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  #2381  
Old Posted Dec 31, 2010, 4:00 PM
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I've always been a sucker for a good montage.
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  #2382  
Old Posted Dec 31, 2010, 7:48 PM
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Ramona Boulevard

Quote:
Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire View Post

Ramona Parkway


From This Was Pacific Electric, written and directed by Thom Eberhardt. Sky City Productions, Inc.: www.skycityproductions.com

I've been intrigued by this view since it was posted, and it's inspired me to do a little sleuthing of my own.

Seeing this road referred to as "Ramona Parkway" and "Ramona Freeway" in past posts got me to wondering. When exactly was it built? Where did Ramona Boulevard/Parkway originally begin and end? Rather than being lazy and just asking here, I decided to find out for myself.

Ramona Boulevard (at bottom on map) was constructed from 1933-1935. It originated at Aliso Street a few hundred feet past Mission Road. The parkway section first passed under the Macy Street viaduct, then continued east approximately 4 miles until thru traffic turned onto Garvey Pass Avenue.

Renie Atlas, "Victory Edition," May, 1943.


View east on Aliso Street at its intersection with Mission Road (foreground) and Summit Avenue (far right) before its widening for the construction of Ramona Boulevard, November 27, 1933.

USC Digital Library http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search.../chs-m708.html


The new east road is open to traffic, April 15, 1935.

USC Digital Library http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search.../chs-m709.html


U.S. Highway 101 at Mission Road looking east, 2009.

Google Maps

More to follow.

-Scott

Post on my blog here.

Last edited by Los Angeles Past; Dec 25, 2017 at 8:44 AM. Reason: Repaired broken image links
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  #2383  
Old Posted Dec 31, 2010, 7:49 PM
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Ramona Boulevard Construction

View northeast along proposed route of Ramona Boulevard, from Macy Street viaduct, November 15, 1933.

USC Digital Library http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search.../chs-m700.html


Earthmoving for the construction of Ramona Boulevard, June 4, 1934.

USC Digital Library http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search.../chs-m701.html


Completed Ramona Boulevard from the Macy Street viaduct, April, 16, 1935.

USC Digital Library http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search.../chs-m702.html




View northeast showing the proposed Ramona Boulevard from a point 100 feet north of the intersection of Mitchell and Echandia Streets, November 15, 1933.

USC Digital Library http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search.../chs-m705.html


Site cleared for construction, c.1934.

USC Digital Library http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search.../chs-m706.html


Ramona Boulevard after completion, April 16, 1935.

USC Digital Library http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search.../chs-m707.html

-Scott

Post on my blog here.

Last edited by Los Angeles Past; Dec 25, 2017 at 8:45 AM. Reason: Repaired broken image links
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  #2384  
Old Posted Dec 31, 2010, 7:49 PM
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Ramona Boulevard Extras

The arroyo where Ramona Boulevard would soon be built. Looking westward from the vicinity of State Street, November 30, 1933.

USC Digital Library http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search...chs-m3935.html


All of the overpasses shown below (except the one at Pomeroy Ave.) were still intact until the very early 1970s, when the three then-existing lanes of the San Bernardino Freeway were widened to more.


Traveling eastbound on Ramona, the first overpass after Macy was the State Street viaduct. April 16, 1935.

USC Digital Library http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search...chs-m3937.html


View back towards town from atop the State St. viaduct.

USC Digital Library
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search...chs-m4105.html


Next overpass eastbound was the pedestrian bridge at Pomeroy Avenue (c.1934-1939).

USC Digital Library http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search...chs-m3939.html


Continuing east on Ramona, the overpasses for Marengo Street (foreground) and Soto (rear).

USC Digital Library http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search...chs-m3938.html


Aftermath of an auto accident, viewed from the Herbert Ave. (City Terrace) overpass, August 2, 1951.

USC Digital Library http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search...ner-m4086.html

-Scott

More info in my blog post here.

Last edited by Los Angeles Past; Dec 25, 2017 at 8:47 AM. Reason: Repaired broken image links
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  #2385  
Old Posted Dec 31, 2010, 7:50 PM
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Views SW from the Macy Street viaduct, 1933-present

View southwest from the Macy Street viaduct showing the proposed route of Ramona Boulevard, November 15, 1933.

USC Digital Library http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search.../chs-m703.html


View southwest from the Macy Street viaduct showing Ramona Boulevard upon completion, April 16, 1935.

USC Digital Library http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search.../chs-m704.html


Our sopas_ej posted these comparative views earlier this month which fit right in the sequence here...

