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mdiederi Mar 3, 2013 4:15 PM

http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/2b7d9bf9fc0aaf06_large
http://images.google.com/hosted/life...9fc0aaf06.html
Los Angeles motorcycle police force during full scale inspection at coliseum.
Location: Los Angeles, CA, US
Date taken: March 1949
Photographer: Loomis Dean

http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/b3e9976227086018_large
http://images.google.com/hosted/life...227086018.html
Los Angeles has world's biggest motorcycle police force, here lining up for review.
Location: Los Angeles, CA, US
Date taken: March 1949
Photographer: Loomis Dean

http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/05605194de618e79_large
http://images.google.com/hosted/life...4de618e79.html
Los Angeles has world's biggest motorcycle police force, here lining up for review.
Location: Los Angeles, CA, US
Date taken: March 1949
Photographer: Loomis Dean

http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/18e08f048396d121_large
http://images.google.com/hosted/life...48396d121.html
Los Angeles motorcycle police force during full scale inspection of cycle corps.
Location: Los Angeles, CA, US
Date taken: March 1949
Photographer: Loomis Dean

belmont bob Mar 3, 2013 4:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuckaluck (Post 6036434)
The interior of this vanished building looks as impressive as the exterior. Another sigh . . . that this was worth saving.

Old City Hall Interior
http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics17/00018245.jpgLapl

This is the only photo of the interior of that old building which is also one of my favorites of a time now vanished that I've ever seen. Does anyone know what this room is for sure? It appears that it might be the city council chamber. Although the furniture is a jumble of desks and chairs, I see seven desks and some of the chairs are swivel and some not, and a rostrum and the public galleries on the side looking down. Can’t tell if the area behind the railing might have a bench seat along the wall or if it’s just a public access to the floor. Whichever, this old building was a treasure for sure.

Since the chandelier is probably the center of the room the photographer was probably standing in the far corner, perhaps in a doorway. The dark area at the bottom right looks like brick and is probably a hearth suggesting a fireplace feeding one of the chimneys visible on the exterior.

Imagine that big room in council session on a cold day, with the gallery full of onlookers and a big roaring fire while they discuss the merits of realigning the streets and building a new city call…

Chuckaluck Mar 3, 2013 4:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Albany NY (Post 6036457)
The building at 701-705 South Hill Street was apparently a favorite haunt of Vincent Van Gogh (or maybe Conan O'Brien's grandfather). Either way, it's creepy as all hell. Quick, get back in the Mystery Machine, kids. Thelma just said "Jinkies!"

http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/972/conanj.jpgImage from USC Digital originally posted by Godzilla

This free association thing is getting out of hand. For a moment I thought you were referring to another squinted-at apparition with a dated hair style.
Pay no mind to the flickering TV in the background, Clete Roberts and Jerry Dunphy won't be on the air for at least another three and a half decades. :fruit:

http://ts4.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.48894...33859&pid=15.1yahoo

Chuckaluck Mar 3, 2013 5:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by belmont bob (Post 6036512)
This is the only photo of the interior of that old building which is also one of my favorites of a time now vanished that I've ever seen. Does anyone know what this room is for sure? It appears that it might be the city council chamber. Although the furniture is a jumble of desks and chairs, I see seven desks and some of the chairs are swivel and some not, and a rostrum and the public galleries on the side looking down. Can’t tell if the area behind the railing might have a bench seat along the wall or if it’s just a public access to the floor. Whichever, this old building was a treasure for sure.

Since the chandelier is probably the center of the room the photographer was probably standing in the far corner, perhaps in a doorway. The dark area at the bottom right looks like brick and is probably a hearth suggesting a fireplace feeding one of the chimneys visible on the exterior.

Imagine that big room in council session on a cold day, with the gallery full of onlookers and a big roaring fire while they discuss the merits of realigning the streets and building a new city call…

I am certain there are other interior images of the old City Hall, although I can't recall another photo of what I also believe to be the City Counsel Chambers. Mayor Shaw would know all about that. Locating other interior shots is almost as difficult as finding a misplaced set of keys. To the best of my very limited knowledge, the building also housed a library and administrative/department offices. The City obviously outgrew the building, but it is hard to believe this magnificent space would not have received a second or third use. The chairs do not appear conducive to comfort, but they sure look official. Curious when and if the building received some of the modern amenities we take for granted, e.g., hot and cold plumbing, fly fans, wi-fi, metal detectors and ADA compliant hat racks.



