noirish Los Angeles

[HossC]

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

ebay

GSV

GW was the first to post about the Hotel Cortez (formerly the Hotel Louise) on Columbia Avenue. The full post is here, and contains newspaper clippings and more pictures. Last night I found this postcard which gives us a small look inside.


eBay


Follow-ups on the Hotel Cortez/Hotel Louise:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=17447

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=17467

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=17472

[GaylordWilshire]

A great ad from the Times of Jan 3, 1928, reminded me of this shot from Chuckaluck's post last year:



http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=21939

[GaylordWilshire]

More views of the traveling courthouse stones:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...2657131&type=3

[Wig-Wag]

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

A great ad from the Times of Jan 3, 1928, reminded me of this shot from Chuckaluck's post last year:



http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=21939

GW, the illustration in the ad looks to be a dropout halftone or "line resolve" of the photograph. I would offer that somewhere there is a continuous tone photo of the truck as well. Nice work by the graphic artist.

Going by Chuckaluck's previous post showing an address of 1711 Albion Street, Los Angeles, CA, the building on the left is still extant, albeit heavily altered and integrated into a newer structure. Check out a Google satellite view.

Cheers,
Jack

[ethereal_reality]

Any idea what this interesting building is/was? (this is a detail of the photograph above )


detail

I'm thinking it could possibly be a school (there are kids in a lot to it's right).


...and Albion Elementary School is in the vicinity.

google_maps

[MichaelRyerson]

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

A great ad from the Times of Jan 3, 1928, reminded me of this shot from Chuckaluck's post last year:



http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=21939

The great Southern Pacific piggy-back yard, 1934

Hughes Ice Cream on Albion shows just above center. We're looking across the great Southern Pacific piggy-back yard with the Macy Street bridge just out-of-frame at the lower left. The SP roundhouse is just below the Alhambra right-of-way with the Alhambra RR bridge showing at the left. The Main Street bridge is above that with Albion and Hughes Ice Cream just north of the bridge east of the river. See it?

All this and we get the SP River Station 'Cornfield' yard at the left/center and the Taylor Yard upper background as well.

[tovangar2]

The American Ice Cream Company was on the Hughes site until recently.


A fashionable and gracious neighborhood grew around the 1921 Ambassador Hotel. One of the new neighbors, the 1926 Windsor Apartments still stands at 7th and Catalina:

uscdl (detail)

It's maintained nicely, although there's maybe too many attention-grabbing awnings:

gsv

The little gable-top bobbles have gone missing:

gsv

The Ambassador and its immediate surroundings in 1956. The Windsor is in the lower-right corner and the Embassy is on the opposite side of the Ambassador, facing Mariposa. Across the top is the 1951 triple-wide 3440 Wilshire building (a big hint of things to come), the 1925 Chapman Park Hotel and Bungalows, the 1926 Brown Derby (at its second location) and the extant 1924 Gaylord:

uscdl (detail)

There was diagonal street-parking on 7th, east of Catalina:

uscdl (detail)

Tourmaline has taken us here before: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=15943

I read somewhere that the Beverly Hills Hotel at one time provided room service to its immediate neighbors. I wonder if the Ambassador did that.

[MichaelRyerson]

Originally Posted by tovangar2

I read somewhere that the Beverly Hills Hotel at one time provided room service to its immediate neighbors. I wonder if the Ambassador did that.

Where did you see that? Could you be remembering the Beverly Hills Hotel bungalows?

[tovangar2]

Originally Posted by MichaelRyerson

Where did you see that? Could you be remembering the Beverly Hills Hotel bungalows?

No, it was definitely wealthy homeowners surrounding the hotel. They probably gave the hotel so much business, their wishes could not be ignored. Sorry, I cannot find the reference ATM.

[HossC]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

Any idea what this interesting building is/was? (this is a detail of the photograph above )


detail

I'm thinking it could possibly be a school (there are kids in a lot to it's right).