Quote:
Originally Posted by sopas ej View Post
I thought I'd do a then and now. Or rather, a then, then and now.

Santa Ana/San Bernardino Fwy merge east of downtown LA, circa 1950-1951 (?). Notice the PE tracks and tunnel. I believe the PE stopped running here in 1950. Or was it '51? Hmm.

USC Archive


Santa Ana/San Bernardino Fwy merge east of downtown LA, circa 1955.

USC Archive


Santa Ana/San Bernardino Fwy merge east of downtown LA, December 11, 2010.

Photo by me
-Scott

More info in my blog post here.

Last edited by Los Angeles Past; Dec 25, 2017 at 8:50 AM. Reason: Repaired broken image links
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  #2386  
Old Posted Dec 31, 2010, 8:42 PM
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Scott-- thanks for that amazing Ramona visual history-- I love that the "HOEPPEL - CONGRESS" sign managed to survive the road construction, at least as far as it got in the first two shots below.
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  #2387  
Old Posted Dec 31, 2010, 9:18 PM
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Well done Scott! Extremely interesting and insightful post.
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  #2388  
Old Posted Dec 31, 2010, 10:06 PM
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Yet another glass negative from ebay.








below: Details from the above photo.







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  #2389  
Old Posted Dec 31, 2010, 10:18 PM
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Awhile back, when we were taking a look at the apartment buildings of North Rossmore (the Mauretania, El Royale, Ravenswood etc), I came across a few shots of a vanished hotel at #445 (on the site of something new called the Marlowe--whether named after Philip, I don't know). The library tags hint at some juicy, noirish goings-on at the Country Club Hotel (also sometimes referred to as the Country Club Villas), an interesting midcentury hacienda that apparently didn't last much past midcentury. I haven't found much about it online. (And what was there between the Country Club and the Marlowe?) Anyone?


Those bathtub Dodges parked in front definitely enhance the scene...
LAPL http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics40/00054908.jpg

Per the LAPL: "A rousing legal battle loomed today over the future of the swank $2,000,000 Country Club Hotel on Rossmore and Rosewood Avenues, which yesterday was ordered demolished or removed by Judge Vernon W. Hunt. Co-operator Maurice Miller, sentenced to jail on charge of violation of building codes, says he'll seek right to keep hotel open. Photo dated: February 25, 1950."




Penthouse dwellers at the El Royale apparently had quite the floor show across
Rossmore... well, maybe with binoculars.
AP/Examiner/USC Digital Library http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assets...OS-ANG-MIS-008

Per USC: "Photograph of the pool courtyard of the Country Club Villa hotel. This is the swimming pool around which he saw 'drunken women fighting,' declared Municipal Judge Vernon W. Hunt as he yesterday ordered complete demolition of the $1,000,000 Country Club Villa at 445 North Rossmore avenue. The newly constructed hotel is an 'architectural monstrosity,' he added. Wrong type of permit has been charged. Dated February 25, 1950."
Also: "This is the luxurious Country Club Villa, completed in Los Angeles recently at a cost of $2,000,000, which an iratic [sic] judge ordered torn down or moved to another location. Two owners, Maurice and Zimmel Miller, were charged with building the place without a permit, failing to obtain a certificate of occupancy, maintaining a public nuisance, and operating a cafe, night club and swimming pool in violation of zoning ordinances. The judge, after a personal survey, termed the hotel a 'glorified quickie motel.'" So apparently no one noticed this huge place going up smack in the middle of Los Angeles without a permit....




LAPL http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics40/00054913.jpg
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  #2390  
Old Posted Dec 31, 2010, 10:18 PM
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^^^ I remember the story about that hotel, but I certainly didn't realize it was on North Rossmore.






Glass negative available on ebay.







below: Details from the above photo.














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  #2391  
Old Posted Dec 31, 2010, 11:53 PM
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ok.... was not gonna post until tomorrow.........(i jumped on a friends pc at the party that i am already a tad toasty at)...........(s'cuze me)


scott, your posts on the ramona parkway are simply incredible..................

and with that... a very happy and healthy new years to all

(wad he sayd......)
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  #2392  
Old Posted Jan 1, 2011, 4:50 PM
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USC Digital Library http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assets...-9471-021?v=hr

Charlene Bowers shows some leg--well, some leg in long underwear--during what must have been a chilly Rose Parade on January 1, 1952. Happy New Year.
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  #2393  
Old Posted Jan 1, 2011, 8:41 PM
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Happy New Year everyone!