City Hall "Reading Room-Library." Circa 1890 "The library was housed here from 1889-1906." Source states print dates from 1929 - and assume that to mean this was when this positive was printed. Photo is amusing considering the young lad studying botany because he seems to be reading a book against a potted plant.
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics40/00039866.jpgLapl




Circa 1890 City Hall "workers." (Windows appear to have been covered, presumably to limit backlight for photographer's benefit.)
http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics17/00018252.jpgLapl

tovangar2 Mar 3, 2013 5:18 PM

Was there anything that didn't get the word "Mission" applied to it? Ramona, La Fiesta de Los Angeles & The Mission Play certainly had an effect on marketing and the rewriting of history. Even Plaza Church got "Missionized" ("Taco-Belled"?) at the turn of the 20th century, complete with signage (which is still in place).

"...the chain of Missions along the coast might best be described as a series of picturesque charnel houses...the Franciscan padres eliminated Indians with the effectiveness of Nazis operating concentration camps.''
-Carey Mcilliams, Southern California, an Island on the Land.

Not that secularization of the Missions helped much. The Indian slave-labor market was located next to the Downey Block. Any Indian found to be drunk or loitering was imprisoned for the market, sold and paid the following Friday with aguardiente, starting the process over again and destroying thousands of lives.

“on most Mondays, a local administrator auctioned off Indians who had been imprisoned for one week of servitude. The ironically named California Act for the Government and Protection of Indians of 1850 allowed any white person to post bail for convicted Indians, whom he could then require to pay off the fine by working for him — a new form of slave labor. According to George Harwood Phillips, in 1850 the Los Angeles Common Council declared, “When the city has no work in which to employ the chain gang, the Recorder shall, by means of notices conspicuously posted, notify the public that such a number of prisoners will be auctioned off to the highest bidder for private service.”
- From the third installment of A People’s Guide, “We Built This City,” by Laura Pulido.

(http://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/post....5LMdBXm3.dpuf)

Plaza Church, built 1861:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-l...851%2520AM.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7294653@N07/1353010000/

Plaza Church, after being Taco-Belled:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Q...607%2520AM.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7294653@N07/420571865/

History successfully rewritten:

"Across from Union Station stands the city's newest museum, La Plaza de Cultura y Artes, which is free and a must. The museum takes up two historic buildings next to the first church of Los Angeles (dating back to the late 1700s)."
http://www.mercurynews.com/travel/ci...ts-coming-2013

Chuckaluck Mar 3, 2013 6:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tovangar2 (Post 6036545)
Was there anything that didn't get the word "Mission" applied to it? Ramona, La Fiesta de Los Angeles & The Mission Play certainly had an effect on marketing and the rewriting of history. Even Plaza Church got "Missionized" ("Taco-Belled"?) at the turn of the 20th century, complete with signage (which is still in place).

"...the chain of Missions along the coast might best be described as a series of picturesque charnel houses...the Franciscan padres eliminated Indians with the effectiveness of Nazis operating concentration camps.''
-Carey Mcilliams, Southern California, an Island on the Land.

Not that secularization of the Missions helped much. The Indian slave-labor market was located next to the Downey Block. Any Indian found to be drunk or loitering was imprisoned for the market, sold and paid the following Friday with aguardiente, starting the process over again and destroying thousands of lives.

“on most Mondays, a local administrator auctioned off Indians who had been imprisoned for one week of servitude. The ironically named California Act for the Government and Protection of Indians of 1850 allowed any white person to post bail for convicted Indians, whom he could then require to pay off the fine by working for him — a new form of slave labor. According to George Harwood Phillips, in 1850 the Los Angeles Common Council declared, “When the city has no work in which to employ the chain gang, the Recorder shall, by means of notices conspicuously posted, notify the public that such a number of prisoners will be auctioned off to the highest bidder for private service.”
- From the third installment of A People’s Guide, “We Built This City,” by Laura Pulido.

(http://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/post....5LMdBXm3.dpuf)

Are you saying that Mission candies were the product of slave labor? :uhh:
Apropos of the poor treatment of the indigenous theme, toward the bottom right of the posted image is a semicircular message bearing the word "bad."

tovangar2 Mar 3, 2013 6:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuckaluck (Post 6036586)
Are you saying that Mission candies were the product of slave labor? :uhh:

LOL. No, just that the Missions were a bizarre choice for a marketing theme. Sure stuck though.

