noirish Los Angeles

[John Maddox Roberts]

Great stuff, riichkay, and welcome to the forum. I contribute little except reminiscences of L.A./Pasadena in the '50s, but it's by far the most addictive forum I've ever found.

[tovangar2]

Originally Posted by HossC

lacity.org (PDF file)

The Belmont Hotel (built 1884; destroyed by fire in 1887), current site of Belmont HS, and the Ellis College for girls (built in 1886, burnt down 1888) are on the left. The line of trees at center, coming down the slope, marks the former site of Second Street Park. Mount Lee (current location of the Hollywood Sign) and Mount Hollywood (Griffith Park Observatory is below the peak) are on the right.

Pls see Flyingwedge's excellent post here for the newspaper accounts.

LA Fire has a post on the Belmont Hotel fire, but they mis-locate it on Bunker Hill (they've promised to correct it, but haven't yet)

[CityBoyDoug]

Originally Posted by riichkay

I have been lurking on this forum for a couple of years. You guys are so good at identifying "mystery" locations that I never had anything to contribute.

Well, finally, I have a chance to help out. The coffee shop pictured here is located at 8445 W. 3rd St., just east of La Cienega. When I went to work at this corner in 1974 the subject property was Gottfried's Deli. I was in the place hundreds of times. The Shulman photos are apparently tagged "demolished" according to the original post, so Gottfried's Deli I guess was a completely different bldg. But I don't know, the interior of Gottfied's was laid out just like this place.

Poster HossC is precisely right, he guessed that the bldg to the left of the subject was a Mode O'Day location in 1956. In 1974 old timers in the neighborhood told me that was the case. When I worked there the bldg had been converted to office space, as the Mode O'Day usage was more of a warehouse, from what I was told.

In the 3rd photo down you can see in the distance, between Johnny's and the Mode O'Day bldg, some of the offices of Dart Square. Of course on the Beverly/La Cienega corner of Dart Square was the Rexall store (Rexall, Owl Drug etc were all part of the Justin Dart empire, he really established the model for the modern drug store). Dart was also instrumental in the political career of Ronald Reagan.

I worked on the ground floor of the old Mode O'Day bldg for the now defunct Transamerica Title Insurance Co. Yes, that Transamerica, founded by A.P. Giannini, as a holding company for B of A. The people in the S.F. pyramid.

The 2nd floor of the building, when I was there, was the offices of David L. Wolper Productions. In about 1976, we saw actors like LeVar Burton hanging around the Wolper office. We were told that Wolper had a project in the works, a TV mini series of an Alex Haley novel called "Roots". I think you all know the rest of that story.

At the far end of the Mode O'Day/Transamerica/Wolper bldg, right at the La Cienega corner, was United California Bank, which later became First Interstate Bank.

Across 3rd street from Gottfied's Deli was a Chuck's Steak House location. That was demolished for an office bldg in the early '80's. Across from the parking lot you see here was a variety of small retail bldgs, including the space for The Record Plant recording studio, one of the busiest studios at that time. It was the first "living room" type studio. The address was 8456 W. 3rd. Long since torn down and assembled with adjacent properties for a strip mall.

Look up the Wikipedia page for The Record Plant, every big name in the industry was there in the '70's. The Wiki page tells the story of one of the studio's owners, Gary Kellgren, who had a noirish death. He drowned at his home in '77, along with his secretary/girlfriend. There's also a photo of the front of the building during a 1978 fire.

The Gottfried's Deli bldg is still standing, it's still a restaurant. The Mode O'Day/Transamerica bldg is now retail, TJ Maxx etc is in there, part of the Beverly Connection development. As are the Dart Square bldgs, all of which were torn down for what I have always thought was a pretty awful mall.

Good report Riichkay!!!

My guess is that the current Sushi Roku [at the right in photo] restaurant is the remnants of the old Johnny's. The location is the same.



GSV

[Wig-Wag]

Once upon a time along San Fernando Road.

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

Since we've been sleuthing around the San Fernando Road area I thought I'd finally post these screen-grabs taken from a train in 1946.

From my days as a San Fernando Valley resident I have been able to identify a few additional locations.


#1



SOIL OFF (with giant blinking can) Identified by Henry Huntington as 4860 San Fernando Road, Glendale (this is between Colorado Blvd and Goodwin Sts.


#2


//imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/633/oLF8w2.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

below: a bus waiting at that intersection. (with it's door open) Identified by HH as Asbury Rapid Transit.

