I had the map labeled 1930s in my old file...but if you see post-WWII streets then "1930s" is obviously incorrect.


to answer your question:
Mines Field became Los Angeles Airport in 1941.
In 1949, it became Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) info. from HERE

Doris, and the Labor Day 'mystery'.

"VINTAGE PHOTOGRAPH 1932 BEACH LOS ANGELES OXNARD CALIFORNIA OLD PHOTO."

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...921/onxJUA.jpg
EBAY

The seller adds that the photograph is from an album page marked "Near Oxnard"



Okay, here's the mystery...

What in the heck is this supposed to represent?

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/3...923/643Ivz.jpg
DETAIL

All I see is....

A WartHog (facing left) shooting an UZI while riding on an Upside-Down SHARK.

Does anyone see something a bit more plausible? :shrug:
__


p.s. also note the jabberwocky letters near Doris' waistline

But the entire reason Southern Californians put the "The" in front of numbered highways is they used to be named. So you'd put a The in front of the name. The Ventura Highway, etc. When they started putting in a uniformed numbering system, we couldn't stop saying "The" to denote we were talking about a highway.

Who is Phil LaToska?

I found this rather odd business card last week in an old file of mine. (originally from ebay)

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...923/Kiciaj.jpghttps://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...922/pbmWZ1.jpg
search purposes: Phil LaToska-International Jugglers' Association-IJA-Lane Blumenthal-854 S. Harvard Blvd. Apt. 105 Los Angeles 5 Calif.

First of all, I wouldn't want to live below Apt. 105. (jugglers and tap dancers should NOT live in apartments)

The business card seemed vaguely familiar so I searched the thread.
'Phil LaToska' has only been mentioned once on nla / in a cigar store post back in 2013
[shown below]

#1 Why is Phil LaToska associated with both juggling and cigars? :shrug:
[QUOTE=ethereal_reality;6049772]

#2 The only Phil LaToska I could find was a Canadian actor [born in 1882] with only one film credit..'Way Down East' [1935]

original 2013 post Here



__

That's the most sensible explanation. The numbers probably make the most sense, but evoke little--for instance, as they do in this famous excerpt from Didon's Play It as It Lays:


"Maria drove the freeway. She dressed every morning with a greater sense of purpose than she had felt in some time, a cotton skirt, a jersey, sandals she could kick off when she wanted the touch of the accelerator, and she dressed very fast, running a brush through her hair once or twice and tying it back with a ribbon, for it was essential (to pause was to throw herself into unspeakable peril) that she be on the freeway by ten o'clock. Not somewhere on Hollywood Boulevard, not on her way to the freeway, but actually on the freeway. If she was not she lost the day's rhythm, its precariously imposed momentum. Once she was on the freeway and had maneuvered her way to a fast lane she turned on the radio at high volume and she drove. She drove the San Diego to the Harbor, the Harbor up to the Hollywood, the Hollywood to the Golden State, the Santa Monica, the Santa Ana, the Pasadena, the Ventura. She drove it as a riverman runs a river, every day more attuned to its currents, its deceptions, and just as a riverman feels the pull of the rapids in the lull between sleeping and waking, so Maria lay at night in the still of Beverly Hills and saw the great signs soar overhead at seventy miles an hour, Normandie ¼ Vermont ¾ Harbor Fwy 1. Again and again she returned to an intricate stretch just south of the interchange where successful passage from the Hollywood onto the Harbor required a diagonal move across four lanes of traffic. On the afternoon she finally did it without once braking or once losing the beat on the radio she was exhilarated...."

I also found the old map of "Southwestern Los Angeles" quite interesting. The rather unique street layout in Gardena, seen in the middle of this cropped version, hits close to home because I happen to live there. The oval runs between Crenshaw Blvd. and what is now Van Ness Ave. but was Arlington Ave. at the time the map was created.

https://i.imgur.com/QP3MMAH.jpg?2

What I have discovered is the bisected oval layout was there long before the area was developed into residential housing. Here is a 1927 UCSB aerial showing the same layout when the entire area was farmland. You can also see Redondo Beach Blvd. running at the same odd angle at the bottom right:

https://i.imgur.com/P3Pe7wd.jpg?1http://mil.library.ucsb.edu/ap_indexes/FrameFinder/

And here it is with development underway on August 29, 1941:

https://i.imgur.com/tyE2doL.jpg?1http://mil.library.ucsb.edu/ap_indexes/FrameFinder/

Looking closely it appears that you can see homes in different stages of completion from empty lots to framing to finished landscaped houses which probably included some model homes.
This 1941 date would seem to indicate the map would be from around this time or shortly thereafter due to the street names having been assigned.

Here it is today. If you look very closely, you might be able to see me sitting at my computer desk creating this reply.

https://i.imgur.com/lWPkBMp.png?1

It reminds me of a witch on a broom.

Good ol" Joan Didion. I used to think Play It As It Lays absolutely nailed the LA experience until I finally figured out most people there did not live bored lives by the pool in Bev Hills. Still, it was a great read, and when I lived in LA in the mid 70s, I could not pull onto the freeway without thinking about the quoted passage. It helped that traffic still moved rapidly on the freeways back in those days.

The Avondale street sign is most likely original. The pole to which it's mounted is newer.

L.A. is in no real hurry to replace the old "shotguns." Although the number of survivors is declining, there are still plenty of them around.

***************************************************************

Last time I'll use "Quick Reply"!