GaylordWilshire Mar 3, 2013 7:04 PM

Must we always dredge up anachronistic political angles suggesting ancient atrocities, tovangar? I don't think the "Mission" theme was the slightest bit odd for a marketing scheme ca. 1900 in a place called Los Angeles.... Biggest mistake for amateur historians is to apply the cultural norms and expectations of today to the past.

Chuckaluck Mar 3, 2013 7:07 PM

Albert Sheetz Mission Candy Shops.


At the Hill and 7th location. 1948

Very inviting. Exterior may not have done interior justice.
http://catalog.library.ca.gov/exlibr...VMY13RH5M3.jpg
http://catalog.library.ca.gov/exlibr...IGF5BHA1BI.jpg
http://catalog.library.ca.gov/exlibr...VTJT5GHJGD.jpgCalStLib



Circa '37 - 450 North Canon Drive
http://jpg1.lapl.org/00097/00097772.jpgLapl




1942 Menu. Does cooking preserve or destroy vitamins? Should Uncle Sam dine with his hat on the counter?

http://blogs.laweekly.com/squidink/albert-sheetz.JPG
http://blogs.laweekly.com/squidink/albert-sheetz1.JPGhttp://blogs.laweekly.com/squidink/albert-sheetz2.JPG
http://blogs.laweekly.com/squidink/albert-sheetz3.JPGhttp://blogs.laweekly.com/squidink/2..._albert_sh.php

Serving Sheetz ice cream predicts cleverness, regardless of gender.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2057/...d77f20a30a.jpghttp://www.restaurantwarecollectors....70&pagenumber=

tovangar2 Mar 3, 2013 8:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire (Post 6036629)
Must we always dredge up anachronistic political angles suggesting ancient atrocities, tovangar? I don't think the "Mission" theme was the slightest bit odd for a marketing scheme ca. 1900 in a place called Los Angeles.... Biggest mistake for amateur historians is to apply the cultural norms and expectations of today to the past.

The point was that the circa 1900 "Mission" nonsense led the two-time Pulitzer-Prize-winning San Jose Mercury News to identify mid-Victorian Plaza Church as "dating back to the late 1700s" in 2013. Can't we have our actual history while also examining our fantasy history and the reasons and justifications for it, plus the harm it's done, which is, of course, part of history too? Or must we continue to sweep everything under LA's now-alp-like carpet? Once people aren't allowed to think about one thing, they can't really think about anything.

One of my main interests in noir is as a way to decode to the present. Trying to understand the ongoing privatization of our water supply, involving the Resnicks and others, for example, would be much harder without knowing about Owens Valley. The same forces are at work. What's the value of knowing history unless one attempts to apply that knowledge (however "amateurishly" in my case) to the present?

I did not mean to offend GW. I just thought it was interesting.

GaylordWilshire Mar 3, 2013 10:13 PM

:previous:

I was in school a long time and I love to learn, but I'm past wanting to be taught....

kznyc2k Mar 3, 2013 10:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FredH (Post 6035112)
I love pictures of the old central station E.R....as noirish as you can get.

I too love the old central police station, as well as the whole area centered around Hill and First. We've seen this picture before, from 1939:

http://imageshack.us/a/img844/7388/l...9dthill1st.jpg

But now we can zoooooooooom:

http://imageshack.us/a/img560/7388/l...9dthill1st.jpg

Compare with how things looked after First Street was widened in 1941 (look at the building at left with no front wall...go back to the first image and you can see it was sheared off halfway through "TALLY"):

http://imageshack.us/a/img708/8662/l...1dthill1st.jpg

Also, the sidewalk in front of central has nearly doubled in width:

http://imageshack.us/a/img854/8662/l...1dthill1st.jpg

Photos from USC.

As for the building whose front was sheared off, it was the only sliver of property in the project zone between Hill and Main not owned by the city/county/state, or at least as of this 1936 map:

http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics51/00075499.jpg
LAPL

kznyc2k Mar 3, 2013 10:57 PM

Hope this dope shot isn't a repost:

http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/6...90923smogc.png

And these shots from up top are epic:

http://imageshack.us/a/img138/1280/l...90923smogd.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img856/6714/l...90923smogc.jpg

The view west over Court Hill:

http://imageshack.us/a/img803/8898/l...90923smogb.jpg

All shots from September 23, 1949 and are over at USC

kznyc2k Mar 3, 2013 11:07 PM

Speaking of Court Hill and the intersections of Hill and First, does anyone know why the promontory bounded by Hill, First, Olive and Court Streets was cleared and turned into a parking lot?

http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/8...90923smogb.jpg

We know the Bradbury mansion fell in 1929, but everything else seems to have come down gradually over the course of the 1930s. Was this just market economics at work, or did the government perhaps condemn this block due to unstable grounds?

