noirish Los Angeles

[Godzilla]

A little closer to home, maybe?
Most likely Depression era images. Hoover Town (below) could have been somewhere in LA County, or elsewhere.



Undated - San Gabriel Canyon Squatters
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics44/00041962.jpg

http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics44/00041965.jpg

http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics44/00041966.jpg




http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics44/00041971.jpg



http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics44/00041972.jpg


http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics44/00041970.jpg

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Then there's the Hoover town Squatters. (Not clear exactly where this was, if in fact, it was LA County. Suffice it to say its part of LAPL's archives )

Perhaps some astute NLA'ers will note some location earmarks.


Hoover Town Images vvvvvvvvv

Does the crate say "Angeles?"
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics44/00041964.jpg

California Hospital
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics44/00041968.jpg



http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics44/00041969.jpg



http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics44/00041967.jpg

[ethereal_reality]

Originally Posted by AlvaroLegido

Yes dear Bruce : you've misread me. Michael is right.

Please accept my heartfelt apology AlvaroLegido.
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[Albany NY]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

Los Angeles sightseeing bus, 1920s. (I changed the photograph from sepia to black & white because the watermark was bright red)


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Real-Photo-1...item1e93d8f059

In some directories, the 'Disabled Veterans of the World War' is listed at 246 S. Hill Street.



Here's a detail, in the original sepia.



Looks like a rowdy bunch.

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Just a couple of questions:
In the top pic, any idea what the event was? It seems unusual that the bus was full of only women. Maybe a VFW Women's Auxiliary? (Did such a group exist then?)
Also, does anyone know the name of the cafeteria to the right of the Disabled Veterans building?

And about the bottom pic, I love the "Microsoft Windows" hand, in lieu of a simple arrow, to point out the driver's intentions. And a beautiful early image of J. Edgar Hoover, too!

[Lwize]

Depression-era tent cities, dust bowl, Grapes of Wrath, etc - that's a different genre of photographic history, and should IMO be the subject of their own thread.

Carry on.

[ethereal_reality]

1925 Asbestos ad.

-the Pacific Finance Building. (...and I spy the Hotel Sequoia)

ebay

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[ethereal_reality]

"Cactus garden in Santa Monica, 1902"


ebay

I'm thinking this might have been at the Veteran's Home. What do you guys think?
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[HossC]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

Los Angeles sightseeing bus, 1920s. (I changed the photograph from sepia to black & white because the watermark was bright red)


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Real-Photo-1...item1e93d8f059

In some directories, the 'Disabled Veterans of the World War' is listed at 246 S. Hill Street.

Originally Posted by Albany NY

Also, does anyone know the name of the cafeteria to the right of the Disabled Veterans building?

246 South Hill Street was the Independent Foresters Building (seen here in the foreground almost directly below the tower of City Hall). e_r wrote about it a few weeks ago in post #24031. I can't seem to find when it was built - e_r's post contains a sepia picture from before the Independent Foresters Building was built, and it's dated 1905, yet the image below shows the completed building, but it's dated 1902. The large building in the center is named as the Exchange Building on the 1910 and 1914 Baist maps, but it becomes the Western Mutual Life Building by 1921. It's this building that housed the cafeteria, although I haven't tracked down a name for it yet. Just like in e_r's picture, the Bradbury building can be seen on the right.


Detail of picture in Huntington Digital Library

[ethereal_reality]

Thanks for the excellent information HossC. I didn't realize it was the Independent Forester's Building.


Here is an extremely rare view of the newly installed 60-inch Hale telescope on Mt. Wilson, circa 1908. [WRONG: see next post]


ebay

"In 1904 George Ellery Hale received funding from the Carnegie Institution to build an observatory on Mt. Wilson for a 60-inch telescope. Grinding of the lens began in 1905 and took two years. The mounting and structure for the telescope was built in San Francisco and barely survived the 1906 earthquake. Transporting the pieces to the top of Mt. Wilson's 5,710-foot peak was an enormous task. "First Light" was December 8, 1908. It was at the time the largest operational telescope in the world".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Wilson_Observatory

The 60 inch reflector became one of the most successful and productive telescopes in astronomical history.
Though surpassed in size by the 100-inch Hooker telescope installed on Mt. Wilson in 1917, it remained one of the largest in use for decades.


google_earth

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[HenryHuntington]

I believe that the photo actually shows the Mt. Lowe observatory, as there was never an electric railway (or any railway) completed to Mt. Wilson.

