noirish Los Angeles

[ethereal_reality]

The California State Normal School at Grand Ave & 5th Street in 1900.



usc digital archive

[malumot]

1. What is that tower just to the north of the Normal School? Actually there might be two towers - a tall one and a shorter one? Looks like lattice design. Some kind of construction crane?

2. Downtown actually looks like a livable city. There is density, but without it seeming overwhelming. And look how lush Pershing Square was 100 years ago. Boy have they f***ed that up, time after time.

[ethereal_reality]

Originally Posted by malumot

1. What is that tower just to the north of the Normal School? Actually there might be two towers - a tall one and a shorter one? Looks like lattice design. Some kind of construction crane?

ebay


That is a very good question malumot. I can't figure out that lattice-like structure for the life of me.

[gsjansen]

Originally Posted by malumot

What is that tower just to the north of the Normal School? Actually there might be two towers - a tall one and a shorter one? Looks like lattice design. Some kind of construction crane?

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

ebay


That is a very good question malumot. I can't figure out that lattice-like structure for the life of me.

WOW! the lattice tower is indeed a construction derrick for the engstrum hotel which is under construction across the street from the state normal school on 5th street....did i say wow? WOW!!!

behind the derrick is the hildreth "house of sorrows" at 4th and hope

all these ebay glass images are amazing E_R! thank you for posting them, (even though you have posted some spectacular images over the years from ebay postings, i never look there to find images. thank you for doing that for the rest of us!!!!)

this image below is particularly amazing, (well at least to me). the old city hall tower is on the right, with the hall of records looming behind. over the top of the hall of records is the tower of the old courthouse. the two towers in the upper left belong to the 2nd los angeles school building, (on the right), and the bradbury mansion (on the left).......did i say wow?.....WOW!!!!!!




in this image, the zelda is the big apartment building at top center, (located at grand and 4th). the tower poking up behind the zelda is the brunson mansion. The front facade of the brunson is visible just to the right of the zelda. across the street from the zelda to the right is the rose mansion. Simply amazing photographs

[gsjansen]

these are all scans from the new Arcadia Book Location Filming in Los Angeles - Karie Bible, Marc Wanamaker, and Harry Medved. As always, another fun Images of America Book dealing with Los Angeles

Chester Conklin on a beam above the Guarantee Building at Hollywood Boulevard and Ivar Avenue in Cleaning Up - 1930




J.R. Smith and Allen Farina Hoskins of Our Gang get in trouble at 9th and broadway in Old Wallop - 1927 (note the examiner sign)




Dorothy Devore hanging around above 10th and broadway in Hold Your Breath - 1924




Laurel and Hardy hanging from a beam at ninth and broadway in Liberty - 1929 (the very exact location where J.R. Smith and Allen Farina Hoskins of Our Gang were hanging around 2 years earlier)




Lloyd Hamilton films a scene on the ledge of the hotel broadway - 1922




Hank Mann hangs on to the side of the hotel broadway above court flight in Tar baby - 1920




Eileen Sedgwick hangs from a fire escape above hill street in terror trail - 1921




Harold Lloyd and Bebe Daniels show how it's done on top of the hill street tunnel in Look Out Below - 1919

[ethereal_reality]

^^^Those are wonderful photographs gsjansen! Thanks for scanning them.




Below: 6 x 8 glass negative from ebay.







Below: Details from the above photo.





















I have to go out of town for a couple days. I'll post more of these glass negatives when I return.

[GaylordWilshire]

High and Dizzy (1920):






An almost identical shot to the one above appeared in Never Weaken (1920):







Hollywood



S. Clark Patchin Real Estate was at 1648 N. Cahuenga


Back downtown










From The Non Stop Kid (1918):

Meyer's Pharmacy was at 934 W. 2nd

From Hand to Mouth (1920):

The Herbold Leaf Tobacco Company was listed at 337 New High Street
in the 1923 CD--this would put it near Prudent Beaudry's house.


Aside from the Rowan sign (seen in many old pics of L.A.), there are some
other interesting signs here...



The C. Ganahl Lumber Co. was listed at 830 E. 1st in the 1915 CD


The Uncle Sam Macaroni Company was listed at 629 N. Spring in the 1923 CD


Alameda and Los Angeles streets

Can't resist adding this shot from Among Those Present (1921):

Norma Desmond?


All photos: Lobster Films/Kino on Video http://www.kino.com/video/item.php?film_id=773

[Beaudry]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

ebay


That is a very good question malumot. I can't figure out that lattice-like structure for the life of me.

Oh dear. This glass negs up on eBay are...first of all, totally going to be miiiiiiine, and naturally, awesome. As gsjansen stated, yep, that's the Engstrum going up, which dates this to the summer of 1911.

What looks like a single tripartite structure (à la looking up at the side of The Ems, say) between the Engstrum and the Hildreth are the the LaBelle, the Bronx, and the Gordon apts, at 618, 624, 630 W 4th. (I think for some reason they were built by the Zahn family of Hope St but can't remember why I think that at the moment...I'll poke at that later.)

[Beaudry]

Originally Posted by Los Angeles Past

This interior shot. Wow. In 1961, my mom took me on one of the last Pacific Electric trolley runs down to Long Beach, and even though I was only 6 at the time, I still definitely remember those green seats!

That morning after breakfast, Mom just bundled me in the car and told me we were going Downtown to ride the last of the trolleys. She wanted her son to have that same experience that was so much of a part of her life when she was young. I'm really glad now that she did that! And I still remember a lot of that day...

First we went to Angels Flight. That was the first time I got to ride it, and it was a big thrill. Then we went across to the Grand Central Market. I hated the smells. Then we went back to Hill and Third and we stood there for awhile. (I guess that's where we picked up our ride to the PE station.) I'll never forget the NOISE of that intersection; how LOUD the general hustle-and-bustle of the city was. And I was especially impressed by the electric arcs and the sparks that shot out from the trolleys' contact with the overhead wires. Snap! Crackle! Pop!