Also, does anyone have pictures of this parking lot from the ground? I've found a few that show slivers of it, but none that shows the whole thing:

http://imageshack.us/a/img138/222/lo...0scourthil.jpg
1950s, Cal State Lib

http://imageshack.us/a/img820/8671/l...2bunkerhil.jpg
1952, Cal State Lib

http://imageshack.us/a/img692/8671/l...2bunkerhil.jpg
1952, Cal State Lib

http://imageshack.us/a/img255/5749/l...0scivicfro.jpg
1940s, unsure of source

Mayor Shaw Mar 4, 2013 12:33 AM

Fred Bayha was a distribution manager for the Los Angeles Examiner newspaper. In the early morning hours on March 31, 1952, Fred arrived at his office located at 8813 Alcott Ave. West Hollywood and began his usual daily routine. At some point an armed man entered the office and attempted to rob Bayha. It appears that Mr. Bayha followed the crook outside and was shot. Shortly after, 16 year old Dick Anderson, a paperboy employed by Fred, found his boss face down on the sidewalk dead from a bullet wound in the chest. With no witnesses and few clues, the police had little to work with in order to catch the killer.
http://imageshack.us/a/img822/2684/exam6.jpg
Detectives near where fred Bayha fell.

http://imageshack.us/a/img62/570/exam2.jpg
Fred Bayha's car outside his office at 8813 Alcott Ave. West Hollywood

http://imageshack.us/a/img145/1764/exam1.jpg
Dick Anderson shows his father where he found Fred's body

http://imageshack.us/a/img441/6743/alcottave1.png
8813 Alcott Ave. as it appears today.


Two years later, a young couple were walking in the hills around Elysian Park when they came across Millian Perovich, a former inmate at the State Hospital in Camarillo. The couple hid in some bushes to observe the "wild looking man drinking vodka", but ran when Perovich began shooting at them from a .22 caliber pistol. LAPD later found Perovich living in a cave at Griffith Park and arrested him on suspicion of five murders, one being that of Fred Bayha, the newspaper distributer in 1952.

http://imageshack.us/a/img10/3866/cavedweller.png

Pics from Examiner collectionLAPL, Newspaper article Stars and Stripes Nov.23,1954

rick m Mar 4, 2013 4:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Albany NY (Post 6036457)
The building at 701-705 South Hill Street was apparently a favorite haunt of Vincent Van Gogh (or maybe Conan O'Brien's grandfather). Either way, it's creepy as all hell. Quick, get back in the Mystery Machine, kids. Thelma just said "Jinkies!"

http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/972/conanj.jpgImage from USC Digital originally posted by Godzilla

And I remember Weegee's show at MOCA in 2010 with a 54/55 business directory revealing that the basement here held the city's faddish (and largest) high colonic specialists - Sultan Health Club-- later became a gloryhole palace flophouse busted by the police commission--File at One Institute thanks to founder Jim Kepner- Rediscovered by myself last autumn....

Flyingwedge Mar 4, 2013 5:43 AM

Edward L. Doheny's Oil Discovery Site
 
In 1930 Edward Doheny had what is described as a site dedication ceremony at or near the site where he first discovered oil in 1892. It looks like there might be a microphone in front of where he's standing, which is described as "south side of Court Street, east of Patton, 2½ blocks east of Glendale Boulevard." But on Court Street, Patton is actually one block east of Glendale Blvd. Anyway, Doheny is the guy on the platform in the straw hat with his right hand raised:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...ps89f2aabb.jpg
USC Digital Library (http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/co...5/id/203/rec/1)
Posted here earlier by gsjansen in April 2011, but the link is now dead.

Probably all but at least two of these four-pics-in-one are of the same event:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0f09bca1.jpg
LAPL (http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics36/00037762.jpg)

The dilapidated oil rig that Doheny's standing on in the USC photo is also shown in the top right and bottom left LAPL photos. Note the building at the left edge of the bottom left photo. We're looking end-on at it and its two slanted rooflines; there's a larger building behind it with a chimney. Both buildings are in the USC photo as well, but you can't see the two slanted rooflines as well.

