bill Bixby. The link says "This play was the Ivar’s longest running show, May 1962 to March 1964."

ThisStage And a flyer:Amazon

Third ad: Les Poupées de Paris at P.J.'s, Crescent Heights and Santa Monica Blvd.: (I thought this was previously mentioned on NLA, but didn't find it.)

DWPviaFacebook
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  #55072  
Old Posted Jul 29, 2020, 10:33 PM
Martin Pal Martin Pal is offline
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On a TV themed thread on HTF (Home Theater Forum) someone recently posted this blurb from a 9/26/59 edition of TV Guide on page 31:

FRANK SINATRA and PETER LAWFORD will appear briefly, and for union scale
wages, in a 77 SUNSET STRIP episode in return for a plug for their restaurant.


Say what?

That appearance never happened, but I've never heard about a restaurant either of these two owned. I found out some information about it, but not a photo:

Puccini's
224 S. Beverly Dr.
Beverly Hills, California

It appeared in the late 50's. This link has an old column about it:
Confidential File
Birth Travails of a Spaghetti Salon
by Paul Coates -- April 2, 1959
https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the...il-2-1959.html

At the end of this reprint from the L.A. Times blog it said:

(Puccini's, 220 S. Beverly Blvd., had previously been the Harlequin Club and by 1962 was the Tender Loin.)
But...the correct address was 224 S. Beverly Dr. (not Blvd.) so is the other info correct?

This link has a contract concerning the restaurant: Hakes.Com

In the info for it the site seems to think it's a contract to open the place and pay rent of $115 a month, but it clearly states it's an amendment to the lease and this is an additional amount.

I did locate a souvenir menu that folded out and could be mailed like a postcard.
Below...Top: Outside, Bottom: Inside.




FranciAlbertSinatraTumblr
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  #55073  
Old Posted Jul 30, 2020, 1:20 AM
CityBoyDoug CityBoyDoug is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Pal View Post
I've always heard/read that it was the Sunset Tower building at Sunset & Vine.

___

LAPL/Calisphere

The caption for this says:

Architect's drawing of Sunset Vine Tower, located at 6290 Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood. The 1963 18-story International Style tower, designed by architect Douglas Honnold of the firm Honnold & Rex, was the first skyscraper built in Los Angeles after the city repealed its 14-story building height limit.

Under construction: April 19, 1962. NBC Radio City in background. And a nice street lamp!

LAPL

A nice L.A. Times article HERE, when the building was re-opening as luxury apartments, talks about the building's troubles, beginning in 2001 when "an electrical transformer exploded, plunging it into darkness and sending employees of 40 companies with offices there running down stairwells to safety. Because the electrical meltdown knocked out the building's fire alarm system, city inspectors and fire officials for months barred workers from entering to remove files, office equipment and personal property. But with the building's tenants locked out, vandals moved in, trashing some offices and stealing files and equipment. Neighbors were soon calling the place 'the world's biggest crack house.' Authorities ordered the tower fenced off about six months after the explosion."

Workers dismantling rooftop equipment with a cutting torch accidentally set the tower on fire in 2005.



Because the elevators were still out of service, firefighters had to carry hundred-pound loads of hose and gear up stairwells to fight the flames. Later, they had to undergo decontamination because of asbestos exposure.

Currently:

ArchDaily

P.S.: This building was shaken apart in the 1974 film Earthquake.

Matte Shot
My bank was in that building. One day in 1972 I didn't like the way the obdurate Teller was treating the customers in the line [she was putting people in front of me...I waited and waited]. I got to the counter and asked that Teller to close my account and write a final check!
I then went across the street to Home Savings and opened a new account. My head had exploded.
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  #55074  
Old Posted Jul 30, 2020, 2:33 AM
Lorendoc Lorendoc is offline
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I wanted to see what could be learned about the "railroad station" e_r posted recently. It had an odd location, isolated from streets by other buildings. It turns out there is a small bit of noirish history associated with this place.

The first step was to find out the address of the building. Here is a Sanborn from the 50s:

lapl.org

So the address seems to have been 1453 N. Vine street.

With that information, I looked at the LADBS records. These were difficult to parse, but it seems that the first appearance of something at this address was in 1914, when a "one-story, 18' x 24' tea room in gardens surrounded and enclosed, somewhat, by enclosure fence & pergola" was added to an already-existing dwelling owned by a William F. Markham (see below).

The Sanborn from 1919 shows the dwelling was pretty close to Vine Street:

lapl.org

Comparing its location to the later Sanborn, it clearly has moved a bit to the southwest. I found a 1927 permit for this relocation:


ladbs

The city directories and the newspapers have a few mentions of the address:

1914-1917 William Markham residence

1927 Feb 12 LAT want ads:

newspapers.com

1932 Ann Pengre was conducting a dancing school

1933 the "Commonwealth House," evidently some sort of community center

1937 George Moore's Mutual Theatrical Institute

newspapers.com

1940 Jack Holden's "automobile top manufacturing" shop

1956 "Hollywood 16mm Industries Inc." (One can only imagine what sort of films were being made there.)

Most of the structures around here were demolished in 1965.

Now for the noirish part: William Markham was known as the "air rifle king." From the Glendale News Press:

"William F. Markham made his fortune with the 1886 invention of the air rifle and manufactured thousands of them in his Plymouth, Mich., plant. In 1911, he disposed of his holdings and came to California, building a house at Hollywood and Vine, then far out in the country and just a short walk from the home of artist Paul de Longpre."

