A Bridge Nobody Misses
 

At least I don't think so.

The Red Car Line viaduct over Pico Blvd at San Vicente. Opened in 1927 to great fan fare:

http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/2...car1927970.jpg
Los Angeles Times

Story is here:

http://framework.latimes.com/2011/03...-red-car-line/

Still around in the early 1960's:

http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg851...jpg&res=medium
LAPL

Gone now:

http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg198...jpg&res=medium
Google Street View

1938 Police Shoot Out
 

Nasty business, with a couple of city marshalls shot dead:

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/6...otout19701.jpg
Los Angeles Times

Story and more pictures here:

http://framework.latimes.com/2011/03...lice-shootout/

The Bel-Air Fire
 

http://img804.imageshack.us/img804/2...irfire2970.jpg
Los Angeles Times

The story and more pictures here:

http://framework.latimes.com/2010/11/07/bel-air-fire/


I swear, I have never seen a picture of Nixon in anything but a grey suit :notacrook:

Thanks for posting FredH, anything with my Great Uncle Bert certainly classes up the thread!!
Rick Rovere

http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics44/00056796.jpgLAPL
Eaton Canyon after the big storm of 1943--I wonder if there still might be a hubcap or hood ornament lying at the bottom?


sopas: Glad you're ok after the winds--as much as I whine about too many trees obscuring old architecture in the L.A. core, I know that trees are essential to the character of Pasadena/SoPas and damage to them can be unsettling. I'm in nw Connecticut on weekends, and we're still clearing trees and huge limbs downed in the October 29th snow.... Nature has a way of recovering pretty rapidly, though--the oaks in my hometown of New Orleans started to come back pretty quickly after Katrina. It made me think of that series "X Years After Humans." And storms have a way of culling the weak limbs....

My vision of SoCal was formed by movies, tv, the image conjured by Jan & Dean of the the lady in her shiny red Super Stock Dodge, and news reports every fall of the Santa Anas. They haunted even a kid from the south who'd never been to California before, even before I discovered Chandler:

"There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen...."

Naturally I had to go looking for the modern-day street--I assumed that any domestic archi-
tecture at all would have been wiped from the map, but not so--the 1700 block of East 22nd
Street actually has alot of its original bungalows.... but this is not 22nd Street. It's 23rd...

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-P...2520AM.bmp.jpgGoogle Street View

The palms are actually a block north, along 22nd Street; here, the phone poles match up--
even the eastward lean. George Farley lived at 1741 East 23rd--his house would have been
on the grassy patch behind the phone pole. There are still one or two small bungalows on the
street, but not George and his wife Cora's.... Cora...how can I not be reminded of The
Postman Always Rings Twice?

:previous:

Wow! Nice detective work GaylordWilshire. I looked up and down 22nd Street, but I couldn't find anything. I searched for the palm trees, but decided they had been cut down.

:previous: Good sleuthing G_W!!

That Raymond Chandler quote about the Santa Ana Winds is beautiful. I would go for long walks at night when the Santa Anas were blowing.....everything seemed so haunting and mysterious....even the sound was amazing.

The aptly named 'Desert Wind' leaving Highland Park over the Pasadena Freeway in 1980.


http://img805.imageshack.us/img805/8...avinghighl.jpg
unkown

Is this R.R. trestle still there?

_____

GaylordWilshire:

Did we ever completely settle the Hazel Glab business from a few months ago? I ran across this on the LAPL website by accident.