#15



below: a bar/cafe (lighted Pabst Blue Ribbon sign?), and auto wreckers yrd.

ALL AUTO WRECKING survived along with its neighbor up the street - BROKEN DRUM AUTO WRECKING (You Can't Beat It), into the 1970s. I bought parts from both in the 1960's.

#17




below: a couple of impressive buildings. (the one on the left might be a garage) I really like the building on the right. Although heavily altered this building still stands 5406 No. SFR, just north of California Street.

#21






below: interesting sign with arrow (but I can't make out what it says ) - While I can't read the top line the bottom says MATERIALS CENTER.

#24



below: Nursery building with nice lighting on the facade (it's blocked by a semi hauling a giant pod ) -spooky. Giant pod may be coming from the set of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.


#27




below: a bridge (for reference) This is bridging a creek that empties into the LA River a few feet north of the Ventura Freeway and is still there today.

#29


below: Valley Wrecking and Lumber Company Building is still there but heavily altered. It is on the west side of SFR just south of Roscoe Hardware at Tunjunga, Ave.

#37


A personal note on the filming. I believe the production crew boarded their train at Glendale Station, and rode as far as San Fernando Station before returning on another train. The first two and one half minutes takes us along SFR from Colorado and Goodwin to SFR and Grandview where the track diverges from SFR until it passes Hollywood Burbank Airport,where it parallels SFR once again.

Extensive rebuilding an development has heavily changed the look of the area and altered or eliminated many of the buildings seen in the film

Cheers,
Jack

Watch the video here:
https://archive.org/details/PET0981_R-5#


OK, I just realized there are two videos. In this one the train is really hauling ass.
https://archive.org/details/PET0981_R-3_LA

The film-makers were probably sent back out and told to get on a slower train. lol.


__

[Noircitydame]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

And now, a year after the post above, we finally get to see inside that second-story colonnade!



-just found on eBay.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Post...cAAOSw4UtWQ-Vi

Postmarked 1933.
_

Colonnade, Cinderella Roof, Sixth at Olive

Nice to see that- wow!

Then all those colonnades went away a few years later as part of its 1935 moderne makeover.

usc

2024035 lat

It reminded me that almost directly across the park at 415 W. 5th was another one-time Wal Wilson dance hall with open-air balconies and roof garden, a little building glimpsed in photos of the Philharmonic Auditorium and/or the California Club/Title Guarantee & Trust. Built c. 1906 and originally housed the Los Angeles Business College.

postcard of 415 W. 5th as LA Business College (files)

Wal Wilson had it by 1920 thru 1926 for sure 1925

In 1931 State Mutual Building & Loan Association bought it and had William Richards give it a moderne facelift. It lost the balconies but still had the roof garden.

10-4-1931 lat


csl

close up of the entrance with its spectacular, deco fire-escapes:
csl

The interior main floor:
csl

[Noircitydame]

Originally Posted by HossC

I could only find a couple of mentions of the Larronde Block on NLA, and no good pictures. This undated image shows the New Times Building in the background.

The Larronde Block was a wedge-shaped building opposite the Hotel Nadeau on the corner of 1st and Spring. There was also a Larronde Building nearby on Spring Street. I've highlighted both on the 1910 Baist map below.

No better pictures to add and little info

C. 1931 with the State Office Building under construction. The Nadeau Hotel seen here would be demolished in 1931 to make way for the new (1935) Times Building.


The Larronde Blk (Juana Larronde) was demolished in January 1932 to make way for the approach/landscaping for the State Office Building. Mullen & Bluett had their first store in the Larronde.

State Office Building under construction c. 1931

The other 19th century buildings on the north side of this block hung on for several more years while the city, state and property owners duked out various disputes in court.

[Flyingwedge]

Originally Posted by tovangar2

The Belmont Hotel (built 1884; destroyed by fire in 1887), current site of Belmont HS, and the Ellis College for girls (built in 1886, burnt down 1888) are on the left.

Pls see Flyingwedge's excellent post here for the newspaper accounts.

LA Fire has a post on the Belmont Hotel fire, but they mis-locate it on Bunker Hill (they've promised to correct it, but haven't yet)

Thanks, t2.

