The sign says Lee-Tex RUBBER products...maybe Lee-Tex Oil morphed into Lee-Tex Rubber...


https://i.postimg.cc/3JhnwffM/leetexpic1-bmp.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/NfVF4S3S/leetextext-bmp.jpg
LAT June 13, 1954

Looks like it was in the building that's still at the nwc of Western and 132nd...designed by no less than S. Charles Lee



And from the LAT August 14, 1955:

https://i.postimg.cc/J4knnKgL/leetex3-bmp.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/jdP79sRP/leetex4-bmp.jpg

:previous: Thanks for digging up the old newspaper clippings, GW.


Get a load of this....Lee-Tex made balloon shoes. (I laughed when I read "balloon shoes" :lmao:)

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...922/No3wMU.jpg
ebay

They, no doubt, made the balloons too. ...I mean, it is a rubber company.




EDIT: I see (now) that ballooons are mentioned in GW's first clipping.

.

I saw this photograph a few days ago on ebay. ...... (I just checked...it's still listed. Go HERE)


Have we seen, or discussed, the "Harvey Trip" on nla?

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...921/BaliyT.jpg
ebay



The photograph is actually a postcard.

Here's the back. (1912 postmark)
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...921/AqZ1dO.jpg



It appears to be more than a fly-by-night business. If you look closely, the driver's hat has the company's name stitched on it.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...923/BTGRL8.jpg
detail


I searched through the city directories and came up with zilch. :(


P.S. Did you notice his speaking horn? (in the top pic)


.

:previous:

E.R. - Doesn't it seem like there are way too many people in that vehicle?

Also, I think there is another person driving. I bet that guy with the bullhorn hangs on the running board and calls out the interesting locations.

I think I would pass on the Harvey Trip. Seems like it would be a hot, dusty, and probably smelly ride.

You're right about there being another driving, FredH. I see him now.

The man standing must have been the narrator of the tour.




I see that the postcard is going to Kansas. Fred Harvey was originally from Kansas. I wonder if there is any connection between the two. :shrug:

Worse part would be the solid rubber tires.

Agree we're in Burbank. There was a Newberry's at 3610 Magnolia, and a McCoy Shoe store at 3604.

https://i.imgur.com/bl1Uq65.jpg
GSV

The Vega Food Center was across the street in the next block at 3713 Magnolia.

delete

[QUOTE=Martin Pal;8602356]Looking forward to the next batch, E_R!

https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/5087...7b0b0_XXXL.jpg

^^^
Wow, Brew 102, gasometers and an old vic--real old tyme L.A.! A building like that would now go for at least a $million in S.F. unrestored, and several million restored.

There was an Akron on Hollywood Way, across from Albin's Hobbies & Toys, which is now the Train Shack.

I remember going to the grand opening of Newberry's in the early 1950s. The California Theatre opened around the same time. I saw The Day the Earth Stood Still and Rhubarb at the Magnolia in 1951 and later The Birds and the Bees and Sing Boy Sing. Has anyone heard of these movies, much less seen them? I know everyone has seen The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Magnolia Park was, and is, a great neighborhood.

https://img1.mashed.com/img/gallery/...1552675677.jpg
Mashed


The Founders of McDonald's.....the brothers in this 1954 photo. It all began in San Bernardino, CA
Their first stand sold hot dogs in 1940.

^^^

CBD, did you see that movie of a couple years ago about McDonald's and how it became what it is? It starred Michael Keaton and is called The Founder. I'd recommend it.

Never heard of Sing Boy Sing. Wiki says this is a musical drama starring Tommy Sands as a singing idol with a controlling manager, a la Elvis Presley and was expanded from an episode of the Kraft Television Theatre, titled The Singin' Idol, also starring Sands.

The Birds and the Bees sounds familiar, but that doesn't mean I've seen it. (IMDB Says it's a remake of Preston Sturges' "The Lady Eve.")

Now Rhubarb I've heard of.

Tom Hatten used to show it a lot on his KTLA movie programs that he hosted. It's based on a 1946 H. Allen Smith novel about a cat that inherits a baseball team. It's very Damon Runyonesque. I actually read it about ten or more years ago. I believe there was a sequel to the novel, too. I have the DVD of it, too. And if you don't know, a "rhubarb" is also baseball slang for a fight or argument among players and/or umpires.