I think the building in question is the one in the City Play Grounds on this 1921 Baist map. It's gone by 1948 (the first image at Historic Aerials). My guess would be some sort of clubhouse for the recreation area. The building is also present on the 1914 map, but the 1910 map just shows an empty lot (no City Play Grounds). The Hughes Ice Cream factory can be seen near bottom on Jetty Street. I don't know how long it was known as Jetty Street, because it's currently part of Albion Street, as it was on the 1910 and 1914 Baist maps.


www.historicmapworks.com

Incidentally, the Hughes Ice Cream factory site is marked as a brewery on the 1910 and 1914 Baist maps. I wonder if the brewery was converted to a factory when prohibition started, or if Hughes built a new factory. The footprints from 1914 and 1921 look similar.

[ethereal_reality]

-Thanks Hoss. Sanborn to the rescue!

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

1331 Sunset boulevard.



The space seems to have had many uses...Horace Moll, who ran the Moll School of Embalming--which appears to have become the Los Angeles College of Embalming before he died in 1929--was in the building by the mid '20s; he also advertised "Du Moll" cosmetics for the undead as well as preparations to rid your house of moths, roaches, and ants. Pretty noirish...as was the clap clinic ("one day treatment") there in 1947. N. N. Lewis's drug store was there in 1933; the spinner factory in 1951, Murray's Furniture in 1955....

Times and Esty

So let me get this straight...Mr. Moll was selling both cosmetics and insecticides from the same building? (I hope he was careful not to get his recipes mixed up)

....and then it was a V.D. clinic in 1947?

The noir is in the details.

Thanks for digging up this information GW.
(and I didn't even mention the embalming)
__

[HossC]

Originally Posted by tovangar2

A fashionable and gracious neighborhood grew around the 1921 Ambassador Hotel. One of the new neighbors, the 1926 Windsor Apartments still stands at 7th and Catalina:

uscdl (detail)

It's maintained nicely, although there's maybe too many attention-grabbing awnings:

gsv

Tourmaline has taken us here before: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=15943

This is the 1935 image of the Windsor Apartments that's currently missing from Tourmaline's post. It looks like CSL have kept the image name the same, but changed the name of one of the sub-folders in the address ("a19_1" is now "a21_1"). I wonder if any other hotlinks are affected.


California State Library

BTW. The Windsor Apartments appear to have had the same red awnings since at least the late '70s. Here they are in they background of a shot from a season 3 episode of 'CHiPs' called 'Hot Wheels'. A reverse view of this location appears in the season 5 episode 'Diamond in the Rough', when the side of the Ambassador Hotel plays the part of Valley General Hospital.


Rosner TV/MGM TV

[Wig-Wag]

Originally Posted by HossC

I think the building in question is the one in the City Play Grounds on this 1921 Baist map. It's gone by 1948 (the first image at Historic Aerials). My guess would be some sort of clubhouse for the recreation area. The building is also present on the 1914 map, but the 1910 map just shows an empty lot (no City Play Grounds). The Hughes Ice Cream factory can be seen near bottom on Jetty Street. I don't know how long it was known as Jetty Street, because it's currently part of Albion Street, as it was on the 1910 and 1914 Baist maps.


www.historicmapworks.com

Incidentally, the Hughes Ice Cream factory site is marked as a brewery on the 1910 and 1914 Baist maps. I wonder if the brewery was converted to a factory when prohibition started, or if Hughes built a new factory. The footprints from 1914 and 1921 look similar.

I should have mentioned it in my earlier post. Here's your answer HossC.

From age 64 of this Google book.

https://books.google.com/books?id=3g...ngeles&f=false


Cheers,
Jack

[GaylordWilshire]

Re the Windsor apartments





Times Feb 13 & 20, 1927; Apr 26-1936

[tovangar2]

Does anyone know the whole story of the Chapman Park Hotel? I've read (on the net, so it must be true) that the first building (presumably the main hotel) went up in 1925. The Brown Derby was built on the block in '26.