The ride to Long Beach was pretty boring, even though it was my first time on a train. (Well, Angels Flight earlier in the day was actually my first train ride, but I digress.) As always, I was fidgety. The car was filled to capacity. I guess nostalgia was thick among the passengers, as there was little talking. Mostly just the sound of the train wheels going clickity-clack, clickity-clack, all along the rail road track.

When we got to Long Beach, Mom took me to this immense old cafeteria downtown. The ceiling was like two stories high. It was crowded and noisy, and kind of dark inside, even though it was mid-day. I don't recall what the name of the big cafeteria was, but I think my mom probably went there a lot when she had relatives living in Long Beach in the '40s.

I don't remember the ride back at all. I probably slept all the way. But overall, it was a very memorable day!

-Scott (really feeling my age right now)

You may be feeling your age, but if it makes you feel any better, others of us are feeling jealousy!

(Hey, just being a ways on the other side of forty makes young 'uns [the rare but valuable good ones, granted] gape in wonder at some of the things I've seen...)

[Beaudry]

Originally Posted by gsjansen

in this image, the zelda is the big apartment building at top center, (located at grand and 4th). the tower poking up behind the zelda is the brunson mansion. The front facade of the brunson is visible just to the right of the zelda. across the street from the zelda to the right is the rose mansion. Simply amazing photographs

Simply amazing is right; what I find fascinating about this one is -- there's the Zelda top center, and below it down Grand, that big low white building is the Granada, and then there's what looks like some demo remains. Wellll those're the foundations poured in the '90s, the ones people bitched and moaned about until the Sherwood was built on that spot in 1912 (read a bit about those at the beginning of this here http://onbunkerhill.org/HollywoodComestoSherwood ) and to finally see a photograph rather than a colored/postcard image (like on the great A Visit to Old Los Angeles) is something else...

(I'm sorry, who doesn't get preternaturally excited looking at pictures of abandoned Victorian foundations?)

[Beaudry]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

A 6 x 8 glass negative on ebay for the next 5 days.



ebay





Below: Details from the above glass negative.

I believe the precise and specific architectural/historical term would be bitchin'. We're on top of the Palace Hotel, at the 317 S Olive. Beneath us is the Ems, but we're looking over that, and the railing we see below is this nifty turreted structure at 327 (which disappeared in the 40s). Below that is 331 which was gone by '22. Then usual suspects the Fremont, the Trenton, then counter clockwise up Olive from 5th, love the backside of the Auditorium, and note the 'lil Mission-style Munn, which was eaten up by the subway terminal project. The Wales up the street.

Nice shot, top, of the 1906 John C. Austin/Frederick G. Brown Wright & Callender Bldg. Riding up 4th into Bunker Hill, it was a height-limit office building whose wood was mahogany, its halls marble, its floors mosaic, its offices ten feet in height and its whole lower story, twenty, with floor-to-ceiling marble; its French Renaissance façade in cream-colored Roman pressed brick, dressed stone and cream-colored terra cotta. I can see why they'd replace it with a three-story concrete parking structure.

[gsjansen]

Hollywood and Vine New years 1961


Source: USC Digital Archive http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assets...881-002~7?v=hr

[gsjansen]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

I have to go out of town for a couple days. I'll post more of these glass negatives when I return.

sorry E_R....couldn't wait................(hey what can i say! i've always been an excitable boy )

glass negatives on sale at ebay. once again taken from the roof of the palace hotel at 317 S. Olive. This time we are looking north/East. I am dating the photos 1910 as the beaux-arts six bay angels flight station appears to be brand new, and it doesn't appear that they have re-built the observation tower yet.



zoomed detail of the photograph looking north towards the bradbury mansion




zoomed detail of the photograph looking north/east towards the hall of records




all i can say is...........................actually i'm quite speechless

[gsjansen]

i realized that i had seen the almost exact same view before from the roof of the palace looking down at angels flight



sheeeesh.........................

[GaylordWilshire]

LAPL
http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics47/00073120.jpg
I just ran across this early shot of 1803 Campus Road in Eagle Rock, which I posted about a while back:

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

Castle's 1961 Homicidal is said to have been made either in homage to Psycho, made the year before, or in competition with Hitchcock (it even has a cross-dressing aspect). Homicidal has some good, noirish location shots in Ventura (though none in L.A. that I could see), and the film appears as a film-within-a-film (on a drive-in screen) in Castle's 1962 Zotz!--which itself somehow seems to have been inspired by The Absent-Minded Professor of the year before and which offers us some interesting then-and-nows from its location shooting in and around Occidental College:

Columbia Pictures/Sony

Google Street View
1803 Campus Road, Eagle Rock. It's great that even the classic old L.A. black-and-white "pistol" street
signs are still there.


Columbia Pictures/Sony

Google Street View
A "Beaver" house just across Ridgeview Avenue from the one in the top shot.

[Beaudry]

Originally Posted by gsjansen

i realized that i had seen the almost exact same view before from the roof of the palace looking down at angels flight



sheeeesh.........................

That is a seriously awesome then-and-then. Isn't that a CRA director peering out looking over his handiwork?

[ethereal_reality]

I thought it was Ray Bradbury.

[GaylordWilshire]

The Strip is on TCM right now--some great noir-era location shooting--

[ethereal_reality]

Thanks for the heads up GW.
I just saw the montage of the neon signs on the Sunset Strip.

[GaylordWilshire]

MGM/TCM

MGM/TCM

MGM/TCM

http://www.impawards.com/1951/posters/strip.jpg