noirish Los Angeles

[Scott Charles]

Originally Posted by rick m

!940 aerial here shows the newly constructed/opened Hollywood Library-- AND the actual walled backyard where New Years Eve 1929 Jimmy's hosted it's 300 tuxedoed all male crowd per Harry Hay's reminiscences. (In Stuart Timmon's book on Harry-later founder of Mattachine Society..

Is your post missing a picture, rick m?

[CityBoyDoug]

Rev. O.L. Jaggers amateur singing That's Life. He also plays the organ in this clip.
Cautions.....the song ends at the 2:32 something mark....No one could sing and play the organ like O.L. could..... His haunting bluesy pumping and grinding organ playing has to be heard to be believed.....>>>

https://youtu.be/v4Ugnvd9Naw



http://waxidermy.com/images/life_detail.jpg

Some writer had the nerve to call this a vanity album.....how rude.

[Scott Charles]

A question if I may, about the 1917 photo below. The image shows the intersection of Spring Street (left) and Main Street (right). The photo appears to have been taken from the Marsh-Strong building (1914).

LINK to full sized image

In the image, the largest potential advertising space has been left totally blank. The words “READ OUR AD HERE TONITE” are displayed prominently next to the empty space...

Were ads projected onto this space at night? This would seem to be the only likely explanation, but... I can't find any projector unit on the rooftops in the foreground. And it seems to me, if there were a projector there, it would project an image with severe keystone distortion. And it seems that any other location on Spring, Main, or 9th would be too far away to project an image from.



Does anyone know if ads were routinely projected onto the white rectangle? And if so, from where were they projected?

Were similar projection techniques used in Times Square? And if so, who was the first to advertise in this way, LA or New York?

[Scott Charles]

From the same photo in my previous post...

Does anyone know what these two objects are?



It looks like we are seeing the back of a little blonde haired girl kneeling, but maybe not... if so, she seems out of proportion with the man in the foreground (the girl appears too large). Black smoke appears to surround the object, but I believe the “smoke” is actually some kind of stain on the photographic negative.

The object, which may be some kind of cart or vehicle, seems to be highly ornate and decorative, and the design seems to feature Indian style, Ogee arches.

Anyone have any ideas what this thing was?


Then there's this object that looks like something out of Stonehenge. It appears to be too tall (let alone, too narrow) to be any kind of guard rail. It does not resemble any horse-hitching post I've seen before. Beyond that, I'm stumped.



Any idea what this object is?

[CityBoyDoug]

Originally Posted by Scott Charles

From the same photo in my previous post...

Does anyone know what these two objects are?



It looks like we are seeing the back of a little blonde haired girl kneeling, but maybe not... if so, she seems out of proportion with the man in the foreground (the girl appears too large). Black smoke appears to surround the object, but I believe the “smoke” is actually some kind of stain on the photographic negative.

The object, which may be some kind of cart or vehicle, seems to be highly ornate and decorative, and the design seems to feature Indian style, Ogee arches.

Anyone have any ideas what this thing was?


Then there's this object that looks like something out of Stonehenge. It appears to be too tall (let alone, too narrow) to be any kind of guard rail. It does not resemble any horse-hitching post I've seen before. Beyond that, I'm stumped.



Any idea what this object is?

Good questions. Often we are so far removed from those years that things appear to be from another world. In the second image there appears to be water in the street by the curb and something spilled on the nearby sidewalk. In those days it was common for gray water to be drained directly into the street. They still do that in some countries.

[Handsome Stranger]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

After all that SEPIA how 'bout some COLOR.

Yeesh...how 'bout some color correction? I bet this was Ektachrome, not Kodachrome.

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by Scott Charles

A question if I may, about the 1917 photo below. The image shows the intersection of Spring Street (left) and Main Street (right). The photo appears to have been taken from the Marsh-Strong building (1914).

LINK to full sized image

In the image, the largest potential advertising space has been left totally blank. The words “READ OUR AD HERE TONITE” are displayed prominently next to the empty space...

Were ads projected onto this space at night? This would seem to be the only likely explanation, but... I can't find any projector unit on the rooftops in the foreground. And it seems to me, if there were a projector there, it would project an image with severe keystone distortion. And it seems that any other location on Spring, Main, or 9th would be too far away to project an image from.



