noirish Los Angeles

[BifRayRock]

Hollywood and Vine
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/b61b5130329c0de3_large



http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/575d71c723440d92_large





Melodylane Hollywood and Vine
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/d20f1528140ffe4d_large


http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/4b544b684213fea8_large


Turnip truck?
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/5866abbdaf7e9d10_large


and more of Vine
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/76908515d0c45212_large



Palms, what palms?


Beverly Hills
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/d2e862e55803abc9_large


http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/f759549a3c38a3fd_large

[Bristolian]

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

I guess Dana was counting on The Crowded Sky, that great aerial soap opera, being a big hit (it was released on September 2, 1960). He had good taste in Dingbats.


Poseidon's Underworld, the drollest blog on the net about film, has a great review here.

An interesting and noirish tidbit from the Poseidon's Underworld review is this about Tom Gilson and Saundra Edwards who met while filming "The Crowded Sky". I believe Edwards is the very attractive brunette flight attendant in the photo above.

"He met (and soon married) Saundra Edwards during the filming of this movie. She is the brunette stewardess and was a burgeoning starlet in the wake of a 1957 Playboy spread. Only two years later, after he had beaten her one too many times and nearly harmed their baby, she fled to her sister’s house where he called and threatened her and then tried to break in and, potentially, kill her. She grabbed a shotgun that her brother-in-law had given her to “scare him” with and it went off, blowing a hole in him. Gilson died and, unfortunately for her, so did Edwards’ career, though the incident was ruled justifiable homicide."

[JeffDiego]

Originally Posted by BifRayRock

WigWag caught trainspotting?


Broadway. Fifth - Pershing Square
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/75c992f48ba3459c_large




http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/45244100aeee0345_large



http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/a10e0c3f5fd541e6_large

That's downtown San Diego, Broadway near 5th, overlooking Horton Plaza. Wonderful photos.

[BifRayRock]

Once upon a time, Dorothy Chandler dreamt of a pavillion for performance of her favorite music. And the dream was grand.



http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/6aed894092ce8686_large



Dorothy and some maestro named Zubin.
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/c2ad77b66255d46a_large


http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/58d2905fced0dc65_large



http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/232b50c2457a6beb_large


Dorothy and Otis Chandler. Gov. "Pat" Brown seated?
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/b88e4b10f8eb1bd5_large




http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/f029d7e633585b72_large







"Well, I gotta tell ya."
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/40bc886b5e4531ec_large

[ethereal_reality]

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

LAT July 31, 1960

GW, I decided to check out the other location on Whipple St. and it led me down a rabbit hole.



First of all, it's actually three buildings and it's now known as the Whipple Grove Apts.


gsv

There's a rather nice photograph of one of the inner courts here: duggan properties

I wasn't able to find a build date. (appears to be late 1940s to mid 50s)
________________________________


But what really caught my eye was the older property next door (far left in the above photo).


this one

detail



You see a bit more of it in this aerial.



Notice how close Whipple Grove Bldg#1 was built to the damn property line.


We're talking really, really close.


I would have been furious!!!




The next-door residence was built in 1922 and is virtually impossible to see from the street due to the overgrowth of trees and shrubs.


gsv

Sadly, the three towering conifers out front are in various stages of dying.



A peek thru the trees from Whipple street.





A closer look from the air / diagonal stone pathway, rounded front steps, etc





Despite this being the only entrance (there is no alley), the gate has been overgrown with vines from around 2007 to present day.*

2014

gsv

* most of the vines have recently been cleared from the gate (but 'No Trespassing' signs remain)

most recent / 2017

gsv / detail



When I googled "10953 Whipple Street" there wasn't much information. (except for the build date...noted earlier in the post)

As I read thru the hits I noticed one mentioned 'Anita King School of Ballet' at the 10953 address. (say what!?!?)


so I googled "Anita King School of Ballet"

here's what came up

google

But none of these hits have any details, reviews or information.


& if you're wondering; Anita King was an early silent film star and stunt driver most famous for being the first woman to drive alone across the United States.