1932 swimsuit emblem
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/3...923/643Ivz.jpg
Martin Pal, I saw a witch at first...but then it morphed into a WartHog with an Uzi. ;) lol

If you turn it upside-down it really looks like a witch!

upside-down
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/3...922/qoXL9H.jpg
...or a GARDEN GNOME on a broom)
___



Since the snapshot of Doris was taken "near Oxnard" I checked the various beaches in the area
& found nothing similar to the design on Doris' swimsuit.


https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...923/fb0Kn1.jpg


Doris might have been visiting Hollywood-By-The-Sea.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/o0Ff5a.jpg
KCET / USC Archive


Just for kicks, here's a close-up of the bathhouse a building at Hollywood-On-The-Sea.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...921/iXsomH.jpg
KCET / USC Archive



wider view of the bathhouse.
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...921/3xiSz1.jpg
KCET / USC Archive ALL REPEATS ON NLA
_

one final look at Doris "near Oxnard"
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...921/onxJUA.jpg

I think she mouthing the f-word

We visited the corner of Sunset and Alvarado a few days ago [Burrito King]. At that time I noticed some recent activity
at this building on the other side of the El Rancho Market.

Northwest corner of Alvarado and Elsinore Streets.
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...921/RgNlQd.jpg
GSV



front view / no visible street number
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...921/Bf2m7q.jpg
GSV

Does anyone know what's planned for this building?

__

Looks like a restaurant on the first floor and maybe an art gallery on the 2nd(that may already be open).

http://www.loopnet.com/Listing/1201-...s-CA/11974875/

This is one of a number of properties that were recently sold by the Foursquare Church in the Echo Park area.

Using the freeway names did work; that's how the older generations did it. My dad still calls the 60 Freeway, the Pomona Freeway.

If you tell someone to "take the Santa Ana Freeway north to the Hollywood Freeway"; that would be the 5 north to the 101. You could also tell someone to "take the Santa Ana Freeway north to the Golden State Freeway and then exit Los Feliz." That would mean the 5 north (from whatever point south of downtown), stay on the 5, and then exit Los Feliz.

Sure it works, I grew up here when we'd still use the names; it's just shorter to use the numbers and a bit less confusing since the signage no longer uses the names.

All the freeway talk reminds me of the SNL sketches of THE CALIFORNIANS!


"I drove my convertible Corvair up Sepulveda, took it to Centinela, turned on La Brea, took it all the way straight."

"Well, you would've been on time if you just took Culver to the 1 then turned right on Sunset."

:previous:


Which reminds me of a classic scene in Clueless, which one site suggests "might be the subconscious inspiration for Saturday Night Live's recurring 'The Californians sketch"...

"Need a ride home?/That'd be great! Thanks!/I'm right below Wilshire and Linden/Oh, that's right near me! I'm above Olympic/Great! You could take Wilshire to Canon and that turns into Benedict/Well, then she'd have to go back south and I'm already going north/But, you could take Tai on your way up to Sunset/That doesn't make any sense! I'd have to get off the freeway, I hate that."

(edited for...um...clarity)

:???: Ummmmmmmmmmmm, other than taking Sunset to get to anything in a timely manner seeming like a bad idea, I don't get it. [looks for dunce's cap]

This movie quote springs to mind: "Everywhere in L.A. takes twenty minutes."

I'm too embarrassed to tell you which movie it comes from.

[QUOTE=ethereal_reality;8302046]Who is Phil LaToska?

I found this rather odd business card last week in an old file of mine. (originally from ebay)

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...923/Kiciaj.jpghttps://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...922/pbmWZ1.jpg
search purposes: Phil LaToska-International Jugglers' Association-IJA-Lane Blumenthal-854 S. Harvard Blvd. Apt. 105 Los Angeles 5 Calif.

First of all, I wouldn't want to live below Apt. 105. (jugglers and tap dancers should NOT live in apartments)

The business card seemed vaguely familiar so I searched the thread.
'Phil LaToska' has only been mentioned once on nla / in a cigar store post back in 2013
[shown below]

#1 Why is Phil LaToska associated with both juggling and cigars? :shrug:
I find Phil La Tosca listed as a vaudeville act in a book called the Argonaut dated October 21, 1916 where he is performing at the Pantages Theater. he is listed as a comic juggler who " has travelled the world with his juggling specialties." " he appears in comic make-up and performs comic tricks"

He is also listed in the Stanford Theater Playdates for December 10, 1927 as the Jesting Juggler as part of the vaudeville program.

In 1921 he is noted in the Oakland Tribune as having a novelty act which is very entertaining.

Thanks for the information Bill in Glendale. I appreciate it. :)

I was looking back in time-- re: the arched openings and windows facing Elsinore.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/dfpDVI.jpg

Usually you can tell if windows have been covered over...but that's not the case here.
[who ever did the covering up did an exceptionally good job)

Voila!
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/NKN0Hy.jpg
ALL FROM GSV




"Workers knocked out concrete block to reveal arched window openings and other building details."

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...923/wZjBpF.jpg
THE EASTSIDER

:previous: look how thick the walls are!


The purchase Bill in Glendale mentioned earlier included a 2nd lot behind the 91 year old bldg.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/atGnDR.jpg
city planning pdf


This is fairly interesting as well.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...921/XHK5GR.jpg
city planning pdf

1987 city directory / alvarado st.
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...924/E4i4jT.jpg
lapl