Los Angeles Past, thank you very much for your posts on the Ramona Parkway!

When I first read about it a few years ago on that Topics and Tales link from the LADOT (I posted the link a while back, I don't remember which page of the thread), I became a little curious/obsessed with the Ramona Parkway, because of its history, its status as a sort of "proto-freeway," which is now of course a part of the federal Interstate Highway System as I-10 (such a clinical, unromantic name for a system of highways). I was very surprised to learn that this bridge (which of course I stood on when I took a picture of the San Bernardino Fwy/Santa Ana Fwy merge looking towards downtown LA):


(From This Was Pacific Electric, written and directed by Thom Eberhardt. Sky City Productions, Inc.: www.skycityproductions.com)

was built in 1910 (BTW Gaylord, I love this image). It actually predates any roadway and freeway that went/goes beneath it. I thought it was originally built to go over the railroad tracks; I never thought that maybe it was built to go over a wash or arroyo. Your posts show that it was. It made me look it up, and apparently it was built to go over a dry wash called the Arroyo de Los Posos.

In September I got a new job in Rosemead, which is 8 miles from where I live. I use the San Bernardino Freeway for my commute. Metrolink tracks and trains run down the center of the stretch of that freeway I drive to and from work. I used to find it odd that there would be railroad tracks down the center of that freeway, but I've come to realize that that railway predates the freeway.

Here's a shot of the railroad tracks down the center of the San Bernardino Freeway in 1958, courtesy of the USC Archive. It was captioned as a train derailment.


The name "Ramona" exists vestigially as Ramona Blvd. along some stretches of street that parallel the 10 Fwy/San Bernardino Fwy in that area.
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  #2394  
Old Posted Jan 1, 2011, 11:51 PM
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I was hoping someone would know the name of that arroyo! I was also curious just how old the Macy St. viaduct was. I couldn't find that info during my Ramona searches. Thanks!

-Scott

Last edited by Los Angeles Past; Jun 12, 2012 at 8:15 PM.
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  #2395  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2011, 4:25 AM
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Ramona Blvd. footnotes

Glad you guys liked the Ramona Boulevard posts! I sure enjoyed assembling those images. I grew up in the East San Gabriel Valley in the 1960s, so the old Ramona/Garvey/U.S. 99 route into Downtown is a long-standing interest of mine.

Here's some additional information I just found:


Screencap from California Highways website (cahighways.org), text itself quoted from Transportation Topics and Tales: Milestones in Transportation History in Southern California" by John E. Fisher.

Actually, that Transportation Topics PDF deserves to be more than a footnote. There's a wealth of information there about many important Los Angeles roads.

-Scott

Last edited by Los Angeles Past; Dec 25, 2017 at 8:52 AM. Reason: Repaired broken image link
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  #2396  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2011, 2:31 PM
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Sunset on 99

A Ramona postscript of sorts - here's U.S. Highway 99 (San Bernardino Freeway) as viewed looking west from the Barranca Ave. overpass, c.1959. I started at Barranca School in Covina for K-6 that same year, only two city blocks to the right from this vantage point.


From "Covina, California," a civil brochure by Wolfer Printing Company, Inc., 416 Wall Street, Los Angeles 13.

To orient current Angelinos, this is I-10 just as you come down out of the San Jose Hills into the San Gabriel Valley from the east. Today, on the left, where that offramp used to be, is an In-N-Out Burger. At right is the landmark Eastland mall, though it looks radically different now than it did 50 years ago (see for yourself below).

Incidentally, behind those palms to the right of center is the googie classic restaurant - Paul Cummins's "Huddle." While it was a very fashionable-looking eatery, my mom never liked the place, so we rarely ate there. The service was always slow, and I believe I actually learned the word "mediocre" at this restaurant from Mom, who used it to describe the Huddle's food.


My own postcard.

The Huddle was a local institution, and it was there the whole time I was growing up. It closed in the early '70s after I went off to college. The building was then remodeled beyond recognition into a sporting goods superstore. In the '80s, it was turned into a T.G.I. Fridays, and I think it might still be a Fridays today.