LHM




as a stunt driver

WTSM


and finally, all dolled up as a movie actress.


silenceisgolden

As far as I can tell, Ms. King didn't have a dance background. In fact it was quite the opposite;
she excelled at doing masculine things (hence the car journey and stunts) and was said to be a nonstop smoker. -bad for a dancer
(supposedly her heavy smoking habit injured her voice) -some say that's the reason she didn't make it in the 'talkies'.

Could the 'Anita King Ballet School' be some sort of obscure joke?

could it be an entirely different Anita King?

....I'm flummoxed I tell you, flummoxed

__

[BifRayRock]

Originally Posted by JeffDiego

That's downtown San Diego, Broadway near 5th, overlooking Horton Plaza. Wonderful photos.

You are, of course, correct. Among other things, the fountain was probably a dead giveaway. FWIW, note the broadside advertisement for Walker's Department Store ( image no. 2). LA had one with "Bargains Always" at 515 S Broadway. Besides, finding any shot of the every-elusive WigWag in the act of trainspotting makes jumping to the wrong conclusion, easy.


Note Walkers to the right, sidewalk clock to the left.
https://jhgrahambooks.files.wordpres...ment_store.jpg



It's easy to get sidetracked and loose sight of your destination.


https://jhgrahambooks.files.wordpres...9/catalina.jpg



Pershing Square Fountain
https://jhgrahambooks.files.wordpres...os_angeles.jpg

[BifRayRock]

LIFE's archives do not offer much in the way of accompanying text. These images are from an unpublished article featuring the meowing's of a seeing eye cat. It appear the woman pictured and her service cat are in LA County, circa 1947. Per FW, the images are from Hermosa Beach.




http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/7e90172a0eb7ce05_large




http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/19175f01ba522882_large



http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/49703e92ec7277dd_large



http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/a031483d48a025d7_large




http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/e84635885122c368_large


http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/ca51df8d95b55837_large

[Flyingwedge]

No, it's 10th and Bayview in Hermosa Beach. The white two-story building with the brown garage doors
behind the stop sign in the July 2016 GSV at the northwest corner of 10th and Manhattan is visible in
the first two photos in the post above.

[Martin Pal]

How did the term "dingbats" for those mid-century apt. buildings come about? Was it mentioned or linked?

[Martin Pal]

Some of you know that I've been searching for a color photo of this mural in the NBC Radio Building to no avail. So far. I have to say so far.

A little lament: Was looking at a website with photos titled "The 64 Best Depression Era Art Deco Murals."
ALL of them...ALL OF THEM, I say, were in color. Except this one.

...sigh...

[GaylordWilshire]

Originally Posted by Martin Pal

How did the term "dingbats" for those mid-century apt. buildings come about? Was it mentioned or linked?

My assumption is that it came from printing-- The buildings, being plain, were decorated with small pieces to add a little interest-- named after the small pieces of ornamental type a printer or type composer might use:


Pinterest

[GaylordWilshire]

Originally Posted by Bristolian

An interesting and noirish tidbit from the Poseidon's Underworld review is this about Tom Gilson and Saundra Edwards who met while filming "The Crowded Sky". I believe Edwards is the very attractive brunette flight attendant in the photo above.

"He met (and soon married) Saundra Edwards during the filming of this movie. She is the brunette stewardess and was a burgeoning starlet in the wake of a 1957 Playboy spread. Only two years later, after he had beaten her one too many times and nearly harmed their baby, she fled to her sister’s house where he called and threatened her and then tried to break in and, potentially, kill her. She grabbed a shotgun that her brother-in-law had given her to “scare him” with and it went off, blowing a hole in him. Gilson died and, unfortunately for her, so did Edwards’ career, though the incident was ruled justifiable homicide."

playboy.com


Sandra or Saundra?

The high-falutin' text accompanying the picture--typical Playboy:


INVITATION TO THE DANCE a budding ballerina does a turn as a Playmate

The Roman orator, Cicero, once declared that nobody in his senses would think twice of dancing, and his fellow Roman, Terence, said dancers “seem to have more brains in their feet than in their heads.” As a result of this lumpy logic, look what happened to Rome. We thumb our unRoman nose at those two and side with Havelock Ellis. Quoth he: “Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts … it is life itself.” And we think Sandra Edwards, our Miss March, would go along with that, too. Though a scant 18 years of age, she has studied art and modern dancing and is currently a soaring ballet pupil. Sandra dotes on non-fiction and has a deep-down, locked-in appreciation for just about all sorts of music. Sandra’s ambition is to be tapped for membership in – and eventually to become prima ballerina of – a crack ballet group like Sadler’s Wells. Margot Fonteyn is her model and her idol. A well-rounded miss, say we with absolutely no double meaning in our mind; a young lady who, disproving testy old Terence and sour old Cicero, is indeed in her senses and eminently endowed at both ends of her charming anatomy.