Ray Milland and Jan Sterling are the stars. William Frawley is also in it. Sources say that "Strother Martin and Leonard Nimoy have uncredited roles in this film" as well. This film is often called a screwball noir comedy. I can see that. (!) Ray Milland also did another screwball baseball film called "It Happens Every Spring" where he is a college professor who invents a substance that, if you rub it on bats, it repels the baseballs. (I wonder what happens if you rub it on other things?)

Tom Hatten used to tell the story about a nationwide casting search for the cat to play Rhubarb, and would say that it rivaled the search for someone to play Scarlett in Gone with the Wind. And after all that they found him (Orangey) in their own backyard.

On the Cinema Cats site, for the review of this movie, they write: "We will be posting a Feature Story on the behind the scenes casting of Orangey and his illustrious career in a future article, as it’s far too detailed to include in this review." But I can't find it on there. (Can you?)

Sources say that this cat, Orangey, is the only animal to have won 2 Patsy Awards (for animal actors) for Rhubarb and for playing "Cat" in Breakfast at Tiffany's ten years later!

Martin, heard about it but have not seen it. I will look for it. Thanks so much for the good cheer.....

https://image.slidesharecdn.com/mcdo...?cb=1467038090
slideshare

How fitting that modern fast food began in Southern CA

This is one of the photos in the Huntington Library's Palmer Conner Collection.

It seems like a perfect noirish image to me! Can we decipher it?
I'm guessing it'a a double (or more) exposure. The photo was titled:

OUT ALL NIGHT!

https://hdl.huntington.org/digital/a...30/default.jpgHuntington/Palmer Conner Collection

Followed by an altered photo:

https://hdl.huntington.org/digital/a...32/default.jpgHuntington/Palmer Conner Collection

(Methinks Robert has a sense of humor!)

The original photo:

https://hdl.huntington.org/digital/a...39/default.jpgHuntington/Palmer Conner Collection

The Founder was a good movie. I've been to the oldest operating McDonalds in the world located in Downey (which was independent of McDonalds Corporation until recently) and found it funny that they had a Ray Kroc Hall right next to the restrooms :haha:

https://youtu.be/QjVDXQ6aSo0?t=10m

I think it says Lee Tex Rubber Products

While we lived on Clybourne just across the line in NoHo, my mom often shopped at the Akron in Burbank & I went for a time to Bell.Jeff High School (recently closed) in beautiful downtown Burbank, but later transfered to NoHo High. Bell Jeff had some good teachers (mostly fearsome nuns) but didn't offer all the science courses (no biology in the mid '60s!). Akron was a kind of a proto Pier 1 type of place, and had all kinds of imports. We saw "Lillies of the Field" at the Magnolia, in 1964 I believe. Won Sydney Poitier an Academy Award. Amen! Good film. One heck of a fearsome nun in that flick, much like the Bell Jeff nuns, but a heart of gold underneath. Burbank punched above its economic weight back then, in both aviation/defense and film/TV. Now most of the aerospace is gone (Lockheed left decades ago), but the film/TV stuff is still there and Disney is "YuGER" than ever and the only DOW 30 Industrial stock currently HQd in the L.A. area.

Did you see "The Founder" about how Ray Krok got the brothers to sell out? Pretty good film. Not sure if it is completely accurate. As you are aware, there is also an early McDs in Downey still in operation, but it might be an early Krok franchise. The original is the San Berdo one of course.

mystery location. [January 1972]

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/B5i9z4.jpg
Ebay

There are street signs but they're too blurry to read. (for me, anyway) ...




Here's a close-up the signs.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...921/B9BFWC.jpg
DETAIL

hmmmmm....:shrug:


This is the only information. [INSIDE THE YELLOW RECTANGLE]

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...923/ZE1vHc.jpg


.

Doris Nieh
 

On eBay, By Doris Nieh, 1962
http://www.califaztlan.org/LANoirPics/NiehCars.jpg

OK, here's another mystery location, folks. [June 1972]


https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/OiMDD4.jpg
Ebay




There are numerous street signs in this slide as well. (four, count'em, four)

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq90/923/bj9nfe.jpg

Above Guy's Cleaners and over by the stoplight at far right. (circled)



Info.
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...922/rR868q.jpg

Evergreen area? :shrug:

.

