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  #11301  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2013, 3:00 PM
Lwize Lwize is offline
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(photo: LAPL)


(image - Christina House, For The Times / December 19, 2012))

Quote:
Herald-Examiner's last man standing
Chuck Lutz, the caretaker at the newspaper's shuttered office at 11th and Broadway, is retiring 23 years after the last issue hit newsstands.

By Steve Lopez

January 1, 2013, 7:08 p.m.

The last edition of the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner was published on Nov. 2, 1989, with the headline:

"So long, Los Angeles."

But 23 years later, one employee has not yet said goodbye. Chuck Lutz hasn't even left the building.

"They never told me not to come back to work, so I just kept coming back to work," said Lutz, who was exaggerating a little.

When a colleague declined an offer to supervise the shutdown of the newspaper plant, Lutz — who joined the Her-Ex in 1973 as a truck driver — gladly stepped into the job. One task led to another, and the Hearst Corp., which published the newspaper and still owns the building, kept the reliable Lutz around to keep an eye on things and open the door for film crews that use the property.

"I didn't know how it was going to go," he said, thinking back to 1989. "The older I got, it looked like it was going to last forever."

It might have, except that at 68, Lutz has decided to retire Jan. 9.

All of us should be as lucky as Lutz, whose job has been so easy in recent years that retirement might not seem like much of a change. Think about it. His boss is 400 miles away in San Francisco. The checks never bounce. He gets to work before traffic is a problem, and his most arduous task on many days is to watch the minutes tick away until he punches out at 2 p.m. and goes home to Mission Hills to walk the dogs.

The job requires so little movement that weight gain has been an occupational hazard. He didn't even get up out of his chair to give me a tour of the building when I visited him on the job recently. I went instead with Bryan Erwin, who manages film shoots for Hollywood Locations and had tipped me that Lutz was the last Her-Ex man standing, having been part of both "a turmoiled newspaper and its rebirth as an iconic filming location."

To be honest, I felt creepy on the tour. For me, visiting the home of a dead newspaper is like going to a relative's funeral. The nearly 100-year-old building at 11th and Broadway has become a casket of Moorish and Spanish design. William Randolph Hearst hired architect Julia Morgan, who would later create his Central Coast castle, and she gave his newspaper an ornately grand, now ghostly lobby that looks like a workable setting for a Roman orgy.

You can almost imagine Herald-Examiner crime reporter Bevo Means, back in 1947, racing through the lobby shouting "Stop the presses!" because he'd come up with a good nugget on the sensational Black Dahlia story.

Former Her-Ex editorial writer Joel Bellman, now a press officer for L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, reminded me that for all the self-indulgent romanticism of those of us on the editorial side of the operation, it's always been the Chuck Lutzes who've done the unglamorous work that actually gets the newspaper printed and out the door.

Right he is. I'd be lying, though, if I told you Lutz saw any romance in the small roles he filled helping produce all the news that was fit to print, and some that wasn't. To him, it was a steady paycheck. After driving a delivery truck for 15 years, Lutz worked as a receiving clerk and purchasing agent and kept track of newsprint supplies.

"He's kind of a throwback to an old work ethic," said Lutz's boss, Marty Cepkauskas, who manages Hearst Corp. real estate from San Francisco. Get to work on time, do what's expected, get paid, go home, and do it again the next day. Lutz has been invaluable for his reliability, said Cepkauskas, and because he knows "every nook and cranny in that building."

Since the newspaper belly-flopped, the most interesting part of Lutz's job has been coordinating film shoots. If Joan Rivers is the queen of the red carpet, Chuck Lutz has been the captain of the ink-stained carpet. He's seen half of Hollywood walk past his scrubby ground-floor office.

"We have a bar, a jail set, a flophouse hotel, an apartment, a hospital, a vault, a police station. Remember 'The Usual Suspects?' The police station where they did all that talking was right here. 'End of Days,' with Schwarzenegger, was here."

Lutz scratched his beard as he went through the list of stars he's laid eyes on. Bruce Willis. Sandra Bullock. Jonathan Winters. Eva Marie Saint.

