noirish Los Angeles

[tovangar2]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

originally posted by t2

I've wondered for years what was behind the John T. Dye billboards in my 1926 ebay pic.


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Originally Posted by sopas ej

Sunset and Broadway looking south, 1929:

If anyone has a photo of the north portal of the Broadway Tunnel before the regrading/lowering I would love to see it. That would answer some questions.

(The roadbed was lowered 20 ft at the south end and just 3 ft at the north portal. See ProphetM's post here)


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[odinthor]

Originally Posted by Those Who Squirm

Parking spaces now, of course.

The odd angle of at which New High Street issues off the end of Republic is clearly discernible from the shape of the buildings. I remember they were oddly narrow yet tall for their small ground footprints. El Pueblo State Park pamphlets used to identify the buildings here; I remember one of them was supposed to have been built in 1907 and was used for juvenile courts. I believe this was what appears to be a back extension to the Brunswig building. It seemed to have lost whatever decorative features it may have once had, but in spite of its generally dingy appearance, I remember that the door facing New High had the retro gold-leaf lettering you would expect on an old court building.

Although these buildings were in a generally sad state, I certainly wish they might have been preserved for something. And New High is just about gone, now, I think.

Sadly, yes--just about gone--which has made it a kind of pet street of mine. In a three-thousand page compilation of notes I have been putting together on pre-1875 L.A. (hey, I like to keep busy), here, for what it's worth, is the (very short!) entry on this street: "New High Street or Calle Alta Nuevo; in Sonoratown; evidently recent in 1855; often referred to, particularly in the 1850s, as 'High St.' (or 'Alta St.'), but the High St. of slightly later times (1860) was a nearby but entirely different street; see also [...]," at which point there ensues a parade of cross-references three times longer than the previous part of the entry (mostly people who had property on New High at some point). The bit of data about the street comes mostly from stray "in passing" mentions in the Los Angeles Star. The other interesting thing about New High Street, as one gathers from reading newspaper crime reports, was that it was, for a couple of decades, one of the centers for prostitution and the various other adjuncts of the noirish side of Angeleno life. Theories about the origin of the name have a bit of diversity: Originally not a street at all but just the edge of the open land adjacent to the "back fence" of properties on the west side of Main St., and a bit more elevated than Main due to being on the slope of Loma de las Mariposas (Fort Hill), when its status rose into an existence as an actual street, it would have been natural, if unimaginative, to call it the New High Street. I've also read a suggestion which draws on the fact that, in England, what we would tend to call Main Street is called there High Street; but I can't recall how the connection was made between English practices and a new secondary street in L.A. Anyhow, some not-very-good glimpses of the area of what was ca. 1850 not quite yet New High St. can be seen in a few of the illustrations and maps at what I call my Botello site http://web.csulb.edu/~odinthor/botello.html (the William Rich Hutton drawings there are present by special permission of the Huntington Library, which stipulated--and so I have to mention it--that they aren't to be copied or re-used on other sites, not even alas so distinguished a site as NLA). For what it's worth...

[odinthor]

Originally Posted by tovangar2

If anyone has a photo of the north portal of the Broadway Tunnel before the regrading/lowering I would love to see it. That would answer some questions.

(The roadbed was lowered 20 ft at the south end and just 3 ft at the north portal. See ProphetM's post here)


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I wonder if the adobe is one of the ones shown, if semi-microscopically, on the north slope of Fort Hill in the William Rich Hutton 1852 drawing of "City of Los Angeles From the North" image at my (just-mentioned) Botello site, about a fifth of the way down . . . ?

[HossC]

We've seen various hillside houses on NLA, but I can't find any previous mentions of this one under any of its names. In the description, the architect is listed as Richard Spencer, and the house is called Space Retreat. I'll cover the alternate names below. This is Julius Shulman's "Job 974: Richard Spencer, Space Retreat (Los Angeles, Calif.), 1951".



Here's a view from the side.



The supporting arch is an integral part of the interior.







I thought the Wolf's Lair had a good view, but this takes some beating.



The view's still pretty good at night.



There are two color shots in the photoset. The second is obviously the area in the side view above, but I'm having trouble working out where the first might have been taken.





All from Getty Research Institute

I found the color shot below at ncmodernist.org. They only credit their top photo to Julius Shulman, but the magazines on the table are the same here as in the black and white pictures above. It's not in the Getty Collection. The article is about Richard Spencer, and this house appears about 1/3 of the way down the page. From the article:

"1950 - The Leslie (Les) C. Guthrie, Jr. House, aka Hillside House, aka Space Retreat, aka Spencer House II, 8600 Hillside Avenue, Los Angeles CA. Guthrie, one of the first engineering graduates from UCLA, designed this with Spencer and did most of the construction. The house was cantilevered out from the hill with a 60-foot arch made of laminated Douglas fir, electronically glued.