Markham died a very wealthy man in 1930. Fast forward six years and the notoriously corrupt Buron Fitts was running for another term as LA district attorney. He drew a crusading reform attorney as his opponent: Harlan Palmer, publisher of the Hollywood Citizen-News. Just before the 1936 election, Fitts arranged an "October surprise" for Palmer:


LAT 10-2-1936 via newspapers.com

Palmer lost by less than 2% of the votes. Litigation regarding the estate went on for years.

Last edited by Lorendoc; Jul 31, 2020 at 5:53 AM.
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  #55075  
Old Posted Jul 30, 2020, 2:44 AM
Noir_Noir Noir_Noir is offline
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Back in the day 1453 Vine Street was known to some as Commonwealth House.

Hollywood creative types were apparently hanging around 1453 Vine Street ... and there were other types hanging about snooping on them.






archive.org - FBI Files on Communist Infiltration- Motion Picture Industry

Last edited by Noir_Noir; Jul 30, 2020 at 2:56 AM.
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  #55076  
Old Posted Jul 30, 2020, 2:52 AM
Lorendoc Lorendoc is offline
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  #55077  
Old Posted Jul 30, 2020, 5:00 AM
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Flyingwedge Flyingwedge is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lorendoc View Post

The Sanborn from 1919 shows the dwelling was pretty close to Vine Street:

lapl.org
Adding to what Lorendoc and Noir_Noir found . . . .

Back in Plymouth, Michigan, purported air rifle inventor William F. Markham was separated from his wife, who would not grant him a divorce.
So he built a home in Plymouth for himself and his secretary/mistress. Markham's wife died in 1910, but after he married his mistress they
were shunned by local society so Markham and his new wife moved away. (See here and here). The 1911 LACD shows Markham at 149 N Ivar,
then he's at 315 S Vine in 1912 and 1453 Vine in 1914 (perhaps the same renumbered residence). I don't know why the 1919 map shows a
different address for Markham's house.


There's a January 12, 1914, building permit for a pergola and tea room at 1467 Vine, with the owner listed as W. F. Markham at 1453 Vine
(address issues again, I guess). Here's another building permit for 1453 Vine Street:



November 8, 1914, Los Angeles Times at ProQuest via LA Public Library


Anyway, Markham also built the Markham Building at the SWC of Hollywood Blvd. and Cosmo St., which is mentioned in this
December 6, 1925, Los Angeles Times article. At the end of the article his Vine St. home is called "Morning Gate Villa":



ProQuest via LA Public Library


This Morning Gate Villa? (the sign is over the entry drive). It kind of matches the 1919 Sanborn, it has the right type
of roof, and minus the 3-story addition (?) on the south side seen in the later color photo, the shape of the home seems
the same. This has to be an early view of the Markham home:



ebay


Although a poor-quality photo, this definitely is Morning Gate Villa (perhaps looking south?) and a partial description of the home from
The Plymouth [MI] Mail of June 20, 1919 (see page 6):





From: file:///C:/Users/User/Pictures/History%20Pics/Hollywood/SW%20cor%20Sunset%20and%20Vine/1919%20Jun%2020%20Plymouth%20Mail%20on%20Markham.pdf
at PlymouthLibrary.org


Markham moved to 1405 E. Mountain St. in Glendale in 1926. He died April 30, 1930, his wife in 1937:



May 3, 1930, Los Angeles Times at ProQuest via LA Public Library


And, yes, he did leave some estate issues to be settled.

Last edited by Flyingwedge; Aug 1, 2020 at 4:02 AM. Reason: fix link and add text
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  #55078  
Old Posted Jul 30, 2020, 10:52 AM
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HossC HossC is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Pal View Post

Third ad: Les Poupées de Paris at P.J.'s, Crescent Heights and Santa Monica Blvd.: (I thought this was previously mentioned on NLA, but didn't find it.)

DWPviaFacebook
The club's later incarnation as the Starwood gets a couple of mentions earlier in the thread, but if there were any pictures, they are gone now. Not long before it closed, the Starwood was redressed as a new wave club called 'Breaking Point' for a season 5 episode of CHiPs. It was run by Doug McClure.


Rosner TV/MGM TV

Despite the Starwood name being covered on the building, it still appeared on the "No Parking" sign.


Rosner TV/MGM TV
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  #55079  
Old Posted Jul 30, 2020, 12:53 PM
JimCraig JimCraig is offline
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And, yes, he did leave some estate issues to be settled.[/QUOTE]

William Filmore Markham and his second wife are interred in the Great Mausoleum of Forest Lawn Glendale, Dahlia Terrace, Columbarium of Light, Niche 7424. Unfortunately no one has as yet posted a photo of the niche.
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  #55080  
Old Posted Jul 30, 2020, 7:17 PM
nadeau nadeau is offline
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More from 5th & Towne

Quote:
Originally Posted by HossC View Post
I found this image which seems to match the basket of the image above. The banner says "5th & Towne, 2200ft High". The real estate board behind is for R A ROWAN & CO, 200-207 H W Hellman Bldg. The caption reads:
"Hot air balloon rides at the corner of 5th Street and Towne Avenue for prospective real estate investors. Photo, circa 1911."
.


Bizarre Los Angeles at Facebook.com

USC has five aerial pictures taken from a balloon and dated circa 1910. Here's one of them - I wonder if they used the same balloon:


USC Digital Library
I just happened upon this pic of 5th and Towne on Pinterest.
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-V_sEVOit7...52835%2529.jpg
And this looking west on 5th from Towne:
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uPObjn53Z...52839%2529.jpg https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uPObjn53Z...52839%2529.jpg

Last edited by nadeau; Jul 30, 2020 at 7:24 PM. Reason: Added pic
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