"It's easier to tell you who hasn't been in here than who has," Lutz said, adding that it's been fun to see what the stars look like before they're powdered and primped.

Anne Archer looked good in rollers. Efrem Zimbalist Jr. was shorter than expected. James Garner drove himself to and from work; no chauffeur for him. Mark Harmon didn't like how close Marlee Matlin parked to his car.

Some stars were happy to chat with him; others weren't, and Lutz was fine with that too. He's a movie buff, not a stalker, and no glitz rubbed off on this plain-talking country boy from Ohio. Lutz did get his denim britches out of a chair long enough, though, to watch Clint Eastwood direct a scene from "The Rookie."

I made the mistake of asking if he got permission.

"I walk in my own building," he squealed, "and I stand behind who I want to stand behind. What are they going to do about it?"

Lutz, a single man, plans to team with his brother, a Metro bus driver who's also retiring in January, and buy a little horse ranch in Nevada. He does not expect to gaze up at the stars there and wonder if he should have hung on even longer at the Herald-Examiner cemetery.

"I'm 68 years old, and I don't need this," he said. "I need some time off."

steve.lopez@latimes.com
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  #11302  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2013, 3:25 PM
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rcarlton rcarlton is offline
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Have a cast list for "The Searchers" with everyone's address and phone number. I'll list a few for fun...
  1. John Wayne 1022 Palm Avenue, West Hollywood CR5-6178 (looks to be his agents office) ST4-7375
  2. Natalie and Lana Wood 15036 Valley Vista, Sherman Oaks ST9-9708 (still standing)
  3. Ward Bond 9510 Cherokee Lane, Beverly Hills CR5-2554
  4. Vera Miles 14726 Saticoy, Van Nuys ST0-9670
  5. Harry Carey Jr. 4919 Stern Ave., Sherman Oaks ST9-4010 (RIP)
  6. Hank Warden 3326 Greenfield, Los Angeles GR3-6726
  7. Pippa Scott 710 N. Linden Drive, Beverly Hills BR1-0201
  8. Olive Carey 608 N. Camden Drive, Beverly Hills CR6-1276
  9. Pat Wayne 1022 Palm Avenue, West Hollywood CR5-6178, YO6-6036
  10. Patrick Ford 4621 Balboa Ave., Encino ST4-1953

When the movie was filmed John Wayne lived at 470 Louise Avenue, Encino.
Architectural Digest

Architectural Digest

DukeWayne.com

DukeWayne.com

DukeWayne.com

Some of the addresses are not so glamorous, like ole Mose Harper's (Hank Worden).
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Last edited by rcarlton; Jan 3, 2013 at 9:39 PM.
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  #11303  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2013, 3:35 PM
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GaylordWilshire GaylordWilshire is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hollywood Graham View Post
Going to a movie in Hollywood in the early fifties was fun. We rode our bikes or took the Streetcar and sometimes walked. No rush then. On the way home we would stop at Reginald Denny's Hobby Shop and marvel at the airplanes hung from the ceiling. Later stop would be the miniature golf place by Vermont and Hollywood. Fun times.[IMG][/IMG]
LAPL Photo

Quote:
Originally Posted by tovangar2 View Post
P.S. HollywoodGraham, what on earth is this?:

Holly Leaves Nov 17, 1922


The Lawlor Professional School/Denny hobby shop building was originally the office of the Taft real estate concern. A. Z. Taft had a good bit of property along the north side of Prospect Ave/ Hollywood Blvd, including a lemon grove between Van Ness and Wilton. His son A. Z. Jr. developed the grove, running Taft Avenue up the middle; the arroyo-stone pillars marked the tract's entrance. Both are seen in the photo in this prior post: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=5418
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  #11304  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2013, 8:37 PM
tovangar2 tovangar2 is offline
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The Taft Tract, Hollywood

Quote:
Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire View Post

The Lawlor Professional School/Denny hobby shop building was originally the office of the Taft real estate concern. A. Z. Taft had a good bit of property along the north side of Prospect Ave/ Hollywood Blvd, including a lemon grove between Van Ness and Wilton. His son A. Z. Jr. developed the grove, running Taft Avenue up the middle; the arroyo-stone pillars marked the tract's entrance. Both are seen in the photo in this prior post: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=5418

www.mar-ken.org

Thank you GW, I was hoping this was one of the neighborhood gates you knew. I'll bet neighborhood kids were constantly climbing these.