Frank Gehry was a student at the time and worked on the house with Guthrie and Spencer. Guthrie did other houses, including 4860 Ambrose Avenue, built in 1952 and featured in DWELL July 2012."

NB. I've adjusted the colors and removed some of the dirt from this image.


www.ncmodernist.org

The article also includes a link to a 40-second British Pathé film about the house.

As noted in the article above, the house is still there, although it's been expanded several times over the years. I'm sure it's a lovely place to live, but I miss the precarious hanging nature of the original design.


Google Maps

I did a quick check to see if any of the property websites had more recent pictures, but the house was last sold in 1996 for $780,000. The description at redfin.com includes the line "Nearby coffee shops include Starbucks, Shred Cafe and Starbucks." The house is now valued at over $2m - is this really the type of information that potential buyers of this type of house want to know these days?

[tovangar2]

Originally Posted by odinthor

I wonder if the adobe is one of the ones shown, if semi-microscopically, on the north slope of Fort Hill in the William Rich Hutton 1852 drawing of "City of Los Angeles From the North" image at my (just-mentioned) Botello site, about a fifth of the way down . . . ?

The eastern-most adobe in the Hutton drawing looks like it could be it. A deep history of that little, vanished house would be nice, but I don't think we'll ever know it.

Thanks for the link

[ethereal_reality]

I have a few photographs of the Space Retreat house (including the first in your post with the man in the window), and the living room.
--but had no idea there were also amazing color photographs!


originally posted by HossC

I love how the couch matches the fireplace and the legs of the coffee table.

but I can't figure out what color it is exactly.


https://www.pinterest.com

[ethereal_reality]

noirish view of Sunset Blvd. Exit, Hollywood Freeway [c.1955]


http://aconversationoncool.tumblr.com/post/47757460946

[ethereal_reality]

I happened across this photograph this past July on eBay.

"Fairy Tale House, Los Angeles"



We have visited numerous fairy tale/storybook houses on NLA, but I don't recall this one. (but then again, I don't recall a lot of things)

Is that an airplane on the weather-vane?
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[Beaudry]

Hey all! General announcement that I think may be of interest to the group. This Thursday evening—November 5th—is a swell fundraiser to benefit Angels Flight:



I'm sure you're all familiar with Fritz Lang's 1931 German Expressionist masterpiece M, replete with darkness and shadow; when it came time for Nebenzal to remake the picture in America, what was more noir than Weimar Berlin? Sunlit postwar Los Angeles is what.

I might add that a certain noirish contributor (ahem!) will be on stage presenting a little song & dance about Bunker Hill, and screening a compilation of some of AF's cinema appearances. It isn't every day you get to see clips from All Jazzed Up (1920) and 1966 Perry Mason episodes on the big screen at the Million Dollar! More information here.

To wet the collective NLA whistle, here are a few screengrabs from the film. There's a lot of Old LA to love. For example, they hang out by the gasometers:



(And remember, this is a brand-new print struck by the Library of Congress, it's going to look amazing up there...plus that's Raymond Burr in the fedora.)

They run around the OPP:





...but it's the Bunker Hill location shooting that stands out. As in, rare interior shots of former-home-of-John-Fante the Alta Vista:



And this young lass is roller skating in front of 314-16 S Grand:


pc

She falls and hurts her foot, and nice man helps her up, but this lady, gripped by child-killer fever, runs off to the garage next door to fetch help...no good deed goes unpunished.


pc
(Didn't somebody on this thread once say their parents, or grandparents, ran this garage? Looked for but couldn't find that post.)

This one I wondered about quite a bit when I had my crummy DVD someone ripped off a third-generation Beta tape...but with some higher resolution and a little ingenuity...



Turn the window around to reveal...



AHA!


The 800 block of W 3rd, which we've seen before.

And on and on...David Wayne lives in the Foss-Heindel; he hangs out on the Third & BHA benches; much of the final third of the picture is set in the Bradbury, where they go about destroying everything, which has to be seen to be believed. More pix here.

But I'll leave y'all with this stumper:


Didn't have any luck with my last mystery location, perhaps better luck with this one.

A nightclub with "NGOV" (?) in its name? Where Clyde Hurley apparently blew his trumpet.

[tovangar2]

Originally Posted by Beaudry

Didn't have any luck with my last mystery location, perhaps better luck with this one.

A nightclub with "NGOV" (?) in its name? Where Clyde Hurley apparently blew his trumpet.

That's the Hangover, 1456 Vine at Leland Way, much discussed here.

[unihikid]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

I happened across this photograph this past July on eBay.

"Fairy Tale House, Los Angeles"



We have visited numerous fairy tale/storybook houses on NLA, but I don't recall this one. (but then again, I don't recall a lot of things)

Is that an airplane on the weather-vane?
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I sure wish i could find out who designed that house, i know the floor plan very well,these houses are all around the pico/fairfax area i grew up in. you walk into the turret,then the living room,to the left is the dinning room(which is the center set of windows) and if you keep going left is the kitchen(the eft window..and notice the kitchen door)..bedrooms are in the back. They have these tudors and the spanish style one but with the same floor plans.