http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/4443/00094236.jpg
LAPL

Historical Notes: Shortly after 9:00 pm on June 18, 1928, John Irving Glab was found lying next to his car fatally wounded by a .32 caliber bullet, which entered his chest, severing an artery. Unable to name his shooter, he bled to death while being rushed to the Van Nuys Emergency Hospital. When police arrived at the scene they questioned his wife, Hazel Glab; her niece, Ethyl Kaser; the gardener/chauffeur, M. A. Wilson; the maid, Mrs. Wilson; a neighbor, Mrs. J. Goodrich, and F. A. Krupp, a business owner from across the street. Both Mrs. Glab and Ms. Kaser stated that they were playing pinochle and had not heard anything unusual, but the neighbor and employees gave opposing declarations. The Wilson's stated the Glab's had been quarreling for several days prior to the killing, and Mrs. Goodrich insisted she saw a woman dash from the murder car and into the Glab home at the time of the shooting. In reconstructing the crime, police believed that the slayer was concealed in the automobile and as John Glab, 40, a wealthy retired Chicago Druggist, stepped to the running board and opened the left door, the pistol was thrust to his body and fired. The victim cried out for help and collapsed into the street, his left foot remaining on the running board of the car, with the car's ignition key laying near his right shoulder. Hazel Belford Glab was detained at the time by police for questioning, but she stuck to her original story as did her alibi Ms. Kaser. Detectives could not prove her guilt or involvement with the murder and eventually police dropped their pursuit. Glab moved on, managing to evade arrest for another eight years. Her luck would run out when her "new" wealthy fiancé, capitalist Albert L. Cheney, died mysteriously in early 1935 in Nevada while on an intended honeymoon with Mrs. Glab. Cheney had bequeathed her his estate in a will written in purple ink. It was discovered she crafted the bogus will days after her fiancés funeral, forging the testament by which he willed her his entire $400,000 estate. Glab was arrested and during this trial, authorities reopened the investigation into her 3rd husband's shooting death. On December 27, 1935, she was found guilty and was convicted of forgery and preparing false evidence, and was sentenced to Tehachapi Women's Prison for a term of 2 to 14 years for that crime. Shortly thereafter, in April 1936, Glab was convicted of second-degree murder for killing John I. Glab, the sentence being seven-years-to-life. Surprisingly, though, she was out of prison in 1943 after serving only 7 years.

Summary: Photograph article dated February 3, 1930 reads, "Photo shows Ruby Burroughs, pretty 21-year-old stenographer, questioned today on her revelations of events that preceded the murder of John I. Glab. Miss Burroughs, arrested with W. I. McIntyre [sic] after a fatal traffic accident, is declared to have told officers that McIntyre [sic] and Glab's wife, Mrs. Hazel Glab, conferred shortly before Glab was slain."

I think this is it:

http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/5...lwaybridge.jpg
Google Street View

I think you're right FredH. :)

Before euphemisms went wild
 

A rainy Sunset Boulevard with the Sunset Tower Apartments in the distance, circa 1938.


http://img847.imageshack.us/img847/6...8byjohnswo.jpg
John Swope

.

http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/9...looding970.jpg
Los Angeles Times

Story and additional picture here:

http://framework.latimes.com/2011/11...n-los-angeles/

He is indeed right. :) That bridge is now used by the Metro Gold Line light rail trains. It was retrofitted in the mid-1990s to be double-tracked. The first leg of the Gold Line opened for service in 2003.
http://highlandpark.files.wordpress....pg?w=600&h=448
highlandpark.wordpress.com

You can read a little blip about the bridge by clicking here.

^^^
Eaton Canyon is one of many great places to hike in the Pasadena area.

Having heard about the Santa Ana winds all the time while growing up, as a little kid I assumed that they originated in the city of Santa Ana in Orange County, hehe! The etymology of the name, though, is a bit obscure; this from Wikipedia.

I can see why they could be considered "Devil Winds," being that they can blow really hot and dry and start brush fires, and they can be very destructive, as was shown a few days ago.

The Headquarters of the Church of Religious Science at 3281 W. 6th Street in 1986.


http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/3...eligioussc.jpg
William Reagh/LAPL


I was excited to see what this beautiful building looks like today......
but it appears that the 'religious scientists' tore it down and left us with this.




http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/4...urch2today.jpg
google street view.



Does anyone know the history of the earlier building?
Its obvious inspiration was the Loggia dei Lanzi in Piazzo della Signoria in Firenze/Florence Italy.



http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/9...nziinpiazz.jpg
oneonta

:previous:

e_r: I recognize the newer building as one of Paul Williams's; I'm confused, though, by the older building, which you say it replaced. The Williams design went up in the late '50s... so if the older picture is from the '80s--the "Loggia dei Lanzi" seems not to have been replaced. The mystery deepens because the number on the steps does appear to begin with "32" though is otherwise unclear. But if it's not at 3281 W 6th... where was it? Or... where IS it? Could it miraculously, coincidentally still be standing on the 3200 block of some other street? Wouldn't it be nice if a little bit of Florence still stood in L.A.?

UPDATE The Founder's Church of Religious Science is the Williams Building at 3281 West 6th; but the "Florentine" building at 3223 West 6th, two blocks east, was the headquarters of its parent, the United Church of Religious Science. Sadly, it's gone, and we have the inevitable parking lot in its place:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-6...2520PM.bmp.jpg
3223 West 6th St per Google Street View; what I can't explain is the facade differences of the
building on the ne corner of 6th and Vermont. It was a county building in the '80s, housing
offices for economic development; it's now the County Department of Mental Health. (Do you
suppose they could help with an L.A. obsession?)