noirish Los Angeles

[ethereal_reality]

So you're saying the flagpole survived up to 2014 and then disappeared!? That's just terrible.




Would you do this for $5?


Los Angeles Herald, 9 December 1908

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[Martin Pal]

Originally Posted by Tourmaline

Can two wrongs a right make? Or, who is fooling on April 1?

LA Times Letter to Editor highlights the irony in Lytton Savings receiving the short shrift treatment similar to its predecessor, Garden of Allah. (Los Angeles' first swimming pool located at "The Garden?")

_________________________________________________________________

I can answer that question, bolded above. They weren't around then.

From the L.A. Conservancy's website:
A private, member-based nonprofit, the L.A. Conservancy was formed in 1978 as part of the effort to prevent demolition of the stunning Los Angeles Central Library.

For many reasons, the Lytton Bank building isn't really a building worth saving. It's location, specifically, with a strip mall of small fast food restaurants behind it, does it no favors. What's more of a shame is that the "Lytton Center for Visual Arts" was abandoned so many years ago.

I do hope that the stained glass mural inside the bank is saved as well as the statues outside the bank. I travelled by the building late Saturday night and the stained glass mural inside was lit up and very beautiful.

Frankly, I'd rather have a dozen Lytton buildings in that location, on top of each other if necessary, or even a vacant lot, than anything Frank Gehry designs.

What was the idea behind this, for example?

Gehry: "Here, I designed you a place that looks like a bridge collapsed on it."

Architectural Digest

More like Architectural Indigestion.

I guess you don't have to worry about earthquakes in any of his buildings, they already look like they were destroyed by one.

Architectural Digest


Would you like fries with that?



And this is what is proposed for Sunset Bvd. and Crescent Heights, as has been previously noted:

[Martin Pal]

P.S.:
The French Fry building in my post is NOT a Frank Gehry design, but face it: you probably thought it was, didn't you? It wouldn't surprise anyone if it was.

That isn't even a real building, it's "The Surreal 3D Architecture Art of Víctor Enrich."

Link here:
https://www.solidsmack.com/rockin-co...victor-enrich/

[Flyingwedge]

Here's an earlier post on the Mesmer Flagpole.

Couldn't someone have put a sign on it . . . "Historic Flagpole -- Do Not Destroy"? How hard would that have been?

If the flagpole has been destroyed, that's inexcusable.

[ethereal_reality]

Martin Pal, your post reminded me of a house I used to park in front of when I'd go to Venice Beach in the 1980s.
It was a conventional house from the 1920s with all kinds of metal shit tacked on the front. At the time I thought some insane person lived there.
Later I thought it was Gehry's house before he was famous. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?


While trying to locate a photograph of the Venice house, I kept coming across his current home at 1002 22nd Street in Santa Monica.



GSV

Old habits die hard. Why do this to a perfectly fine vintage house?

It wouldn't bother me as much if he left the poor house out of it. ("Hey Gehry, next time start from scratch on an empty lot!")


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[odinthor]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

So you're saying the flagpole survived up to 2014 and then disappeared!? That's just terrible.

Would you do this for $5?


Los Angeles Herald, 9 December 1908

Of the many things I would do for $5, this is not one. (No heights, please. I can't look down when I'm crossing a bridge . . . especially any and all bridges to/from Terminal Island. OK, maybe the old Pontoon Bridge would be all right...)

Gleanings from as much as I can recover from my own postings, on a Yahoo group, concerning the U.S. Hotel flagpole, with Ft. Moore flags/flagpoles thrown in as as a special bonus (the group is now very inactive; the search function works poorly for me; and, sigh, one can’t copy and drop into a Word document):

My posting (as with all of these), May 29, 2008:

In 1866, Phineas Banning gave Louis Mesmer a 109 foot tall flagpole which he had floated in from Oregon, and which Mesmer erected in front of the United States Hotel on Main St. When this hotel was finally razed in 1939, the pole was moved to the ground of the Court House, across Spring St. from City Hall. In 1959, after having been taken down, the pole was “restored to its site at the southwest corner of the Hall of Justice” (quoth the L.A. Times; it evidently had at some point traveled across Temple). […]

June 25, 2009:

More from the L.A. Times about the flagpoles (1. the Mesmer one; 2. the successive Fort Moore ones):