[ethereal_reality]

And the shingles are a work of art!
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I searched the thread for "Earl's" & "Litehouse" with no result. -so I believe this is new to NLA.

"Fast food restaurant in Hollywood" (no specific address)


http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-fas...-48389383.html

If you look closely, there appears to be a sign behind the mutant coffee pot for an Angelus Hotel (the only Angelus Hotel I know of was located downtown)

[Beaudry]

Originally Posted by tovangar2

That's the Hangover 1456 Vine at Leland Way, much discussed here.

Of COURSE it is! My embarrassment is palpable.

[Noircitydame]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

And the shingles are a work of art!
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I searched the thread for "Earl's" & "Litehouse" with no result. -so I believe this is new to NLA.

"Fast food restaurant in Hollywood" (no specific address)


http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-fas...-48389383.html

If you look closely, there appears to be a sign behind the mutant coffee pot for an Angelus Hotel (the only Angelus Hotel I know of was located downtown)

I think it's Wilmington. The other building looks like it says Wilminton Bowl (boxing etc venue), and Wilmington had an Angelus Hotel, 813 Watson St.


from 1938 online san pedro-wilmonton phone book

[ethereal_reality]

Thanks NoirCityDame! I am surprised to see that there were two Angelus Hotels in the Wilmington/San Pedro area.
Now lets try to dig up some photographs.
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[ethereal_reality]

Beacon Cocktails, Bakerfield CA. (no specific address)


flickriver



While searching for additional information I came across Beacon Liquor at 6495 S. Union Avenue at Panama Lane in Bakersfield.


gsv

I wonder if this is the old Beacon Cocktail Lounge? (and the obvious question is, was it named after a nearby Richfield beacon?)
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I know Bakersfield is quite aways north of Los Angeles, but it's a "L.A. memory" for me
because of the many times my friends and I drove through it on our way to Yosemite.

[ethereal_reality]

While we're in the area.

Here's the Bakerfield Richfield Service Station in 1931. (with the foot of the beacon on the right)

MichaelRyerson

https://www.flickr.com/photos/michae...on/18651902334

...and a noirish story to go along with it.


http://richfieldbeacons.weebly.com/california.html

[ethereal_reality]

Here's the Beardsley School mentioned in the above article.


http://cdn.calisphere.org/data/13030...h7-d3e2915.jpg

[HossC]

Here's Julius Shulman's "Job 500: Warren Williams, Red Snapper Restaurant (Los Angeles County, Calif.),1949". The description tells us that the Red Snapper Restaurant was in Burbank.



The interior shots were really dark, so I've lightened them all to try and reveal a little more detail. I wish Mr Shulman had captured some of these in color.











All from Getty Research Institute

There was no address in the description, so I went Googling. I found this matchbook which calls the restaurant "Clif Herd's Red Snapper" at 826 N La Cienega. The seller dates it as 1950s.
NB. I pieced this together from two separate images.


eBay

The La Cienega address isn't in Burbank, and the location didn't look right in GSV, so I kept looking. This matchbook is also dated as 1950s, so I don't know if it comes before or after the one above. It lists a second address at 4100 Riverside Drive, Toluca Lake, Burbank. This one was made from three separate images.


eBay

Here's the FedEx Office you'll find at 4100 Riverside Drive today. There's no trace of the Red Snapper building, but the curved corner is consistent with the exterior shot above. I was going to check with Historic Aerials, but every search is currently showing the message "Address seem to be invalid" [sic].


GSV

[HossC]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

I searched the thread for "Earl's" & "Litehouse" with no result. -so I believe this is new to NLA.

"Fast food restaurant in Hollywood" (no specific address)


http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-fas...-48389383.html

If you look closely, there appears to be a sign behind the mutant coffee pot for an Angelus Hotel (the only Angelus Hotel I know of was located downtown)

Originally Posted by Noircitydame

I think it's Wilmington. The other building looks like it says Wilmington Bowl (boxing etc venue), and Wilmington had an Angelus Hotel, 813 Watson St.

A picture of an earlier Wilmington Bowl was posted by e_r in post #14825. CityBoyDoug followed up with some history in post #14828. This 1948 image shows the same incarnation of the Wilmington Bowl that's in the background of the Earl's Litehouse picture.

"Longshoremen walked off their jobs, tieing up shipping in the Los Angeles Harbor. Photo shows them filing into the Wilmington Bowl for a Union meeting and report on negotiations."


LAPL

The walls have lost a little height, but the building still stands on Mahar Avenue.


GSV

You'll now find the Right Step Hotel at 813 Watson Avenue. I think this is the first hotel I've seen with a basketball hoop on the front. It currently gets 2.3 stars on Google, and the reviews aren't great.


GSV