Does anyone know if ads were routinely projected onto the white rectangle? And if so, from where were they projected?

Were similar projection techniques used in Times Square? And if so, who was the first to advertise in this way, LA or New York?

Where Main & Spring come together, an ideal location for an L.A. version of NYC's triangular Flatiron Building.

[HossC]

Originally Posted by Scott Charles

In the image, the largest potential advertising space has been left totally blank. The words “READ OUR AD HERE TONITE” are displayed prominently next to the empty space...

Were ads projected onto this space at night? This would seem to be the only likely explanation, but... I can't find any projector unit on the rooftops in the foreground. And it seems to me, if there were a projector there, it would project an image with severe keystone distortion. And it seems that any other location on Spring, Main, or 9th would be too far away to project an image from.

Does anyone know if ads were routinely projected onto the white rectangle? And if so, from where were they projected?

The Downtown Los Angeles Theatres site has a page on Miller's Theatre. Accompanying a similar 1917 image at USC (below), they have the caption, "The billboard area on the building in the center of the photo was leased to Miller. He had it blank intentionally and at night projected slides promoting the attractions at his theatre."

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

Below: The intersection of Main, Spring & Ninth in 1917.
Notice the policeman's elevated post...stand?..I don't know what to call it.



usc digital archive

Elsewhere in the article, there's a quote from the July-September 1915 issue of Moving Picture World. I think it may also apply to the billboard: "Mr. Miller is a believer in advertising. He spends on an average of two or three hundred dollars a week in newspaper advertising. With a stereopticon he throws on the side of a large and high building the announcements of his house."

[Scott Charles]

Originally Posted by HossC

The Downtown Los Angeles Theatres site has a page on Miller's Theatre. Accompanying a similar 1917 image at USC (below), they have the caption, "The billboard area on the building in the center of the photo was leased to Miller. He had it blank intentionally and at night projected slides promoting the attractions at his theatre."

Elsewhere in the article, there's a quote from the July-September 1915 issue of Moving Picture World. I think it may also apply to the billboard: "Mr. Miller is a believer in advertising. He spends on an average of two or three hundred dollars a week in newspaper advertising. With a stereopticon he throws on the side of a large and high building the announcements of his house."

Thank you, HossC! I'm now convinced that there is no question that I can stump this forum with!

Man, I'd have loved to have seen that - imagine, it's 1917, you're in your best suit, there are only one or two horse-drawn carriages within your view, cars have almost totally replaced them. You look up, and you see this giant, outdoor projection, fading out and into other images. It must have seemed like the future. I wonder if Miller ever hand-tinted or colored any of the images?

The camera/lens geek in me still wonders where the projector was placed. And how they overcame that keystoning, which would have been tremendous with the projector so close to the “screen”, and the screen being so much higher than the projector.

Perhaps the stereopticon had a matched pair of architectural shift lenses, which could raise the altitude of the projected image, without distorting it. Of course, the stereopticon would have to have side-by-side lenses instead of one-above-the-other lenses, just to make room for the shift lenses.

Man, I'd love to see how they did it! Are there any other camera geeks here who might venture a guess?

[BillinGlendaleCA]

Originally Posted by Handsome Stranger

Yeesh...how 'bout some color correction? I bet this was Ektachrome, not Kodachrome.

I think you're right, my dad shot mainly Kodachrome and they maintain their color really well. The times that he used Ektachrome, I've noticed a color cast. Most of the slides I'm talking about are in the 60 to 70 year old vintage. I've been scanning all of our old slides.

[Ed Workman]

<<<....... the stereopticon would have to have side-by-side lenses instead of one-above-the-other lenses, just to make room for the shift lenses.>>>

Stereo/3D uses 2 separate images spaced laterally at roughly eye spacing [YMMV] so the lenses MUST be side by side taking or projecting. Photographs were made to be contact printed and viewed in the holder/viewer that allowed one's eyes to merge the two images into a , voila', 3D image. Other later methods use red and blue images viewed thru cheap 'spectacles'. Dunno how the CGI folks do it these days, nor do I give a care, even tho' I look forward to the day when actors will not be required at all, and the Hollywood Creeps disappear

Originally Posted by BillinGlendaleCA

I think you're right, my dad shot mainly Kodachrome and they maintain their color really well. The times that he used Ektachrome, I've noticed a color cast. Most of the slides I'm talking about are in the 60 to 70 year old vintage. I've been scanning all of our old slides.

