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The Plaza at its noirish best
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It is on YouTube Pamela Greyson's Lost Los Angeles channel Homepage Welcome friends to my youtube channel Lost Los Angeles The intersection appears at 0 :35. BTW, later (at 2 : 20) we see from City Hall, Temple Street to the West, starting at Broadway and a quick glimpse of Bunker Hill. |
Mirror Building @ NW corner of 2nd and Spring
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Here's a photo of the Mirror Building, then called the New Times Building, under construction on July 15, 1947. That's the 1897 Hellman Building to the left at the NE corner of 2nd and Broadway: http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...3.jpg~original Huntington Digital Library -- http://hdl.huntington.org/cdm/single.../id/3907/rec/3 February 1, 1948: http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...d.jpg~original Huntington Digital Library -- http://hdl.huntington.org/cdm/single.../id/3906/rec/4 The March 21, 1948, Times mentioned that the building would be used for Times expansion, plus floors would be rented out: http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...e.jpg~original LAPL However, it seems the true purpose of the building wasn't announced until just before the building was dedicated. The article below goes on to state, "The official announcement ended months of rumors and climaxed one of the largest billboard advertising campaigns in city history. Mr. Chandler emphasized that The Mirror will have no connection as a newspaper with The Times": http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...f.jpg~original Los Angeles Times, October 3, 1948 @ LAPL Here's the Times from the morning the building was dedicated, October 10, 1948: http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...v.jpg~originalhttp://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...o.jpg~original LAPL The Mirror quit publishing in 1962. My grandfather, who was an accountant at the Times from 1947-72, said he thought the whole Mirror operation was just a tax write-off. |
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Though very plain, this might be my favorite photo: https://farm1.staticflickr.com/772/2...a964fe93_b.jpg North Broadway L.A.- date unknown by Found Slides, on Flickr If the caption is accurate then this is a great find! I've never before seen a photo of the inside of the Broadway tunnel that wasn't involved with construction or demolition. :) However, the Broadway tunnel was quite long and this tunnel doesn't seem like it's long enough to me. And I think there were streetcar tracks running through the Broadway tunnel. I searched to come up with comparison pics that show the tunnel entrance to compare the small amount of detail on the side, and I came up with a matching photo, but it's of the Hill Street tunnel, not Broadway. I think the above picture is actually the Hill Street tunnel. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/--...atdo1_1280.jpg http://catalog.library.ca.gov via Tumblr The above pic is looking south out of the Hill Street auto tunnel in 1953. You can see the trim running down the sides of the tunnel, with a wide sidewalk on one side and no sidewalk on the other. You can also see the decorative footings (?) on either side of the tunnel entrance, which match the shadow on the far right of the first photo (and the opposite end of the tunnel). |
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Thanks for the excellent follow-up on the Times-Mirror Building, FW. As I mentioned in my original post, the entrance is virtually unchanged. On the left of the entrance is a stone recording the architect and constructor of the building, Rowland H Crawford and P J Walker Co respectively. I struggled to get a close-up of that with GSV, but the stone on the right is all about the dedication by Norman Chandler. I've inset an enlargement of that one.
http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...9.jpg~original GSV |
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(Los Angeles City Directory 1942, classified section, Churches--Methodist, p2710, LAPL Visual Collection) (For some reason I cannot get this Flickr image to display inline. The link should take you to it.) |
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Mirror Building entrance
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http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...z.jpg~original Flyingwedge photo And here is the entrance in September 2014. The reflections on the door are newspaper vending machines: http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...l.jpg~original Flyingwedge photo |
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I've stitched together a few screengrabs from the video to make this panoramic of the Plaza. Scroll right ----> http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...1.jpg~original Youtube As well as the voiceover guy saying "Los Angeles" in every other sentence, he seems to call Olvera Street "Alvero Street". Here are a couple more screengrab merges from near the start of the video. http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...2.jpg~original Youtube http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...3.jpg~original Youtube |
Fox Studios, Orton Ave at Fox Hills Dr
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https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-P...9%252520AM.jpg youtube 2015: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-h...5%252520AM.jpg gsv P.S. Although I found the Francesca Braggiotti (if I heard the narrator correctly) Dancers painfully hokey, rehearsing at the Hollywood Bowl in the video, I guess they were kind of a big deal at the time. Francesca Braggiotti (1902-1998): https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-O...7%252520AM.jpg fonderiausa The web seems to be awash with not-quite-positively identified 'tasteful' nude photos of Braggiotti. There may have been some obfuscation going on as Braggiotti married actor turned Republican politician John Davis Lodge in 1929. He was later governor of Connecticut (1951 to 1955) and diplomatic ambassador to Spain, Argentina and Switzerland. Bragggioti and Lodge, 1938: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-D...0%252520AM.jpg wiki |
[QUOTE=tovangar2;7250473]
Although I found the Francesca Braggiotti (if I heard the narrator correctly) Dancers painfully hokey, rehearsing at the Hollywood Bowl in the video, I guess they were kind of a big deal at the time. Francesca Braggiotti (1902-1998): https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-O...7%252520AM.jpg fonderiausa The web seems to be awash with not-quite-positively identified 'tasteful' nude photos of Braggiotti. There may have been some obfuscation going on as Braggiotti married actor turned Republican politician John Davis Lodge in 1929. He was later governor of Connecticut (1951 to 1955) and diplomatic ambassador to Spain, Argentina and Switzerland. The Braggiotto dancers at the Hollywood Bowl. Here's a quote from the MGM travelogue..."Hollywood...a quiet, well behaved little town...". http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ps81yfq19v.jpg youtube |