I think the sign reads Brooklyn (Cesar Chavez) and Cummings, looking southeast across Brooklyn.

Wabash and Forest, Looking southwest.

While taking the Googlemobile around the vicinity of the corner of Cesar Chavez and Cummings, pictured above, I saw some quite tall California Fan Palms in the distance, which betokened great age. Curious, I ran them to ground a block or so away on New Jersey St.:

https://i.postimg.cc/Bv5YvxK1/New-Jersey.jpg
gsv

More or less in front of 2012 New Jersey St.

https://i.postimg.cc/76mK3wXH/New-Jersey2012.jpg
gsv

of which:

https://i.postimg.cc/RF5WgHsG/New-Je...-4-25-1919.jpg
LA Herald April 25, 1919, via UCR Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research

But nothing about the palm trees. :(

Page 3 of the following publication, dated 1900, shows retired mayor Henry Workman at his Boyle Heights home showing off the palms and Silk Oaks he had just recently planted all over the neighborhood:

https://archive.org/details/beautifu...00losa/page/n5

http://www.califaztlan.org/wp-conten...8/workman1.jpg

These particular trees still stand.

Of the mayor, it reads:

"Mr. Workman has, by his liberal expenditure of money, time and energy in improvements, been the leading person in making Boyle Heights what it is today, he having expended in cash over two hundred thousand dollars in streets, railroads, piping water all over the Heights, grading streets, constructing sewers, sidewalks, shade trees, and innumerable other improvements that adorn the Heights. ”

I think that sign says "Ivy's Cleaners."

:previous:

I was wondering if just maybe the Green Burrito restaurant above was the original location of the chain now owned by Carl's Jr. but it wasn't. That started on Carson Street in Hawaiian Gardens.

https://i.imgur.com/8mSBxK3.jpg?1
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/don-...NfV9z7qlPl3f5Q

Downey McDonald's
 

The Downey location was not a Kroc franchise. Kroc was a Multimixer salesman who was already planning his own Illinois franchise when he came to Downey in 1954.

The Downey location opened in 1953. It was the third location in the chain at that time.

This sign sits out front of the Downey location that answers the most common questions about when it was built, did Kroc build it, is it the first one, etc...


https://live.staticflickr.com/3312/3...b6c50ed57d.jpg
McDonald's History Tour by Abby, on Flickr

The one thing the sign doesn't address is that it was the only location that still fried its Apple pies. I am not sure it is still the only one, but a coworker drives from Westchester (near LAX) to this location occasionally just for the fried Apple Pies.

New to NLA.

Here are three amateur slides showing a command center that was set up after the Baldwin Hills dam break. [1963]


#1
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/50kM5d.jpg
Ebay (found about a week ago)






#2
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...921/o5VXDL.jpg
Ebay






#3
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...922/sjgcHX.jpg
Ebay



I believe this is the same area that was initially under water. [SEE BELOW]

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...921/ZFhj3m.jpg
srk1941 at flickr

You can clearly see the towering Thrifty sign. :previous: [shown in slide #3] .......but I can't find the gas stations.






Did you notice the people standing on the roofs?

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/7erTPw.jpg
DETAIL


.

OK, I just spotted the Union 76 station.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...922/7to7VF.jpg
flickr

but I don't see the Standard station (Ebay slide #2) and the Ritchfield stations. (Ebay slide #1).....[in previous post]


.

Union 76
 

If I remember, there were two Union 76 stations in that area. There was one on the SE corner of La Brea and Rodeo Road in the shopping center with Newberry's, etc. Thrifty drugs and corporate offices were on the NE corner. I think we may have written about the two Hody's restaurants (drive in and sit down restaurants) on the NW and SW corners in the past. The other Union 76 station was on the SW corner of La Brea and Jefferson. In the background was the old Thrifty warehouse.

:previous: Thanks bighen!




Does anyone recall this 1964 proposal to turn the 'post dam-break' Baldwin Hills Reservoir into a sports stadium for the Angels?

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/R3iHGJ.jpg
halosheaven

"Caption dated April 22, 1964 reads: LA Mayor Sam Yorty is reportedly going to meet with Angel president Robert Reynolds 4/22 to discuss the possibility of building a stadium
on the site of the now empty Baldwin Hills reservoir. This artist's diagram shows a ballpark drawing in the reservoir, the breech in the right field stands in the opening where floodwaters
poured over the community last December."