Also, there's this photo of Mt. Lowe: http://www.mountlowe.org/mlpsi-colle...-and-darkroom/

[Mstimc]

Originally Posted by MichaelRyerson

I think you've misread Alvaro..... Secondly, the California and Arizona FSA camps of the thirties were teeming with people who would go on to become fodder for the greater Los Angeles urban mass. They would populate both sides of the noir meme, some driven by need and desperation would turn to the quick buck becoming stick-up artists, embezzlers, con men, bigamists, wheelmen and assorted punks and muscle for Cohen and the rest. Others, ostensibly on their way to the Imperial Valley, would get stuck passing through Los Angeles, pausing to visit relatives or a turn at day labor or a job working for their crummy brother-in-law and never get to the Imperial Valley. They would come to feel life was stalking them, that their best intentions seemed to always turn out wrong. They'd be swindled by a fast talking salesman, marry a gold-digger, lay out cash for a muddy lot down in the Bixby Slough, buy a car with a busted main bearing. They would become the other essential part of the noir dynamic, the victim. I think what Alvaro was saying or asking was even though this photograph fails to qualify for inclusion in the thread on the basis of having no building, is not in greater Los Angeles and doesn't have the sophisticated noirish mood (I'd take exception with this one), why then is it 100% in the spirit of the thread? I believe Alvaro was defending my decision to post it and asking, perhaps rhetorically, why it was so obviously appropriate when it so obviously fails his three tests.

Well, that's about the best damned piece of Raymond Chandler-esque exposition since Double Indemnity! Nice turn of phrase Mr. Ryerson!

[CityBoyDoug]

The LAPD pistol team puts on a demonstration at the Auto Club headquarters in 1934. Looks like the audience is having some laughs.

The cop was aiming at the saucers the man is holding. I wonder if they do this stunt today?


SCAC

[Otis Criblecoblis]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

"In 1904 George Ellery Hale received funding from the Carnegie Institution to build an observatory on Mt. Wilson for a 60-inch telescope. Grinding of the lens began in 1905 and took two years. The mounting and structure for the telescope was built in San Francisco and barely survived the 1906 earthquake. Transporting the pieces to the top of Mt. Wilson's 5,710-foot peak was an enormous task. "First Light" was December 8, 1908. It was at the time the largest operational telescope in the world".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Wilson_Observatory

The 60 inch reflector became one of the most successful and productive telescopes in astronomical history.
Though surpassed in size by the 100-inch Hooker telescope installed on Mt. Wilson in 1917, it remained one of the largest in use for decades.


__

And the 60-inch is still operating! It's available for hire in half-night increments, an excellent opportunity for amateur astronomers to get a direct look at the heavens through what is still a pretty darn big telescope. My good friend is one of the operators on the 60-inch.

He is also head docent for the Mt. Wilson tours that are conducted every Saturday at 1 PM from March through November. His last tour for the season is this Saturday, in fact. He makes sure you leave with a good understanding of just how important Mt. Wilson and its Observatory have been to the history of the Los Angeles area, and to the advance of scientific knowledge.

Not only is the Mt. Wilson Observatory one of the most significant historical sites in California, it is also still a working facility, and it still has the best viewing conditions in the Northern Hemisphere. It is in fact still making important contributions, with its new interferometer.

So go up there and take the tour sometime. Bring your walking shoes and your camera, because there as a lot of walking involved through some very beautiful forest, complete with friendly gray squirrels.

[MichaelRyerson]

Originally Posted by Mstimc

Well, that's about the best damned piece of Raymond Chandler-esque exposition since Double Indemnity! Nice turn of phrase Mr. Ryerson!

Right where Marlowe left it.