[BifRayRock]

Originally Posted by Flyingwedge

No, it's 10th and Bayview in Hermosa Beach. The white two-story building with the brown garage doors behind the stop sign in the July 2016 GSV at the northwest corner of 10th and Manhattan is visible in the first two photos in the post above.

Thanks. Hard to believe the area was once so underdeveloped that an ocean view, even for single-story homes, was probably taken for granted. I suspected Hermosa or Manhattan Beach due to street names. but inexplicably typed Huntington. "Wipeout."
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...out_single.jpg





It might be interesting to know more about the primary subjects of the story. How long had the woman been presumably living on her own in Hermosa and how long she remained there.

We can only imagine the reasons why Carolyn Swanson forewent the traditional seeing-eye dog in favor of a Persian cat named Baby. Perhaps she was allergic, or afraid, or simply too attached to Baby to consider a canine replacement. Whatever the reason, LIFE Magazine dispatched a photographer to capture their special relationship in 1947, creating a series of photographs that never appeared in the magazine’s pages.

Swanson kept the white cat on a tight leash, lest a squirrel send him running. Baby, in turn, guided her over thresholds and across streets. And his service did not go unrecognized. A clipping from a local newspaper announced that Baby was awarded a medal “for faithful devotion to his blind mistress.” Though the cat posed stoically with his medallion, he seemed to favor a more humble reward: a heaping plate of cat food.http://time.com/3758912/seeing-eye-cat/

http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/b473ab81376fdd24_large

[BifRayRock]

Originally Posted by Martin Pal

How did the term "dingbats" for those mid-century apt. buildings come about? Was it mentioned or linked?

Googie-related?

This Wiki entry supports GW's explanation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingbat_(building)

The first textual reference to the term "dingbat" was made by Reyner Banham in Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies (1971). He credits the coining to architect Francis Ventre and describes them:

...[Dingbats] are normally a two-story walk-up apartment-block developed back over the full depth of the site, built of wood and stuccoed over. These are the materials that Rudolf Schindler and others used to build the first modern architecture in Los Angeles, and the dingbat, left to its own devices, often exhibits the basic characteristics of a primitive modern architecture. Round the back, away from the public gaze, they display simple rectangular forms and flush smooth surfaces, skinny steel columns and simple boxed balconies, and extensive overhangs to shelter four or five cars...[4]

While the word is sometimes said to reference dingbat in the sense of a "general term of disparagement",[5] dingbat refers to the stylistic star-shaped decorations (reminiscent of typographic dingbats) that often garnish the stucco façades.[6][7][8] These flourishes and other ornamental elements reflect the contemporary but more complex Googie architecture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingbat_(building)

[oldstuff]

Anita King was born Anna Ida Karoline Keppen in Indiana in 1884. She was the daughter of Prussian immigrants Carl and Mathilde Koeppen. She lived in La Porte, Indiana until 1913 when she apparently came west and was in the silent film "The Man From Home". In 1915 she is listed as a member of the Jesse Lasky Company. 1916 is the date of the "car plunge" shown in the photos. There were questions in the papers in 1918 as to whether she was married or not. Ms. King was in the first feature-length movie, "The Straw Man" which was directed by Cecil B. De Mille.

She then married a Col. James McKnight in 1919. In November of that year, there is a newspaper article which indicates that she was going to establish a day nursery for poor children in Los Angeles. It was noted at that time that she was retired from the movie business.

In 1920 a newspaper article said that she and her husband were moving into their house on Hobart Blvd.

At some point thereafter she apparently divorced McKnight and married a man called Tom McKenna. There is another article, describing her home being robbed, in February of 1942, which indicates that she was the owner of a "well known" racing stable. By the time of the robbery she was living on Benedict Canyon Drive in Beverly Hills. Her husband, a steel executive, died a few days after the robbery.

