noirish Los Angeles

[Harry's Place]

Hi everybody. I'm writing articles about romanian architecture from 1925 to 1940 and recently in my possesion entered ~1000 pictures, news papers, magazines and documents from that era. All of the newspapers and magazines have, among materials from Romania (obvious) lots of stuff about USA from CA to NY. So i'll share with you the CA pictures i'll find.

Here's one from april 1938, waterslide in Venice Beach



PS: I apologize for my english as it's not my 1st language.
PPS: I'll upload them at the best resolution possible.

[HossC]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

One more mystery location for tonight.

“Los Angeles, Cal. flooding in front of Miller Apts. Feb. 19, 1914”.


Ebay

If you closely, you can see the tops of some interesting buildings behind the large sign.

The CDs of the era list the Miller Apartments at 1116 S Flower. I'm not sure what's behind the sign. The Miller Apartments are the red building roughly at the center of the 1914 Baist map below, and the lot opposite seems to be empty (it's still empty on the 1921 map).


www.historicmapworks.com

[odinthor]

Thanks, Harry's Place, for your thoughtfulness! Your English is just fine.

Welcome to the thread!

[Lomara]

My grandparents travelled from Missouri to Los Angeles in either a model A or T Ford around 1920. My Grandmother kept travel diaries in the form of small notebooks documenting the journey. We read them one day and she wrote they covered 200 miles per day.

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

This got me thinking about Edwin Goodell--apparently he was a couple of months shy of 23 (not 26 years old, as the article states)-- a sad Depression-era note in what seems to have started out well with his family driving across the country in a Model T in 1924 to start a new life in LA...


With his parents, Sarah ("Sadie") and Louis:





Both from ancestry

[GaylordWilshire]

Lomara--If around 1920, it would have been a Model T. The Model A (second series) didn't appear until the '28 models came out in late 1927.... Do you have any pictures of the trip?

[Handsome Stranger]

I was curious about the reason for the flooding in front of the Miller Apartments. I found an article in the L.A. Times published February 19, 1914, the same date that appears on the photo. Can't offer a screen grab of the article as I don't wish to go to copyright prison. But here's a few paragraphs, direct quotes, offered under the Fair Use doctrine.

Rain fell an inch an hour yesterday for the first time in the history of Los Angeles.
More than half an inch fell in ten minutes. The city was in the grasp of swirling water.

Between 12 o'clock, noon, and two o'clock, two inches of rain came upon the city in a
deluge which knows no parallel here.

At midnight the precipitation for the storm totalled 4.24 inches, bringing the seasonal
total to 19.28 inches.

• • •

Destruction, in the strict sense of the word, had no part in the storm or its results;
there were no fatalities, or serious injuries, and the only real inconvenience was the
marooning of the populace downtown and flooded homes in the lowlands.

Downtown Los Angeles was inundated and residence, industrial and commercial districts
were flooded by the rain, but only for several hours yesterday.

Reservoir No. 5 could not retain the deluge from the heavens and the big dam above the
Wild Animal Farm broke, flooding the lower East Side and causing many persons to seek
refuge away from their homes.

19.28 inches is a lot of rain. The current seasonal rainfall total for downtown Los Angeles is 5.01 inches.

Also, welcome Harry's Place! I'm looking forward to your photos. If possible, could you indicate which newspapers and magazines published the photos?

[ethereal_reality]

Interesting information Handsome Stranger.



The run-off.. from the extremely heavy rainfall..traveled south and took out this bath house in Long Beach CA. [1914]

February 1914

from claudineburnett

"After the heavy rains of 1914 engineers recommended a comprehensive plan for conservation work, for channel protection, and for the diversion of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers,
from Long Beach and Los Angeles harbors, into Alamitos Bay. They also recommended a diversion dam be constructed from a point near Dominguez Hill to Signal Hill to safeguard the harbor interests." from claudineburnett


Was the diversion dam, mentioned above, actually built?

__

[ethereal_reality]

Originally Posted by Harry's Place

Here's one from April 1938, waterslide in Venice Beach

I wasn't aware Venice had a toboggan water slide like this one. -excellent discovery Harry.
Toboggan water slides were very popular back in the 1930s. The slides usually ended up with wire fencing (or slanted boards) on both sides of the slide. (for obvious reasons)
There was one (from this same era, or earlier) at the lakeside amusement resort where my family vacationed in the 1960s & 70s.

Originally Posted by Harry's Place

I'll share with you the CA pictures I find.

WOO HOO

Good luck with your Romanian architecture project.

_

[ethereal_reality]

Originally Posted by HossC

The CDs of the era list the Miller Apartments at 1116 S Flower. I'm not sure what's behind the sign. The Miller Apartments are the red building roughly at the center of the 1914 Baist map below, and the lot opposite seems to be empty (it's still empty on the 1921 map).


www.historicmapworks.com

Thanks Hoss!


Here's some additional information on the Miller Apartments at 1116 S. Flower. (30 units. Built 1914) same year as the flood snapshot (taken in front of the apt. bldg.)


USC

There is one of these forms [WPA Household Census] for each renter in the building. Perhaps it was one of these tenants that took the flood snapshot.