L.A. Times, December 19, 1903. “One hundred yards south of where the first American flag was raised in Los Angeles over fifty-six years ago, on the site of Fort Moore, two thousand people assisted yesterday in the exercises attending the raising of another flag. […] The exercises were held on a platform surrounding the base of the big flag pole, planted as everyone knows on the hill crowning the southern or city end of the Broadway tunnel. The big flag was unfurled from a pole 115 feet in height above the ground and buried fifteen feet in the ground. […] [Fort Moore] consisted of an earthen bank five feet high and inside of this was an adobe wall about as high. The fort proper extended along the bluff overlooking the plaza at the northeast corner of Broadway and Fort Moore Place, where the house of Dr. Le Moyne Wills now stands. […] [W]ithin its adobe enclosure on July 4, 1847, the first flag-raising took place, the pole being erected on the southwest corner of Fort Moore Place and Broadway.”

LAT, June 15, 1916. “[…]The first flagpole erected at Fort Moore was by the American troops who occupied the garrison of this city in 1847. The second flagpole erected was purchased by the Native Sons and patriotic societies of this city. This pole fell in 1914.” This in a story of the U.S. Daughters of 1812 providing a “flag, 22x11 feet in dimensions, [which] floats from a pole eighty feet high that was purchased and erected by the city.”

LAT, June 15, 1932. Story about the Daughters of 1812 again providing a flag to the pole above the Broadway tunnel.

LAT, April 7, 1939. “’Pioneer Park’ is the name suggested to the Board of Supervisors for the site of the old Courthouse north of the Hall of Records […]. The suggestion was made yesterday to Roger W. Jessup, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, by Joseph Mesmer, pioneer Los Angeles resident who is interested in the preservation of historical things in the county. […] Mesmer also informed the Supervisors that he is ready to present to the park a ‘Liberty Pole’ which was given to his family in 1866 by Phineas Banning and which for many years has stood in front of the old United States Hotel, soon to be razed.”

LAT, September 2, 1939. “As traditional in Los Angeles as the American Flag itself, the ‘oldest flagpole,’ bright in shiny aluminum paint, was dedicated yesterday in its new location on the old Courthouse grounds. […]

LAT, July 4, 1941. “[…] Daughters of the War of 1812 come into their share of the [freeway, alias ‘speed-highway’] project because they have been custodians of Ft. Moore since 1916, when they erected the flagpole above the Broadway Tunnel. Removal of the tunnel necessitates the moving of the flagpole which will be standing before Central High School, on the Ft. Moore Hill site of old Los Angeles High School. […]”

The 1941 story is interesting because the proposal was evidently to MOVE the Baker Block. Also in the plans were restoration of the Lugo House and the rebuilding of the priest house and gardens of the Plaza Church.

LAT, March 8, 1959. “The historic old Mesmer flag pole, a Los Angeles landmark since Civil War days, was restored yesterday to its site at the southwest corner of the Hall of Justice in ceremonies attended by Supervisor Ernest E. Debs and officials of the Historical Society of Southern California. Debs’ deputies, responding to a query from Guy E. Marion, HSSC executive secretary, found the 80-foot Oregon fir in county yards where it had been stored for several years since it was taken down during construction of a tunnel connecting the Hall of Justice with its nearby steam plant.”

___

Back to 2014: We of the group were keeping an eye on the Banning/Mesmer/U.S. Hotel flagpole as best we could . . . and suddenly it disappeared. Someone in charge of or at the construction site at the time has to know what happened to the pole . . .

[odinthor]

In my delvings into early publications, I had always found the hill in question--when not called Loma de las Mariposas--to be called not "Fort Moore Hill" but rather "Fort Hill"; and when nowadays I would hear references to Fort Moore Hill, I'd stop and question my innermost soul, "What, Innermost Soul, what is the name with chronological priority?"

Our interest in the Mesmer flagpole, which brought in the Fort Moore flagpoles, reminded me of this question, which my lazy innermost soul had long since failed to answer.

In haste, I just gathered some quick data from the usage of the terms by the Los Angeles Times. For what it's worth:

--Instances of usage by 1890 of term "Fort Moore Hill": Zero.

--Instances of usage by 1890 of term "Fort Hill": 222.

--First usage of term "Fort Moore Hill" in the Times: November 4, 1909.