When I first saw the photo, it instantly reminded me of the charmingly hokey fruit and nut exhibits at the State of California Building, which were such a hit at the 1909 Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition:

Mabel Normand posing with an elephant made of California walnuts:

http://looking-for-mabel.webs.com

Cow made of California almonds:

U of WA Library

and, of course, this one:

U of WA library

There's still some beautiful blocks of homes on the Taft tract. Makes a pleasant drive in one's Googlemobile.

Last edited by tovangar2; Jan 2, 2013 at 9:20 PM.
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  #11305  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2013, 9:14 PM
tovangar2 tovangar2 is offline
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Arcade Station / Central Station

Quote:
Originally Posted by FredH View Post
Hi Hobocat - Your post got me looking again, and I found this 1909 map:


memory.loc.gov
Thanks for posting the map detail. I had not realized before that the 1888 Arcade Depot originally had no street frontage on S Central Ave:

metro transportation library and archive

Nice that the big palm was included on the panoramic map view:

ulwaf.com

What a beauty spot, one couldn't say that now. One of the four little onion domes shows in this view:

eBay

The intervening buildings had apparently been cleared by the time 1914's Central Station was built which replaced the old depot.
It opened directly on Central Ave:

loyola marymount university library

The old stations are finally coming into focus for me. Thx to everyone who's posted re this area.

Last edited by tovangar2; Jan 3, 2013 at 12:18 AM. Reason: add image
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  #11306  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2013, 11:02 PM
BifRayRock BifRayRock is offline
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Circa December 1937 - Hollywood Plaza Hotel, 1637 North Vine Blvd.
lapl

Flickr



1938 Clara and "It" Chef
http://giantpantsofthe30s.tumblr.com...nd-her-it-cafe
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  #11307  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2013, 11:41 PM
tovangar2 tovangar2 is offline
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Mystery block

Checking out the relationship between the Santa Fe Station (upper right) and the Arcade/Central site (lower left) on the 1909 map, I got focused on the out-of-kilter block directly between them:

http://www.bigmapblog.com/2011/birds...f-los-angeles/

It's still there:

google maps

I was wondering if it was an old estate, a hold-out or even a hill, but I cannot find an older map that solves this one for me. It may just be the result of two grid systems crashing into each other as the city grew.
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  #11308  
Old Posted Jan 3, 2013, 1:25 AM
malumot malumot is offline
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probably just the latter......

Street and road systems were pretty local and haphazard affairs 120 years ago (an alley behind someone's dairy farm attracts more traffic, it is widened, another street is cleared parallel to the original, which intersects with an existing road at an angle seen only in geometry textbooks (e.g. Ceres and Central).....

You needed a relatively strong city government to impose some order on things, which you didn't get until......1890 or so?



Quote:
Originally Posted by tovangar2 View Post
Checking out the relationship between the Santa Fe Station (upper right) and the Arcade/Central site (lower left) on the 1909 map, I got focused on the out-of-kilter block directly between them:


It's still there:

google maps

I was wondering if it was an old estate, a hold-out or even a hill, but I cannot find an older map that solves this one for me. It may just be the result of two grid systems crashing into each other as the city grew.
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  #11309  
Old Posted Jan 3, 2013, 2:01 AM
tovangar2 tovangar2 is offline
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Imposing some order...

Quote:
Originally Posted by malumot View Post
probably just the latter......

Street and road systems were pretty local and haphazard affairs 120 years ago (an alley behind someone's dairy farm attracts more traffic, it is widened, another street is cleared parallel to the original, which intersects with an existing road at an angle seen only in geometry textbooks (e.g. Ceres and Central).....