If you have nothing better to do ...you can see all of them HERE.


_

[Harry's Place]

@all, thank you. This race that looks like a very bad idea took place in CA in the summer of 1936.

[ScottyB]

Originally Posted by Harry's Place

@all, thank you. This race that looks like a very bad idea took place in CA in the summer of 1936.

Film of similar inadvisable activity (with actual sound!):

https://mirc.sc.edu/islandora/object/usc%3A54028



Anybody recognize the neighborhood?

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by Harry's Place

@all, thank you. This race that looks like a very bad idea took place in CA in the summer of 1936.

Are those big blocks of ice the ladies are riding on? No helmets. Looks risky. Depression made people take risks.

[CaliNative]

The penultimate "noirish" year? Late 40s-early '50s cold war era? 1949 maybe? A good case can be made for the Depression-WW2 era, but for me it would be late '40s. Strange how "Double Indemnity", possibly the best of the noirs, set in L.A. in 1943 in the middle of WW2 makes no reference to the war at all. The war years were dark but hopeful, with everybody pulling together and hoping for a better post war world. I guess the book predated the war. The cold war dashed the hopes of a better post war world, so in some ways were darker. Another great noire from 1949..."The Third Man"...makes constant reference to the cold war era in Vienna. The cold war was bleak, especially in the ruined cities of Europe. So 1949 is my pick for the height of "noirishness".

[HossC]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

Here's some additional information on the Miller Apartments at 1116 S. Flower. (30 units. Built 1914) same year as the flood snapshot (taken in front of the apt. bldg.)

The Miller Apartments were actually built in 1912. Here's the BP for the 3-story building. The owner's name is listed as Hulda S Miller of 2198 Cambridge Street. I can find a physician named James Theo Miller at that address, but no Hulda.



www.ladbs.org

[GaylordWilshire]

LAH Feb 10, 1912


Hulda was his wife--she is mentioned as "Mrs. J T Miller" on Cambridge St in other items in the Herald...

[Noir_Noir]

Originally Posted by ScottyB

Film of similar inadvisable activity (with actual sound!):

https://mirc.sc.edu/islandora/object/usc%3A54028



Anybody recognize the neighborhood?

I think they're iceblock-skiing up Grand Blvd to Windward Circle in Venice.


The Venice Garage on Windward Ave appears in this shot from the film.





cdnc.ucr.edu



Here's the area from 1938 with the garage, and the chimney stack building above it, circled. The route up and down Grand Blvd the intrepid girls are taking is arrowed.


mil.library.ucsb.edu



Forget luge ... we need this sport in the Winter and Summer Olympics now.

[HossC]

Oh, that's annoying. I found the Venice Garage earlier (115 Windward Avenue in the SM CDs), downloaded a vintage aerial photo from 1928, and told myself that I must have the wrong place because there's a canal there. Of course, I forgot that most of the canals were filled in around 1929 (the film is 1930). Well done for remembering, Noir_Noir. For comparison, here's the image I was looking at.


mil.library.ucsb.edu

ETA: Looking at the film again, I think that the extant 227 Windward Avenue is visible in the background. The property sites give a build date of 1920. Unfortunately, trees hide the front on all GSV images.


mirc.sc.edu/Google Maps

[ethereal_reality]

Excellent sleuthing Noir Noir and HossC...and ScottyB for unearthing the video.


In the first half of the video I couldn't help but notice how vivacious the middle girl was.
She was talking almost nonstop...jabbering...waving..kicking her leg.....and telling the driver to speed up!

In the second half, when they do speed up and take that wild turn, I can't tell which one she is.
At first I thought she is the one on the ice block that broke apart. Later, at 4:11, the mic catches the driver possibly calling her 'Ruby'
(telling her it was a 'good shot'). A CLUE! I thought.

BUT, and it's a big BUT...the girl in question [the vivacious one] might be the following girl that doesn't have a mishap.
That is...until she tries the turn again and ends up looking...

..like this.


Anyhoo, I had hoped the 'vivacious' girl was the one that was 'possibly' called Ruby...but now I think she's the girl shown above.
_

update--
Unless.....this is 'Ruby'
Since her block of ice broke apart...perhaps she is using one of the other girl's ice block to make a second attempt at the turn.

*insert horse beating gif here*

*checks self into mental hospital*

_

[HossC]

The clues were there if I'd bothered to look and listen. The metadata gives the location as Venice, and the audio at 1:45 says "sure beats riding on the canals" and at 5:10 you can hear "aren't you glad they filled in the canals?". From LAPL:

Women in swimsuits riding on blocks of ice

These three photographs show women in swimsuits near the streets of Venice Beach riding on blocks of ice. In the frame at top left, three women are sitting on a huge block of ice and are being towed by cars. The frame at top right shows three women sitting together on an ice block in siwmsuits and heels, holding on to a rope. In the third frame at bottom, three women are "ice-block" skiing, and waving to the camera. Appears to be a publicity photograph for the Miss California Bathing Beauty Contest.


LAPL

[Handsome Stranger]

WHEEE!


[source: LAPL]

Yet another view. Notice we can see part of a Fox Movietone camera at the lower left, as well as the 227 Windward Avenue house HossC mentioned earlier.