Anyway, here's a nice color view of Eastland from the same time period, which I found just last night. It's appropriately seasonal, too!


http://westcovinalapuentebaldwinpark.blogspot.com/

-Scott

Last edited by Los Angeles Past; Dec 25, 2017 at 8:55 AM. Reason: Repaired broken image links
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  #2397  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2011, 5:38 PM
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Great photos! Very interesting for me, too; I've seen old photos of early regional shopping centers/malls like Crenshaw Plaza and the Lakewood Mall, but I've never seen a ground level photo of an early freeway-adjacent shopping mall. According to the link you provided, it's the first SoCal freeway-adjacent shopping center. The shots of the freeway are great too, with the little black freeway sign in the center median with no guardrail or barrier of any kind. This is also interesting to me because I used to work briefly in that area, in West Covina, adjacent to the West Covina Plaza. At first I thought the Huddles was where the Hooters is now, but I realized I was thinking of the wrong shopping center.

Since I had no plans this morning, I was gonna drive out to the Eastland Center and perhaps do a now and then set of photos, but it's very cold and cloudy today with a chance of rain; maybe another time.
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  #2398  
Old Posted Jan 3, 2011, 12:29 AM
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This afternoon I was all into the Eastland Center. According to that link you provided, Scott, noted LA architect Albert C. Martin designed the Eastland Center, and it opened in 1957.

Here are a few more Eastland Center shots:

1958

westcovinalapuentebaldwinpark.blogspot.com

What I find interesting is that collection of retail: Clifton's Cafeteria, Thom McCan and the Harris & Frank. I would've expected a Florsheim and See's Candies. The family in the parking lot is great, too. And is that a guy in back of them tying his shoe on the bumper of that car? I'll assume that it's his car. There's also something I find contemporary about the aisle number sign.

March, 1958. The May Company at the Eastland Center was knocked down some time in the late 1990s. A Target and Burlington Coat Factory now occupy the site.

westcovinalapuentebaldwinpark.blogspot.com

Eastland Center mall, 1958. Ultra-modern back then, I'm sure.

westcovinalapuentebaldwinpark.blogspot.com

Here's downtown Covina in 1952, Christmastime. My assumption is that the malls that were built in West Covina left downtown Covina languishing for some decades afterwards? Today, downtown Covina is a cute area, and also has a Metrolink station. That Covina theater is now the Covina Center For the Performing Arts, though to me, the outside of the building looks remodeled; I don't know what the inside looks like.

westcovinalapuentebaldwinpark.blogspot.com
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  #2399  
Old Posted Jan 3, 2011, 12:49 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sopas ej View Post
This afternoon I was all into the Eastland Center. According to that link you provided, Scott, noted LA architect Albert C. Martin designed the Eastland Center, and it opened in 1957.

Here are a few more Eastland Center shots:

1958

westcovinalapuentebaldwinpark.blogspot.com

What I find interesting is that collection of retail: Clifton's Cafeteria, Thom McCan and the Harris & Frank. I would've expected a Florsheim and See's Candies. The family in the parking lot is great, too. And is that a guy in back of them tying his shoe on the bumper of that car? I'll assume that it's his car. There's also something I find contemporary about the aisle number sign.

Here's downtown Covina in 1952, Christmastime. My assumption is that the malls that were built in West Covina left downtown Covina languishing for some decades afterwards? Today, downtown Covina is a cute area, and also has a Metrolink station. That Covina theater is now the Covina Center For the Performing Arts, though to me, the outside of the building looks remodeled; I don't know what the inside looks like.

westcovinalapuentebaldwinpark.blogspot.com

See's Candy was on the north side of Eastland, right next to May Co. I'm pretty sure there was a Florsheim's, but I definitely remember Comar's, which is where Mom bought all my shoes. (Incidentally, they had one of those notorious foot X-Ray machines in Comar's for years.)

Downtown Covina did get a bit run down after Eastland and West Covina Plaza got built, but it never completely lost its ability to attract shoppers. (As opposed to places like the Pomona Mall, which became an effective ghost town in the '70s.) And Eastland itself suffered when West Covina Plaza expanded in the mid-'70s to become a regional mall. Eastland became so deserted in the 1980s that I fully expected the entire site to be razed and developed into condos. Seeing what the mall there looks like now, though, I almost wish that scenario had come true.

Thanks for those old hometown pics, sopas_ej! I'd thought about posting them here myself, but ya beat me to it. ^^

-Scott

Last edited by Los Angeles Past; Dec 25, 2017 at 8:56 AM. Reason: Corrected spelling of "Comar's"
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  #2400  
Old Posted Jan 3, 2011, 1:09 AM
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FWIW, I was watching some of the Three Stooges this weekend and thanks to this thread I found myself looking into the background to find clues of their shooting locations. I'm not as well versed as many of you on the individual buildings, but I noticed a couple traffic signs with the "Auto Club of So. Cal." on them (both the logo and written out).
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