You needed a relatively strong city government to impose some order on things, which you didn't get until......1890 or so?
Imposing some order can create its own anomalies. The old Janss tract in WLA got left w/ all kinds of strange little islands when Olympic Blvd was pushed through the 20th Century Fox lot in the 1930's:


Oh, brave new world. Tom Mix would never recognize his old ranch. Looking approximately NE.
New Olympic Blvd through the Fox lot (the bridge connecting the two halves of the studio was later removed):

reddawgcollectables - eBay

Reverse view. Looking up to where the two men were standing in the view immediately above:

gsv

Although not a patch on the havoc and isolation caused to so many neighborhoods by the freeway system.

Before. The Fox lot with Beverly Hills on the right and WLA on the left. (Looking north):

movielocationsplus.com

The old west entrance (center left in the previous photo and top right in the Google Street View above that):

movielocationsplus.com

It's still in there somewhere, now sans lantern and lots of other great details:

gsv

Last edited by tovangar2; Sep 22, 2023 at 3:30 AM. Reason: add image
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  #11310  
Old Posted Jan 3, 2013, 2:18 AM
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Albany NY Albany NY is offline
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The Mysterious Case of Two Reginald Denny's?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hollywood Graham View Post
Going to a movie in Hollywood in the early fifties was fun. We rode our bikes or took the Streetcar and sometimes walked. No rush then. On the way home we would stop at Reginald Denny's Hobby Shop and marvel at the airplanes hung from the ceiling. Later stop would be the miniature golf place by Vermont and Hollywood. Fun times.[IMG][/IMG]
LAPL Photo
I would have loved to have taken a streetcar to Reginald Denny's shop in the 1950's (too bad I wasn't born until 1960, 3000 miles away!) We still have a hobby shop in my hometown of Schenectady NY that is a throwback to simpler, slower times. It is an absolute joy to go there when I can. But back to LA. I have tried in vain to trace Reginald Denny's children and grandchildren to see if there is a connection to Reginald Denny, the victim of a savage LA "noirish" beating in the aftermath of the acquittal of the police officers accused in the infamous beating of Rodney King in 1993. I'm sure we all remember the helicopter news footage of thugs brutalizing a helpless Denny, whose only "crime" was that he was delivering building supplies to the neighborhood for low-income housing. Is it simply a coincidence of names, or is there a connection?

http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/7149/rdenny01.jpg
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  #11311  
Old Posted Jan 3, 2013, 4:10 AM
Los Angeles Past Los Angeles Past is offline
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Stone pillars in Covina

Quote:
Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire View Post

These pillars bear a strong resemblance to two very old river-stone pillars still standing today in Covina on the east side of North Hollenbeck Avenue. I wonder if there's a connection between the monuments above and those shown below.


Google Maps Street View


They were originally erected by Covina's founder, Joseph S. Phillips, c.1886. Here are the Hollenbeck pillars at the turn of the last century. [Incorrect: the two stone pillars pictured below were located on Badillo Street in Covina, and are no longer standing. Also, these pillars (along with the other two extant ones on Hollenbeck Avenue), were not erected by J.S. Phillips, but by James H. Adams, to mark the boundary of his 45-acre 'El Dorado' ranch in Covina. Edited 9/2/2021.]


Calisphere/Covina Public Library - This image is in the public domain


Phillips bought the tract in Rancho La Puente which would become Covina from noted Los Angeles historical figure John E. Hollenbeck.

-Scott
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Last edited by Los Angeles Past; Sep 2, 2021 at 9:57 AM. Reason: Correcting identification and origin of Covina's stone pillars
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  #11312  
Old Posted Jan 3, 2013, 5:14 AM
tovangar2 tovangar2 is offline
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Covina & Hollywood Pillars

Quote:
Originally Posted by Los Angeles Past View Post
These pillars bear a strong resemblance to two very old river-stone pillars still standing today in Covina on the east side of North Hollenbeck Avenue. I wonder if there's a connection between the monuments above and those shown below.


Google Maps Street View
What a match. That's amazing LAP. I wonder if this was a popular design back in the day.
How odd they no longer frame anything except the back of some complex that goes all the way through the block.
I'd like to know how the stones are attached. They seem to be vandal-proof and have lasted through the decades very well.

Horribly unfortunate streetlamp.

I love all our old chimneys and porches made of river stone. Some neighborhoods are chock-a-block with it. Doesn't perform well in earthquakes though.