[ethereal_reality]

Originally Posted by Otis Criblecoblis

And the 60-inch is still operating! It's available for hire in half-night increments, an excellent opportunity for amateur astronomers to get a direct look at the heavens through what is still a pretty darn big telescope.

Not only is the Mt. Wilson Observatory one of the most significant historical sites in California, it is also still a working facility, and it still has the best viewing conditions in the Northern Hemisphere.

Here's the 60-inch Mt. Wilson telescope as it appeared in 1908.


http://www.astrosurf.com/re/history_telescope.html
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[ethereal_reality]

I came across this advertising 'dollar' a week or so ago on ebay.




back




I don't believe we've seen the Hotel Imperial before on NLA. Here it is near the corner of Grand and 9th in 1931.


http://photos.lapl.org/carlweb/jsp/F...olNumber=71444

Does anyone have any more information on the Hotel Imperial?

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[Martin Pal]

Originally Posted by AlvaroLegido

Yes dear Bruce : you've misread me. Michael is right.

Sorry, I misread you as well.

[ethereal_reality]

Martin's Guns, 5816 S. Broadway, Los Angeles CA


http://memoriastoica.tumblr.com/tagg...ngeles+history


I drove the google-mobile down Broadway to see what the gun shop looks like today.
Alas I couldn't find the gun shop, but while I was in the area I noticed this interesting building on the nw corner of S. Broadway and W. Slauson Ave.


GSV

Had we seen this building on NLA?

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[ethereal_reality]

I came across these two items the night before last on ebay.
The seller describes them as 'Victorian Trading Cards' from the 1890s. They're blank on the reverse.








Hmmm...I thought Grange stores were mostly in the mid-west. Isn't a Grange like a co-op or farmer's association?
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[HossC]

This post has been on the back burner for a while now, and I can no longer remember why I didn't post it earlier.

I was watching some old videos of Los Angeles on YouTube a while ago when I came across a color film of downtown LA in 1946. Wondering if we'd seen its brief shots of Coffee Dan's before, I searched NLA. Post #17336 by Martin Pal had one view Coffee Dan's and a link to an L.A. Daily Mirror article which in turn linked to a better quality version of the color film on archive.org. The screengrab below is from later in the film, and shows Coffee Dan's from a different angle as the camera car retraces its route.


archive.org

This is the Coffee Dan's at 406 West 8th Street. The location is given away by the fact that it's in the RKO Theatre building (its entrance is seen on the film a couple of seconds later). I did another quick search of NLA and found that after sopas ej's post back on page 10, the RKO Theatre only seems to have been mentioned a few times, mainly when its dome appeared in wider shots. The picture below comes from sopas ej's post, but it's the best I could find.


LAPL

The caption for the picture above says; "It was originally built by the Orpheum Circuit and opened in 1922. It reopened as the RKO Theatre in 1929 but popular usage of its earlier name led to it being renamed the RKO Hillstreet Theatre. The original architect was G. Albert Lansburgh." Here's the view from Hill Street (previously seen in post #2435 by e_r and post #17116 by CityBoyDoug).


USC Digital Library

This is the entrance in 1931. The hanging 8s are a promotion for their 8 RKO vaudeville Acts program.


Huntington Digital Library

USC has a billboard for the same promotion.


USC Digital Library

I found some more interior shots at LAPL. They all seem to date from around the opening in 1922. The first shows the mezzanine.


LAPL

This is how the stage looked.


LAPL

And the view from the stage.


LAPL

The LAPL captions say "It closed in 1963 and was demolished not long after." Today you'll find a bunker-like nightclub and a parking garage in its place. I guess that's progress!


GSV

[MichaelRyerson]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

I came across this advertising 'dollar' a week or so ago on ebay.


I don't believe we've seen the Hotel Imperial before on NLA. Here it is near the corner of Grand and 9th in 1931.


http://photos.lapl.org/carlweb/jsp/F...olNumber=71444

Does anyone have any more information on the Hotel Imperial?

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The Hotel Imperial, Ruud Water Heaters and the A. Lietz Co., 900 block of South Grand Avenue, 1930

USC digital archive/Dick Whittington Photography Collection, 1924-1987