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As for the narrator, James Fitzpatrick, I've seen a number of his Traveltalk films on TCM. AFAIK he was Boston born and raised; how he got that rural Kansas-like accent and over-the-top intonation I'll never know. I don't think Olvera was ever a main thoroughfare, but hey, it was a brand, so to speak, especially so soon after the makeover. ETA: The appearance in the video by Walt Disney rubs it in deeper that, by virtue of the Copyright Term Extension Act, several highly interesting and informative Los Angeles-related books from the late 1920s and early 30s will not be appearing in online full text any time soon. Disney Studios led the charge because they didn't want Mickey Mouse to enter the public domain. The desire to protect extremely valuable creative properties is certainly understandable and I don't blame them for it; be that as it may, it also means that dusty old books of interest to nobody else than history geeks like us also remain under lock and key, if at all available, unless we can get to the kind of library that would have them. |
This week, for no particular reason, we ordered the original 1953 "War of the Worlds" from Netflix. It holds up remarkably well for a movie of its age. For those not familiar with it, herewith a few screen grabs from the LA sequence:
We begin by evacuating a hospital: http://www.bitsmasherpress.com/LANoir/WOTW1 Scientists flee the Pacific Institute, actual location unknown to me: http://www.bitsmasherpress.com/LANoir/WOTW2 Block an intersection, scatter some papers, and voila! LA has been abandoned: http://www.bitsmasherpress.com/LANoir/WOTW0 Here's another look at the location. The artfully placed box almost but not quite blocks the normality at the lower left corner. You can figure the camera angle from the fragment of the blue Russel Stover storefront in the previous shot: http://www.bitsmasherpress.com/LANoir/WOTW3 Duck and cover, kids (we all knew how to do that in 1953), here they come: http://www.bitsmasherpress.com/LANoir/WOTW4 According to the article in Astounding Science Fiction, which consumed my interest along with the movie, the orange blast ray was manufactured by George Pal's technicians by feeding welding rod into an acetylene torch and forcing it into a spray with high-pressure air. The thing was reportedly about as destructive as the presumed Martian version. My attempts at duplicating the effect with Fourth of July sparklers and an air pump met with failure, but I did manage to carve a pretty good replica of the Martian "manta ray" war machine. Finally, the iconic shot of zapping City Hall: http://www.bitsmasherpress.com/LANoir/WOTW5 Again, according to Astounding, the building was a six-foot high model made of plaster that was exploded by air pressure. All in all, pretty impressive SFX for the day. Cheers, Earl |
Pamela Greyson's Lost Los Angeles Channel
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You are great to operate on links, photos, maps, etc. The very opposite of me. I've downloaded the three screengrabs to make them my alternating desktop background. And now I'll have to sign « ALVEROLegido » my forthcoming posts to merge with the spirit of place. I'm French allright but I was born in Uruguay. We came in France when I was seven, so Spanish is my native language. |
The James Oviatt Building at 617 S Olive Street isn't new to NLA. It's still standing, and still looking good, but I couldn't resist Julius Shulman's view of it from 1979 (just five years after the death of James Oviatt). This is "Job 5657: Albert R. Walker and Percy Eisen, James Oviatt Building (Los Angeles, Calif.), 1979".
http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...1.jpg~original http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...2.jpg~original http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...3.jpg~original http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...4.jpg~original http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...5.jpg~original All from Getty Research Institute Here's a quick reminder of how the James Oviatt Building looks today. http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...6.jpg~original GSV |
List of Sunset Boulevard occupants/businesses by address, probably mid 1920s
(Or maybe not...be sure to read the ETA section below)
While researching the North Spring/Sunset/Bellevue block I came across this interesting list of Sunset Boulevard addresses. Neither church has a Sunset address here, but as tovangar2 justly pointed out, the North Main and Marchessault addresses were much more typically used. ETA: In the case of the Methodist church, it's certainly possible that it didn't yet exist at that location, in which case the upper limit for the year would have to be 1925 or so. The presence of a Chinese restaurant at 101 E, which presumably puts it in the Simpson Building, strongly suggests that this was prior to the Christine Sterling makeover of Olvera Street. I can't imagine that she would have tolerated a Chinese restaurant after the fact, and she clearly had the pull to get her way. Also, the Italian grocery I mentioned from the 1934 directory doesn't show up yet, so I'm pretty sure this must be from before then. From the uniform pattern of LL-#### telephone numbers, I think this can't be any earlier than 1921 or so. The 1920 City Directory still has some oddly formatted numbers in the display ads, like five digits and no exchange, or one letter followed by digits. Sunset Addresses BTW in the course of perusing the old directories in the LAPL online collection, I've spotted at least three different North Main addresses for Our Lady Of The Angels--525, 527, and strangely enough 935 (!). ETA: I see now that westcork scooped me on the Soochow Restaurant over two years ago: Quote:
(Original text of this post, prior to editing, is spoilered below.) |
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Brings back memories from when I worked at Paramount in the 1970s. |
More Oviatt Building
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Here are a few shots of the Oviatt Building I took on June 17, 2013: http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...6.jpg~original http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...i.jpg~original http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...5.jpg~original http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...u.jpg~original http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...psjlbdhnye.jpg |
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including the LA River at the end of the movie when the army moves in to attack the mutant ants. |
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Great screengrabs, Earl. Here's a reminder of how that branch of Citizen's National Trust & Savings Bank looked in 1931. Quote:
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