The larger building with the chimney is gone, but here's the building with the two slanted rooflines today, 183 Douglas St. at the SW corner of Colton St:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...ps856d80c7.jpg
Google Street View

Looking at Google Earth and trying to figure out where that old oil rig Doheny was standing on was in relation to the blue house on the corner of Douglas and Colton (marked by a blue arrow), I think it was about in the NE -- or lower left, as we're looking at it -- corner of the one building on the block, the Echo Park Pool:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...psd7971ade.jpg
Google Earth

I hope those old oil wells are tightly capped.

ProphetM Mar 4, 2013 8:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tovangar2 (Post 6036545)
Was there anything that didn't get the word "Mission" applied to it? Ramona, La Fiesta de Los Angeles & The Mission Play certainly had an effect on marketing and the rewriting of history. Even Plaza Church got "Missionized" ("Taco-Belled"?) at the turn of the 20th century, complete with signage (which is still in place).

"...the chain of Missions along the coast might best be described as a series of picturesque charnel houses...the Franciscan padres eliminated Indians with the effectiveness of Nazis operating concentration camps.''
-Carey Mcilliams, Southern California, an Island on the Land.

Not that secularization of the Missions helped much. The Indian slave-labor market was located next to the Downey Block. Any Indian found to be drunk or loitering was imprisoned for the market, sold and paid the following Friday with aguardiente, starting the process over again and destroying thousands of lives.

“on most Mondays, a local administrator auctioned off Indians who had been imprisoned for one week of servitude. The ironically named California Act for the Government and Protection of Indians of 1850 allowed any white person to post bail for convicted Indians, whom he could then require to pay off the fine by working for him — a new form of slave labor. According to George Harwood Phillips, in 1850 the Los Angeles Common Council declared, “When the city has no work in which to employ the chain gang, the Recorder shall, by means of notices conspicuously posted, notify the public that such a number of prisoners will be auctioned off to the highest bidder for private service.”
- From the third installment of A People’s Guide, “We Built This City,” by Laura Pulido.

(http://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/post....5LMdBXm3.dpuf)

Plaza Church, built 1861:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-l...851%2520AM.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7294653@N07/1353010000/

Plaza Church, after being Taco-Belled:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Q...607%2520AM.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7294653@N07/420571865/

History successfully rewritten:

"Across from Union Station stands the city's newest museum, La Plaza de Cultura y Artes, which is free and a must. The museum takes up two historic buildings next to the first church of Los Angeles (dating back to the late 1700s)."
http://www.mercurynews.com/travel/ci...ts-coming-2013

That's not entirely wrong. An asistencia to Mission San Gabriel was founded on the plaza in the pueblo of Los Angeles in 1784, to minister to the people of the pueblo, and raise crops and livestock for the mission. The 1822 church was built amid the asistencia's ruins, and the current 1861 church was rebuilt from the ruins of the 1822 church. As such, the plaza church is legitimately (though perhaps tenuously) tied to the California Mission system and does indeed trace its origin to the late 1700's, even though the current structure does not (and the author of that piece is of course wrong to say or imply that the actual building is that old).

rick m Mar 4, 2013 3:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rick m (Post 6037081)
And I remember Weegee's show at MOCA in 2010 with a 54/55 business directory revealing that the basement here held the city's faddish (and largest) high colonic specialists - Sultan Health Club-- later became a gloryhole palace flophouse busted by the police commission--File at One Institute thanks to founder Jim Kepner- Rediscovered by myself last autumn....

Oops/Yikes.... Wrong corner attributed - the address 607 So.Hill (just south of Pershing Square) was where the interesting basement businesses I've mentioned were located---

GaylordWilshire Mar 4, 2013 4:00 PM

:previous:



A few items from the Times:


http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/4266/sultanads.jpgLAT



The Consolidated Realty Building was first announced in the Times on October 6, 1907, during the financial troubles of 1907. From the outset it seems to have been planned to be built in stage, with only the foundation completed by mid 1908. Looks like it was finally completed in 1910. No mention of the Sultan before 1916--not sure when it opened.


One tenant of the Consolidated Realty Building was the notorious "Dr." Gertrude Steele, regularly in trouble since at least since 1908 for botched facelifts and other treatments.

http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/6506/steelei.jpgLAT 12-18-1919


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