The Kodachrome process- actually the SECOND by that name as the first was quite different, using red and blue only, superposed- put dyes into the emulsion in processing, instead of carrying the dyes IN the emulsion.
Dyes in the emulsion were short-lived, as demonstrated in the example.

Technicolor movies were made by photographing three B&W images thru color filters and re-assembling them by printing with three colors. Obviously producing a very vivid and long lasting final movie.
Stunning color prints were made by a similar process , known as 'Dye Transfer", Three filtered B&W shots, each enlarged onto a transfer film , each of which was dipped into the appropriate dye , sequentially impressed onto the paper in perfect [ if done right] register
Then Kodak came up with Kodacolor for print film , a similar [cheap] movie film and Ektachrome. If one can see a film box, on one side is a disclaimer that read something like "All dyes may fade in time [..not our fault]..
Indeed, many such movies have been lost to fading. IIRC UCLA has a restoration program but the color films of the late 40s early 50s are doomed.
Fortunately, we don't care at Noir
All that said, Ektachrome E6 process is still available and has storage characteristics very close to Kodachrome. Some folks say that it will be around a little longer as the movie folks made a several year commitment to purchase movie stock. One rumor is that, although the makers like to shoot on digital, they archive on film

[HossC]

Originally Posted by Scott Charles

Then there's this object that looks like something out of Stonehenge. It appears to be too tall (let alone, too narrow) to be any kind of guard rail. It does not resemble any horse-hitching post I've seen before. Beyond that, I'm stumped.



Any idea what this object is?

Here's a slightly clearer view of the same mystery object, still standing in 1926. Is it more than a water trough?


Detail of picture in USC Digital Library

Despite all the vintage pictures I've looked through, I still haven't figured out where Mr Miller kept his projector.

[GaylordWilshire]

Ran across this house while researching another and was astonished to find it still standing near the busy corner of Hoover & Pico...from the Times, April 12, 1903

[rentatrip]

Notice street car rails in corner bend ... these could be Horse Driven (PULLED)Trolley Car Tracks , THUS .... the raised cement water trough would be to give hitched trolley horses a drink of water at that spot , without any bother , ....A perfectly rational answer and obvious to most normal humans with an ounce of brains

[rentatrip]

(ca. 1937)* - View of the intersection of Main, Spring, and 9th streets in downtown Los Angeles circa 1937. A uniformed man sits in a booth on top of a pole in the foreground of this corner as pedestrians walk by underneath.

[rentatrip]

Spring and Main streets converge in downtown Los Angeles, circa 1940.

[Hollywood Graham]

Originally Posted by HossC

The Downtown Los Angeles Theatres site has a page on Miller's Theatre. Accompanying a similar 1917 image at USC (below), they have the caption, "The billboard area on the building in the center of the photo was leased to Miller. He had it blank intentionally and at night projected slides promoting the attractions at his theatre."



Elsewhere in the article, there's a quote from the July-September 1915 issue of Moving Picture World. I think it may also apply to the billboard: "Mr. Miller is a believer in advertising. He spends on an average of two or three hundred dollars a week in newspaper advertising. With a stereopticon he throws on the side of a large and high building the announcements of his house."

That is not a Police Post it is for control of the street cars that traverse Main and Spring.

[rentatrip]

1925 Corner of Ninth at Spring Street

[AlvaroLegido]

Originally Posted by HossC

USC Digital Library

Thanks a lot Hoss. This is a great photo to see the advertised top of Bunker Hill and among a lot of things, the brand new Hall of Records in all its splendor. I mention something we were searching for lately : the Hill Street tunnel with only one way !

[But the actual street running as the spine of much of the hill was along Bunker Hill Ave. Certainly not 3rd and Hope which was at a considerable drop below (like the equal to the height of a 10 story building at that intersection!]

What a shame ! I'm sorry rick m for this confusion. I wanted to point where was the Alta Vista. Sure the top of the Third street tunnel below Hope Street was at that considerable drop.

[GaylordWilshire]

Re horse troughs




LAT March 9, 1928




LAT Dec 27, 1929




LAT Jan 22, 1932




LAT March 2, 1936




LAT May 12, 1937