GW posted photos of the Ellis Villa College/Belmont Hotel and the fire photo: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=5408

And e_r posted an amazing photo looking west from that building: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=19458

Here's a little more background on Ellis Villa College. Its finances were apparently shaky from the start.
The college was supposed to be financed from the sale of donated lots, but the lots were not donated
(in the italicized text below, I believe "and lots" should be "land lots"):



Nov 4 1884 LA Times @ ProQuest via LAPL


If Rev. Ellis could find someone to lease Ellis Villa College as a hotel, he would build a smaller, cheaper
building next door and move his college there:



Apr 9 1886 LA Times @ ProQuest via LAPL


More on the conversion of the original college building into a hotel:




Apr 17 1886 LA Herald @ LOC -- http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lc...17/ed-1/seq-6/


Architects William Boring and Sidney Haas designed the original Ellis Villa College, the expansion and conversion
of the building into the Belmont Hotel, and also the second smaller, cheaper Ellis College building:



Apr 21 1886 LA Times @ ProQuest via LAPL


Here's Rev. Ellis' second, smaller college building. I believe a sign on the front between the second and third
floors says "The Ellis College." As t2 noted, it opened in September 1886 and burned down in July 1888:



Los Angeles, Illustrated (1889) @ HathiTrust -- http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?i...iew=1up;seq=13

[HossC]

Welcome to the thread, riichkay. Thanks for giving us the location of Johnnys and all your personal memories of the area. Armed with the address, I went looking for more information. The building seems to have been built in 1955. There's no digital copy of the building permit, but I did manage to find this December 1955 application for signage at Johnny's Restaurant. It looks like the signage in the Shulman pictures.



Online Building Records

Johnnys doesn't appear in the City Directories. The 1960 and 1961 CDs list Jan's Restaurant at 8445 W 3rd Street. For 1962 and 1963, the name becomes Jon's Restaurant. Gottfried's first appears in the 1964 CD. The March 1964 planning application below shows the proposal to change the existing "JONS" sign to "GOTTFRIED'S". Gottfried's is still there in the 1987 CD.



Online Building Records

As mentioned by CityBoyDoug, GSV currently shows Sushi Roku at 8445 W 3rd Street, although The LA Times reported that it was closing in October 2015 after 18 years in business.


GSV

I accidentally found that GSV lets you walk around inside the building. I couldn't find any demolition permits, and showcase.com lists the build date as 1955. I think that the original Johnnys is still under there somewhere.




GSV

[CityBoyDoug]

Originally Posted by HossC

Welcome to the thread, riichkay.

GSV

If you strip away the cool Japanese decor, you'll find Johnny's is still there.

Will there be a new incarnation?

[Noircitydame]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

Interesting information Wig-Wag.





Good sleuthing HH! The Soil-Off building is much nicer than I expected.


gsv


Thanks for your help HenryHuntington!

& good luck with flickr. I hope it works for you today.



__

Originally Posted by HenryHuntington

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Soil...-/121662694887

If this experiment worked, there'll be a regrettably small image of the Soil-Off one-quart can above. However, it can be enlarged when viewed on Ebay.

For anyone who might be interested in vintage packaging like this (or vintage products and/or companies), I found a few more details. The company name, "Soil-Off Manufacturing Co.", pretty much indicates that its namesake product likely was its only one. Ditto the slogan on the back of the can, "Perfected and Established 1932". So the inventor likely was the business owner.

The company filed a trademark application on August 7, 1947; it expired on November 3, 1992. Google Books turned up a mention in a display ad in the San Jose Evening News of September 4, 1944: 60 cents for the one-quart can pictured, $1.00 for the half-gallon glass jar. There's a photo on-line of the half-gallon jar with updated artwork (from the mid/late-1950s, I'd guess):


http://mrsguy.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-days-haul.html

So the company apparently lasted at least that long. A search of the CA Secretary of State's database didn't find a corporate match, but it might not have records from that far back. Ecolab, Inc. sells an industrial strength (literally) cleaner named Soil-Off II, but I don't know if there's a relationship to the original product.

How cool! I have a vintage 32oz bottle of Soil Off but never realized before it was a local product.


The cap says Nyman's Origianal Soil-Off. It has the same info about Glendale CA, est. 1932. It also says "If color fades, do not be alarmed. Atmospheric conditions often affect colors but do not affect cleaning properties of chemicals" Never fear, it's still very orange after all these years.

1937


Do you suppose that neon was orange?

[ethereal_reality]

NCD, I kept referring to the giant Soil-Off sign as a blinking can. Now I see that it was a giant jug/jar.

And perhaps it was bright orange neon!
___


Welcome to the thread riichkay. Thanks for locating Johnnys for us.