Perhaps we have already seen this stadium proposal on NLA. If so, act like you've never seen it before. ;)
...

Does anyone recall the ooooold McDonald's burgers? Similar taste as to now? I'm having a hard time remembering.

post deleted

I remember them as being heavier on the onions, but a lot of hamburgers have gone down the hatch since then :cool:

Cheers,

Earl

They've all changed the ''meat'' they're allowed to use. Now, more of what used to be discarded meat [dog food] is used....such as connective tissue.

Back in the day, you could get a high quality meal at Hamburger Hamlet where prime cuts were ground into ''hamburger". It appears that those days are long gone. Generally food in the USA is some of the worst in the world. Kids today don't know what it was like 60 years ago.

https://metvcdn.metv.com/0UK6C-14942...rgerhamlet.jpg
metv

From January 2015:

In response to a question about why there were two restaurants opposite each other:

I can confirm this. Significantly more onion then than now. I seem to recall the buns were warmed on a grill then, too, such that they acquired a somewhat oily sheen on the outer surface. Overall, original McDonald's hamburgers were moister, and had a more savory scent and flavor than today's.

^^^
All hamburgers served with...a "gaggle" of pickles?
For a gaggle of noirishers, perhaps?

How deep do think you think the flood water is in this area? (it doesn't appear all that deep to me) --and wouldn't the water lower rather quickly. :shrug:


I was a bit surprised to find a helicopter rescue.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...921/H06nae.jpg
damfailures.org

Do you think the situation warranted a helicopter rescue?

By golly, that menu is making me hungry.

The hamburger place I remember mostly was Hampton's on Highland.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...921/uuuTXw.jpgT2

You can read about Hampton's history HERE


A little more about the house.

"For a short time before it became Hamptons, the little orange house on Highland Avenue was an unsuccessful recording studio.
I can’t recall the name at the moment, but the corporate name for the recording studio was the same as the corporate name for Hamptons.
Ron couldn’t bear to sell the house when the recording studio went belly up, so he decided to convert it into a burger restaurant." -Robin Jones

I don't think we were able to find a photograph of the recording studio..or the house in it's original form.

from one of my earlier posts HERE


...

:previous:

You missed the "f" of "forum" out of your link to T2's post. You can see the post here.

PS. I tried messaging you, e_r, but your inbox is full!

Its been full for years. I suppose ER does not want messages from members.

:cheers: :cheers: :cheers: :cheers:

Fixed it. Thanks for the heads up, Hoss.

A group of friends enjoying a holiday weekend gathering in Laurel Canyon, October 1914.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/atTZrH.jpg
ebay I believe the pics were sold. I haven't been able to find an active link.



https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq90/921/VzwQF3.jpg
ebay

Shenanigans! ...They look like a fun group of friends.








I am especially intrigued by this last snapshot.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...922/GgHEbI.jpg
ebay

Was there a water tower on, or near, Lookout Mountain or Lookout Mountain Inn? :shrug: ... If there wasn't. . .then I'm stumped. (and this 'officially' becomes a mystery location ;))

Lorendoc might know. I believe he lives in this area.





Here is the seller's complete information.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...924/zxqaob.jpg

I might have saved the Halloween 'costume' photo somewhere in my files. I'll have to look for it.

It's a shame the seller decided to sell the photographs separately.

.

Earlier today I came across this handcut, amateur stereoview.

327 So. Alvarado St. Los Angeles....Oct. 4, 1914.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...921/r7jA6y.jpg
Ebay


.

Decades ago, I went there for lunch with my mom and one of the female secretaries who worked at CBS with my mom.

(Back in those days, nobody minded if my mom brought me in to work with her. I was a quiet, well-behaved kid - I'd sit in my mom's office and draw all day, and didn't bother anyone.)

Hampton's was supposed to be the fancy burger place - not to be mentioned in the same sentence as lowly burger joints like McDonald's. A lot of the studio types went there.

This would have to be sometime in the 70's. I remember the hamburgers being very good, a meal in itself.

I remember the hamburgers being REALLY BIG. Is that correct, ER?

(I also went to the Hamptons in Toluca Lake a couple of times, too)