--Usage of term "Fort Moore Hill" shot up abruptly around 1933-1934.

So, if earlier bestows priority (hey, it's a thing in botanical taxonomy), this suggests that plain ol' "Fort Hill" is the term with priority. This should save a little ink, and thus lead to national prosperity.

[BillinGlendaleCA]

Originally Posted by odinthor

This should save a little ink, and thus lead to national prosperity.

Uh oh, I've been using pixels instead of ink.

[Scott Charles]

Originally Posted by odinthor

In my delvings into early publications, I had always found the hill in question--when not called Loma de las Mariposas--to be called not "Fort Moore Hill" but rather "Fort Hill"; and when nowadays I would hear references to Fort Moore Hill, I'd stop and question my innermost soul, "What, Innermost Soul, what is the name with chronological priority?"

Our interest in the Mesmer flagpole, which brought in the Fort Moore flagpoles, reminded me of this question, which my lazy innermost soul had long since failed to answer.

In haste, I just gathered some quick data from the usage of the terms by the Los Angeles Times. For what it's worth:

--Instances of usage by 1890 of term "Fort Moore Hill": Zero.

--Instances of usage by 1890 of term "Fort Hill": 222.

--First usage of term "Fort Moore Hill" in the Times: November 4, 1909.

--Usage of term "Fort Moore Hill" shot up abruptly around 1933-1934.

So, if earlier bestows priority (hey, it's a thing in botanical taxonomy), this suggests that plain ol' "Fort Hill" is the term with priority. This should save a little ink, and thus lead to national prosperity.

That's a TRULY fascinating post, odinthor! Thank-you for your research!

Most of the time when reading, the term I come across is Fort Moore Hill. When both terms are used in an article (Fort Hill and Fort Moore Hill), the implication always seems to be that Fort MOORE Hill is the correct version. But here you have provided the history, and (in this case at least) the history doesn't lie!

Wikipedia has a page on Fort Moore, and while it doesn't address the dispute over naming, what it does report seems to support the evidence you have uncovered (I've condensed it for the sake of brevity):

Fort Moore... lay... on an historic hill that once sheltered the old Plaza (The first fort was called simply "Post at Los Angeles"). The landmark hill took its name, Fort Hill, from the first fort...

So the name "Fort Hill" actually predates the construction of Fort Moore.

Adding to what you have written above, odinthor, this would appear to be the chronology of the hill in question:

1. Pre-1846: The hill is called Loma de las Mariposas - Hill of Butterflies - by the Spanish speaking residents of the area.
2. 1846: Marine Major Archibald H. Gillespie and his soldiers, abandon their "Government House" headquarters (aka, the Bella Union Hotel, current site of the Triforium) while retreating from revolting Californios, and attempt to make a stand on Loma de las Mariposas on September 23, but they surrender the hill to the Mexican forces on September 30th.
3. 1847, January 12th: US military returns in force and erects a 400 foot long breastwork on the same strategic site and name their fort the "Post at Los Angeles". The term "Fort Hill" is put into usage, reflecting the construction of the new fort.
4. 1847, April 23rd: The fort plans are revised, and on April 23 a new, twice as large defense system is begun on the same site.
5. 1847, July 4th: The post (never completed) is designated Fort Moore on July 4,1847, after Captain Benjamin D. Moore, killed in the Battle of San Pascual in San Diego County, on December 6, 1846.

Sooo... there was a hill. A fort was built on the hill, called the "Post at Los Angeles". Because of this fort, people began calling the hill "Fort Hill". A year later, Fort Moore was built ON Fort Hill. But there appears to be no record of the changing of the name of the HILL ITSELF.

The two names were not interchangeable, as the "Fort" in Fort Hill referred to the Post at Los Angeles, NOT Fort Moore. Over time, people likely became confused, and started calling the hill "Fort Moore Hill".

I know these things can be kind of hard to nail down, but that LA Times research you did, odinthor, is more than enough for me. As far as I'm concerned, the name of the hill - by age, or by common usage until 1933 - is FORT HILL.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_H._Gillespie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Moore
https://web.archive.org/web/20140307...g/FtMoore.html

[odinthor]

Originally Posted by BillinGlendaleCA

Uh oh, I've been using pixels instead of ink.

So you're responsible for the Great Recession!