In 1956 view below, the Chapman Park Hotel and Bungalows takes up the entire block with the Chapman Garage across Mariposa (upper left) and the Chapman Studio and Market buildings across W 6th on either side of Alexandria. A regular little Chapmanville:

uscdl (detail)

It's what happened at the time of the 1969 Equitable Plaza that interests me.





above: nowandthen

Both articles say the hotel will be reconfigured and continue operations. Did anthing remotely like that actually happen? If so, when did it finally close and get demolished? Just curious. Thanks.

Chapman Park Hotel pool, n.d.

nowandthen
(more pix at the link)

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

Originally Posted by HossC

This is the 1935 image of the Windsor Apartments .


California State Library

Hey, look at that, a sign. Thx

[GaylordWilshire]

Calif State Library


One of the prettiest buildings ever built on early commercial Wilshire Boulevard was this one at the northeast corner of Westmoreland Avenue. Its story, and that of the other low-rise stores that replaced the boulevard's houses, is here: http://wilshireboulevardhouses.blogs...lease-see.html

[unihikid]

Originally Posted by HossC

This is the 1935 image of the Windsor Apartments that's currently missing from Tourmaline's post. It looks like CSL have kept the image name the same, but changed the name of one of the sub-folders in the address ("a19_1" is now "a21_1"). I wonder if any other hotlinks are affected.


California State Library

BTW. The Windsor Apartments appear to have had the same red awnings since at least the late '70s. Here they are in they background of a shot from a season 3 episode of 'CHiPs' called 'Hot Wheels'. A reverse view of this location appears in the season 5 episode 'Diamond in the Rough', when the side of the Ambassador Hotel plays the part of Valley General Hospital.


Rosner TV/MGM TV

Last Friday I went to a birthday gathering in this area with a couple of friends. My buddies girlfriend suggested we check out this bar thats in her favorite TV show "New Girl" ,low and behold its this building, I cant tell you what the bar is called,but its in the basement and it was very,very,very red, and I was told that they have the best chicken in town....also they dont make old fashions, but the price was fair for a whiskey on the rocks.

[ersatz01]

Originally Posted by unihikid

Last Friday I went to a birthday gathering in this area with a couple of friends. My buddies girlfriend suggested we check out this bar thats in her favorite TV show "New Girl" ,low and behold its this building, I cant tell you what the bar is called,but its in the basement and it was very,very,very red, and I was told that they have the best chicken in town....also they dont make old fashions, but the price was fair for a whiskey on the rocks.

The bar is called "The Prince", and it's in more than the New Girl... it stood in for The Brown Derby in Chinatown, when Jack Nicholson/Gittes meets with Faye Dunaway/Mrs. Mulwray during lunch. The Prince is now Korean owned, but the owners have done great job keeping the space looking great. That "chicken" dish is awesome - it's called kyochan chicken (which is triple fried).

[CityBoyDoug]

Originally Posted by ersatz01

The bar is called "The Prince", and it's in more than the New Girl... it stood in for The Brown Derby in Chinatown, when Jack Nicholson/Gittes meets with Faye Dunaway/Mrs. Mulwray during lunch. The Prince is now Korean owned, but the owners have done great job keeping the space looking great. That "chicken" dish is awesome - it's called kyochan chicken (which is triple fried).

Here is what the Prince bar looks like in 2015. There's also a dining room that's similar.


Prince Bar

[haiku99]

Originally Posted by Beaudry

Ellroy has his detractors and followers—and few in between, to be certain! '53 is by and large a big glossy picture-book, though, which makes it all the more germane to NLA: ganze noirische crime scene images with which to play "compare via Googlemobile."

Nearly all of Ellroy is unreadable to me but a major exception is the autobiographical "My Dark Places" VERY disturbing yet fascinating....and about as noir as it gets

http://www.amazon.com/My-Dark-Places...my+dark+places