Last edited by tovangar2; Jan 3, 2013 at 7:33 PM.
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  #11313  
Old Posted Jan 3, 2013, 4:21 PM
malumot malumot is offline
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More imposing order....

True enough, Tovangar.

Just thought of this......

For the Grandaddy of all grid collisions we need look no further than Hoover Ave.

That baby re-orients the old downtown grid into a true N-S pattern from Fountain all the way to MLK.

Quote:
Originally Posted by tovangar2 View Post
Imposing some order can create its own anomalies. The old Janss tract in WLA got left w/ all kinds of strange little islands when Olympic Blvd was pushed through the 20th Century Fox lot in the 1930's:

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  #11314  
Old Posted Jan 3, 2013, 6:06 PM
Silverlaker Silverlaker is offline
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[QUOTE=GaylordWilshire;5950138]Los Angeles Times July 30,1933





Just back from holiday break and what a surprise to see your post Gaylord. I have a photo of my grandfather taken right on the spot (male in pic with tennis racket next to my great grandmother...current Google map street view inset looking north on Longwood Ave with a house on 9th in the background...the Hunter's house would be just to the passenger side of their car). They lived close to that house in the article on Longwood (not sure how many down from the Hunters). Wonder if they knew the Hunters and if their house had the creek as well. I wish he was still around to ask!

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  #11315  
Old Posted Jan 3, 2013, 8:52 PM
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MichaelRyerson MichaelRyerson is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rcarlton View Post
Have a cast list for "The Searchers" with everyone's address and phone number. I'll list a few for fun...Some of the addresses are not so glamorous, like ole Mose Harper's (Hank Warden).
Technically, to be fair to ole Mose, his name is spelled Worden.
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  #11316  
Old Posted Jan 3, 2013, 11:23 PM
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GaylordWilshire GaylordWilshire is offline
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LAT


The building that housed the Taft Realty Co. and later became the Lawlor Professional School and then Reginald Denny's hobby shop replaced an earlier Taft office....
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  #11317  
Old Posted Jan 4, 2013, 12:14 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tovangar2 View Post
Checking out the relationship between the Santa Fe Station (upper right) and the Arcade/Central site (lower left) on the 1909 map, I got focused on the out-of-kilter block directly between them:

http://www.bigmapblog.com/2011/birds...f-los-angeles/

It's still there:

google maps

I was wondering if it was an old estate, a hold-out or even a hill, but I cannot find an older map that solves this one for me. It may just be the result of two grid systems crashing into each other as the city grew.
tovangar2: The tract descriptions on this block are called the "Mills and Wicks Extension of Second Avenue and Adjoining Subdivisions". Possibly it was created as an extension of Second Street in order to reach that Santa Fe Freight House on the old map. I used to drive by this area every day and never noticed anything peculiar because it now follows along side of Fourth Street which is the main commuting route from the 5 and 101 freeway exits in Boyle Hts. into Little Tokyo and downtown L.A.
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  #11318  
Old Posted Jan 4, 2013, 12:26 AM
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ethereal_reality ethereal_reality is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tovangar2 View Post
Nice that the big palm was included on the panoramic map view:

ulwaf.com
Somewhere in one of my old files I have a photograph of the big palm being transported to the Arcade Depot site.
I'll have to look for it.

As for now, here is the big palm from a stereo-view found on ebay. I wonder what the sign says at it's base?


detail of stereo-view




sopas_ej posted this wonderful photograph of the vast train shed of the Arcade Depot back in Nov. 2009.



__






below: This is from an earlier post of mine, also back in 2009.



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  #11319  
Old Posted Jan 4, 2013, 12:39 AM
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ethereal_reality ethereal_reality is offline
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originally posted by Los Angeles Past

http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/

I am amazed that these two pillars have survived! Thanks Scott.
__

Silverlaker, great photograph of your grandfather.

Last edited by ethereal_reality; Jan 4, 2013 at 3:04 AM.
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  #11320  
Old Posted Jan 4, 2013, 12:44 AM
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ethereal_reality ethereal_reality is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lwize View Post

(photo: LAPL)




Here is an illustrated postcard I found on ebay.





reverse


It's odd how they pre-wrote the sentiment.
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