[ethereal_reality]

screen-grab /Columbia Pictures, 1946.

Wig-Wag wrote:

"Although heavily altered, this building still stands at 5406 No San Fernando Road, just north of California Street."


And here it is folks!

gsv



I wasn't expecting the terrific balconies. (well, they're not really balconies / what's the term?.....alcove?)

gsv

If you look closely, there's a man seated in the corner. (is that an easel?) Maybe he's a painter*.


Thanks for your help on the locations Jack! It's much appreciated.
__



*OK, maybe he's just using a folding chair as a table for his laptop. (I wanted him to be a painter )

[AlvaroLegido]

The scroll of the latest pages of NLA became practically impossible on my computer so much it was slow-moving. Are the numerous (disabled) videos responsible ?

[HossC]

They're not disabled videos, they're screengrabs of a paused video. I haven't noticed any slow-down on my computer.

-------------------

On a separate issue, some of my recently uploaded images went missing yesterday, and Photobucket couldn't offer any explanation. I re-uploaded about 35 of them last night, and they seem to be fine now. If anyone spots any of my posts with missing images, please PM me. Thanks.

[HossC]

Thanks for identifying my mystery post office, GW. I checked every search result for "post office" in the 1956 CD, but for some reason that one didn't show up, even though the listing is there.

Also, it was great to finally see the inside of the Cinderella Roof, e_r. Thanks. I also enjoyed NCD's follow-up - that Deco fire escape just blends into the building. Speaking of NCD's follow-ups, the 1931 aerial view of the State Building under construction really shows off the wedge-shaped design of the Larronde Block.


-----------------


We've seen Sardi's before on NLA, but I think this Julius Shulman interior shot is new. It's "Job 0106: Sardi's Restaurant (Los Angeles, Calif.), 1940".



The description for this set says "6313 Hollywood Boulevard", which is no surprise, but the other image was obviously taken somewhere else. Unfortunately, this one came with a large black border, so I couldn't zoom in as I usually would, and there's no sign of "Sardi's Wilshire" in the City Directories. It almost looks like a long railroad carriage with streetcar porthole windows on the right. GW, do you know where this was?



Both from Getty Research Institute

[tovangar2]

Originally Posted by HossC

We've seen Sardi's before on NLA, but I think this Julius Shulman interior shot is new. It's "Job 0106: Sardi's Restaurant (Los Angeles, Calif.), 1940".



Getty Research Institute

Thanks for that one

The stars are easier to name here (and fewer of them)!

pinterest

PS

I think the Wilshire address for the other Sardi's is 6594 (no permits).

[ethereal_reality]

From top / Left to right:

Clark Gable
Ginger Rogers
Robert Taylor
Greta Garbo
Tyrone Power
Myrna Loy
William Powell
Marlene Dietrich
Adolph Menjou
Alice Fay
Charlie Chaplin
Joan Crawford.

How'd I do t2!?
__

That art deco light fixture is amazing Hoss,
but I am completely stumped by your second photograph.

[GaylordWilshire]

Originally Posted by HossC

The description for this set says "6313 Hollywood Boulevard", which is no surprise, but the other image was obviously taken somewhere else. Unfortunately, this one came with a large black border, so I couldn't zoom in as I usually would, and there's no sign of "Sardi's Wilshire" in the City Directories. It almost looks like a long railroad carriage with streetcar porthole windows on the right. GW, do you know where this was?



Both from Getty Research Institute

Sardi's Wilshire was at 6594 San Vicente. BP appears to have been issued March 23, 1937. Looks like during the '40s it became--or at least the address became--the Wilshire Seacomber and then Jerry's Joynt....

[HenryHuntington]

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

Sardi's Wilshire was at 6594 San Vicente. BP appears to have been issued March 23, 1937. Looks like during the '40s it became--or at least the address became--the Wilshire Seacomber and then Jerry's Joynt....

Beat me to it, GW. The multistory building behind Sardi's (not the railroadesque "tower") remains at 228 S. Tower Dr., Beverly Hills.

[HenryHuntington]

NCD, it shouldn't amaze me that somebody on NLA would have a bottle of The Very Stuff. But it does. Thanks so much for sharing in your post!

I'm not sure how wide distribution of Soil-Off was (although they apparently got to NorCal), so I can't guess if the blinking sign was the best use of their advertising budget. But as a sucker for art deco industrial buildings with neon signage, I'm really glad they did.