[sadykadie2]

Originally Posted by Martin Pal

I can answer that question, bolded above. They weren't around then.

From the L.A. Conservancy's website:
A private, member-based nonprofit, the L.A. Conservancy was formed in 1978 as part of the effort to prevent demolition of the stunning Los Angeles Central Library.

For many reasons, the Lytton Bank building isn't really a building worth saving. It's location, specifically, with a strip mall of small fast food restaurants behind it, does it no favors. What's more of a shame is that the "Lytton Center for Visual Arts" was abandoned so many years ago.

I do hope that the stained glass mural inside the bank is saved as well as the statues outside the bank. I travelled by the building late Saturday night and the stained glass mural inside was lit up and very beautiful.

Frankly, I'd rather have a dozen Lytton buildings in that location, on top of each other if necessary, or even a vacant lot, than anything Frank Gehry designs.

What was the idea behind this, for example?

Gehry: "Here, I designed you a place that looks like a bridge collapsed on it."

Architectural Digest

More like Architectural Indigestion.

I guess you don't have to worry about earthquakes in any of his buildings, they already look like they were destroyed by one.

Architectural Digest


Would you like fries with that?



And this is what is proposed for Sunset Bvd. and Crescent Heights, as has been previously noted:

Hides mouth behind hand. "Somebody get me an Alka Seltzer" Or shower my eyeballs.

[odinthor]

Originally Posted by Scott Charles

That's a TRULY fascinating post, odinthor! Thank-you for your research!

Most of the time when reading, the term I come across is Fort Moore Hill. When both terms are used in an article (Fort Hill and Fort Moore Hill), the implication always seems to be that Fort MOORE Hill is the correct version. But here you have provided the history, and (in this case at least) the history doesn't lie!

Wikipedia has a page on Fort Moore, and while it doesn't address the dispute over naming, what it does report seems to support the evidence you have uncovered (I've condensed it for the sake of brevity):


So the name "Fort Hill" actually predates the construction of Fort Moore.

Adding to what you have written above, odinthor, this would appear to be the chronology of the hill in question:

1. Pre-1846: The hill is called Loma de las Mariposas - Hill of Butterflies - by the Spanish speaking residents of the area.
2. 1846: Marine Major Archibald H. Gillespie and his soldiers, abandon their "Government House" headquarters (aka, the Bella Union Hotel, current site of the Triforium) while retreating from revolting Californios, and attempt to make a stand on Loma de las Mariposas on September 23, but they surrender the hill to the Mexican forces on September 30th.
3. 1847, January 12th: US military returns in force and erects a 400 foot long breastwork on the same strategic site and name their fort the "Post at Los Angeles". The term "Fort Hill" is put into usage, reflecting the construction of the new fort.
4. 1847, April 23rd: The fort plans are revised, and on April 23 a new, twice as large defense system is begun on the same site.
5. 1847, July 4th: The post (never completed) is designated Fort Moore on July 4,1847, after Captain Benjamin D. Moore, killed in the Battle of San Pascual in San Diego County, on December 6, 1846.

Sooo... there was a hill. A fort was built on the hill, called the "Post at Los Angeles". Because of this fort, people began calling the hill "Fort Hill". A year later, Fort Moore was built ON Fort Hill. But there appears to be no record of the changing of the name of the HILL ITSELF.

The two names were not interchangeable, as the "Fort" in Fort Hill referred to the Post at Los Angeles, NOT Fort Moore. Over time, people likely became confused, and started calling the hill "Fort Moore Hill".

I know these things can be kind of hard to nail down, but that LA Times research you did, odinthor, is more than enough for me. As far as I'm concerned, the name of the hill - by age, or by common usage until 1933 - is FORT HILL.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_H._Gillespie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Moore
https://web.archive.org/web/20140307...g/FtMoore.html

Thanks SC!

I'd have tried to figure out what happened 1933-1934 to make the extreme uptick in usage of term "Fort Moore Hill"; but . . . I ran out of time. I had to go . . . pull a leg muscle at the gym. [hobbles away]

[Handsome Stranger]

Originally Posted by Martin Pal

Frankly, I'd rather have a dozen Lytton buildings in that location, on top of each other if necessary, or even a vacant lot, than anything Frank Gehry designs.