She died on June 10, 1963 in Hollywood and is buried in Forest Lawn, Glendale.

And there you have more than you ever wanted to know about Anita King

[CityBoyDoug]

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

My assumption is that it came from printing-- The buildings, being plain, were decorated with small pieces to add a little interest-- named after the small pieces of ornamental type a printer or type composer might use:


Pinterest

The old fashioned hot lead printers had thousands of these slugs.


https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...cce127bc0e.jpg

[Martin Pal]

Thanks for the dingbat information, all!


(Now how about a color photo of the NBC mural?) Heh!

[BifRayRock]

These (undated) Long Beach images may not have previously appeared on NLA.



1
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/67dbd60d086fb6a9_large



2 Note ships anchored offshore.
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/9e6848234d325241_large


3
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/dcf5c3c89a6abcce_large


4
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/1b3f2a46c876f45e_large



5
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/2d850b021e446802_large


6
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/3d72b8e8f61cacd2_large




7
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/3533852690df45ae_large






8
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/26538c33cfec3e41_large




9
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/9151f9eb697f02c3_large



10
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/2085cfe4ca49e1c6_large




11
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/99d2987b3e125b44_large





12
Get your motor runn'in.
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/a3b263bea5e4d754_large




13
Do you have ID?
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/c29615534adbaa68_large





14 Gone fishin and dressed for any occasion.
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/1055a0ccb9375015_large

[Beaudry]

Originally Posted by BifRayRock

Googie-related?

This Wiki entry supports GW's explanation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingbat_(building)

The earliest use is here, in Banham's AoFE.

Now, I had heard or read—a perhaps apocryphal story—that Banham and Ventre were driving around (à la Loves LA, one supposes) and Ventre did a spit-take at, say, the Lido Capri and exclaimed "My god that's dingbat architecture." I said as much in this post (about the killing here) and nobody contradicted me, so, it must be true.

[Flyingwedge]

1900 LA City Directory:



fold3.com


1950 Sanborn Map, with north at the top:



ProQuest via LAPL


10 Chester Place, November 2010. You can see a tiny bit of the octagonal Garden House behind the left edge of the residence:



Kansas Sebastian @ flickr


Here's a good look at the Garden House:



Kansas Sebastian @ flickr


And here's one more view of the front:



Kansas Sebastian @ flickr


For a contemporary aerial view of 10 Chester Place, click here.


1907 Sanborn Map:



ProQuest via LAPL


10 Chester Place, c. 1902, with the Garden House apparently under construction at left. I've read elsewhere that
Theodore Eisen was the architect for this house; I don't know who should be credited:



The Inland Architect and News Record, Feb 1903 Vol 41 No 1 @ Hathitrust


More information on 10 Chester Place:

Chester Place Historic District Contributor

This building includes “[f]eatures associated with the Shingle style … in this large, 2-1/2 story house.
In the large, front-facing (west) gable a squared Palladian vent is set over a third story balcony. The
balcony is recessed behind a slightly pointed archway, and has a shingled railing with square cutouts.

Shingles face the gable, which is jettied on brackets over the second story, and are laid in curving
courses around the balcony. Sawtooth edged shingles outline the gable. The shingle siding of the
upper story contrasts with the rusticated stone of the lower story and the chimney. In the porch
stretching across the north section of the front façade, stone piers, wood brackets and a lattice
railing define the space onto which a handsome wood door opens.

The porch continues over the driveway to become a porte cochere. Dentils and leaded glass distinguish
the house, which also features segmented and squared bays and a tower like bay on the rear (east)
elevation. Overlap siding is used on the lower story on the sides and rear. A lamppost illuminates the
front of the house which is located within the landscaped grounds of Chester Place.”

The William Bayly Residence retains integrity of location, design, materials, workmanship, feeling, and
association. Character-defining features of the building exterior include the large, front-facing (west)
gable with a squared Palladian vent set over a third story balcony, shingled siding, brackets, dormer,
Palladian window with a pointed arch, rusticated stone on the lower story and the chimney, porch,
porte cochere, and a tower like bay on the rear (east) elevation. The building is considered to be a
contributor to the historic district.

Historic Resources Group, 2009 (see p. 24) @ LA City Planning Department