I agree. I've always thought the best architecture elevates and ennobles us. It makes us better human beings. Gehry's architecture does the opposite. It screams: "YOU G*****N STUPID M****RF****R!"

[Otis Criblecoblis]

Originally Posted by Martin Pal

What was the idea behind this, for example?

Gehry: "Here, I designed you a place that looks like a bridge collapsed on it."

Architectural Digest

More like Architectural Indigestion.

Martin, I can honestly say that in my initial scan of your post, I thought that it was a picture of a bridge collapse.

Gehry-designed buildings frankly disgust me. I consider Gehry a sociopath and a misanthrope. He clearly hates mankind and designs buildings in order to dehumanize their occupants and passers-by.

I would rather preserve an aging strip mall than see its being replaced by a Gehry-designed building.

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by HossC

Looking through the early-20s CDs, the only name that fits the photo is the Jefferson Ice Co at 157 E Jefferson. So far I haven't been able to find any other images of the Jefferson Ice Co for comparison.

Looks like 1921-23ish, before the helmet-like cloche hats became in vogue. The hats aren't quite cloche yet. The car in the backround looks like an early-mid 1920s model.

[ethereal_reality]

Originally Posted by HossC

Looking through the early-20s CDs, the only name that fits the photo is the Jefferson Ice Co at 157 E Jefferson.
So far I haven't been able to find any other images of the Jefferson Ice Co for comparison.

I wondered why no one cared about my 'discovery'. Hoss had already made it!! (sorry Hoss, I somehow missed your earlier post)


CaliNative, I'm glad you mentioned the ladies' clothing.


ebay /

Do you think the ladies were gussied up for the photographs or wore this type of clothing every day.

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[ethereal_reality]

Do you think she bought her hat at the Parisian Hat Shop at 529 South Broadway?

Los Angeles Herald, March 11, 1921

[Martin Pal]

I'm kind of comforted that there are some like minded attitudes on NLA about Frank Gehry, who's been foisting his work on Los Angeles for 50 years. For those in Los Angeles or planning to visit, here's a handy warning guide.

Mapped: Every Building in Los Angeles Designed by Frank Gehry
https://la.curbed.com/2015/11/30/989...s-projects-map


It's from my post about his work at the Hollywood Bowl that caused a public outcry. (Interestingly, the Bowl website page link that I originally got that "public outcry" information from is now broken.)

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=42221

What I am not comforted by is that this project at Sunset Blvd. and Crescent Heights keeps moving forward, despite various groups, and even some court rulings, against it. What can you do?

A recent ruling can delay the project at least another six months and any delay where that building is not built is okay by me. And this ruling could have been avoided by any sensible architect and was apparent the first time I ever even looked at the proposed renderings: The right hand turn lane road from Sunset Blvd. down to Crescent Heights was eliminated. DUH!

[ethereal_reality]

I thought this teller's expression was somewhat humorous.


Los Angeles Herald, December 28, 1920


Los Angeles Herald, December 28, 1920

The bank customer is none other than Fred Solomon

he, of the orphan's picnics in Topanga Canyon.



history/pics HERE (thanks tovangar2)





but this is one photograph that we haven't seen on nla.


calisphere

"Fred Solomon was a philanthropist who had a house in Topanga, Calif. This is a picture of his caretaker" (Wu?)

I think it's great that a photograph of this gentleman exists, but it stinks that no one is sure of his name.

All we got is "Wu", accompanied by a question mark.

__

[Flyingwedge]

Originally Posted by Martin Pal

What I am not comforted by is that this project at Sunset Blvd. and Crescent Heights keeps moving forward, despite various groups, and even some court rulings, against it. What can you do?

Sometimes in LA it seems nothing can be done, even if the law is on your side, and it is very frustrating.

For example, in 1989 the LA City Council gave the OK to a new housing tract on the Westchester Bluffs above what is now eastern
Playa Vista, but on the condition that one lot be set aside in perpetuity as an open space view lot with public access. The view lot
was protected with tract conditions that prohibited grading, developing, or fencing the property. However, the inspectors at the
LA Department of Building and Safety will not enforce the tract conditions. This has allowed the owner of the lot to grade, develop,
and completely fence off the property at the sidewalk. The public has had no access to its open space view lot (Los Angeles County
AIN 4211-018-035 if you're curious) since August 2012.