This appears to be the hotel in question. I took this screengrab from a colorized version of the well-known 'A drive through 1940's Los Angeles' video. I think its address is 414/416 S Grand Avenue. In the 1920s, it seems to have been the Sinclair/St Clair Apartments. In the 1930s I found it as The Dorman furnished rooms. After that, 414 gets replaced by 416 S Grand Avenue in the CDs, with the 1942 CD showing the Lilac Apartment Hotel. The 1956 CD appears to list 416 S Grand Avenue as The Grand Avenue Hotel. The image below might show work being carried out, possibly to convert it from an apartment buiding to a hotel.

https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...14SGrandAv.jpg
YouTube

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:previous:

Excellent sleuthing, Hoss..... You da man.

I'm thinking that the northeastern end of the Figueroa Street Tunnels is just out of shot to the right, and that the Figueroa Street exit in the distance now has the Golden State Freeway passing over it. This theory is based on looking at the 1952 view at Historic Aerials (before the Golden State Freeway was built), but I was hoping to find ground level image to back me up. The search continues...

:previous:

Wow, so the caption was telling the truth... This really is a view from Park Row street. The curse of the telephoto lens.

Thanks.

View from Park Row Street (or maybe Park Row Drive)

It must be further south on the 110; past the tunnels, the 110 goes over the LA river. The topography looks like it's just before you get to the first tunnel.

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This photograph was on eBay a few months back.


"Vtg 1964 Hotel Getting Knocked Down - Windward Ave. & Main St. - Venice Cal."

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...923/SAElDg.jpg


Many of you will recognize the building as the old Hotel Antler and, as you can see, the canal in front of the building has been filled in by this point in time.






Here's a closer look because that's what I do. :)

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





As a reminder for lurking newbies.

Days of yore.
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...922/IEQw0b.jpg
skyscraperpage



During a flood in the 1930s. (1934 to be exact)

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...922/YUHyhP.jpg
skyscraperpage

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^^^

The fact that there's a "plumbing" store in the above flood photograph made the photograph amusing to me!

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:haha:



Mr. and Mrs. Hemsley.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/6844/s2UQFk.gif


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I believe the house that was a plumbing store and also the hotel building are still with us

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If I remember correctly a new building was built that paid 'homage' to the old hotel.




update

Here's the info. fullpower.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...922/saiZ4p.jpg
LATIMES


https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...924/n48Ygj.jpg



skyscraperpage
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Ditto. Thank you so very much HossC. I love this place. I appreciate the people. So much heart.

I stand corrected.

Yes, you will know.

At the end of that lane, on that foundation, was a four-ish-car garage. There was a sign over the doors which read "Franc and Dan's Sometimes Autoworks". And sometimes they did.

"Dan", was Dan Logan, who had come up to 1601 Rambla Pacifico. the property's formal address, in the 1960s to work for Jim Moore's company, Medical Planning Associates. He started by making lunch and feeding the dogs. Over time Dan became an architect, like Jim, and was his protege.

By the time Jim retired, 15 or so years later; Daniel A. Logan had worked his way up to becoming the President of Medical Planning Associates; the company that occupied those buildings so beautifully photographed by Julius Schulman.

And he also became the sole owner of "Rockledge", the 15-acre property under those buildings. He also shared "Windcliff", the house you mentioned with the 13-car garage, (BTW - one space had a hydraulic lift and other tools and machines so a mechanic could come there to work on the cars rather than the other way around.)

And I'm surprised you didn't mention Windcliff having; from the upper bedroom windows; a view of the Pacific, including Catalina Island, on the West wall, a view of the SF Valley on the North wall AND a view of downtown Los Angeles and environs to the South and East. Unique.

It sat on ten acres contiguous with the huge property that was the top of that hill at an elevation of 2750 feet, making it, I believe, the highest point in all of Los Angeles. It was the Nike Missle Tracking site when the US Government leased the acreage from the owner, Jim's friend, John Hall.

As a favor to Jim, Windcliff was carved out of Hall's property as well ... There was a small seasonal lake on it, filled with catfish! These fish would bury themselves in the mud during the dry months and wait for rain when they miraculously came back to life! Windcliff was a unique property. Both Rockledge and Windcliff burned in the Malibu Fire of 1993.

In that garage at the end of the lane was a 1935 Bentley with its original UK license plates. It was a future restoration project. A 1953 Bentley had shared space until its completed restoration some years earlier. It was then given its own space in one of six cargo containers that had been placed around the property. Three were used as garages (the '53 Bentley, my 1964 MBZ 230SL and a restored 1971 Maserati Ghibli) The other three were used as storage and archives for MPA paperwork. Those are the other "pads" you see on the property; the one near the garage, under the tree. a couple where those solar panels are now.

On November 2, 1993, after 2-3 exhausting days of continually soaking the buildings with hoses, we felt like we were safe. It was calm. The fire was way across Carbon Canyon and seemed contained. I turned on my video camera to record it.

All of a sudden, the wind abruptly changed and came, incredibly strong, directly toward us. We tried to resist and continue wetting things down but suddenly the fire was behind us Dozens of embers caused the many pine and spruce trees surrounding the buildings to kind of explode and then briskly burst into flame. The heat felt like a huge oven door to hell had just opened. The police came running down the driveway screaming, "EVACUATE! NOW NOW! We figured we had to go. :runaway:

Having safely survived a few earlier fires before, we were overconfident and hadn't packed anything to save ... that morning, almost as a goof, I grabbed two pieces of art off the wall, saying, "well, if everything goes, we'll have these.", and threw them into the back seat of the Bentley. And that's exactly what we had. Everything burned in that very hot, (the Wolf stove melted!) horrible inferno.

We drove out of Rockledge in our 1980 Bentley, the '64 MBZ 230SL and the '53 Bentley. The newly restored Maserati, in its metal storage container, baked away leaving only a blackened frame. The '35 Bentley had to be left outside in the parking area ... near the propane tank ... it escaped totally unscathed!! It is still somewhere awaiting restoration.

We stopped about a quarter mile away and looked back. Rockledge was totally engulfed in flames at least a hundred feet high. I picked up my video camera which had been on since I was calmly going to shoot the fire across the canyon. Only fifteen minutes had elapsed. But life for me, for Dan, for Rockledge and for Medical Planning Associates ... had changed forever.

I hope that didn't get too boring; when I start writing I can't easily find an endpoint so I go on ... and on ... I'm Franc, the other name on the Sometimes Autoworks sign ... I'm also somewhere awaiting restoration

I think we may have another faulty i.d. on our hands....


https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...080&fit=bounds

The site (https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/li...3774-143248061) claims this is "Lincoln Blvd./Van Buren Ave., Los Angeles, 1953".....


There is indeed a Van Buren Ave., the street intersects Lincoln Blvd. on the west side of Lincoln only, on the east side it becomes Zanja St.....but this does not look like Lincoln Blvd. to me, the street does not seem wide enough, and trees are visible.....that part of Lincoln has always been basically treeless, from my recollection.


A companion photo....

https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...080&fit=bounds


I ran Quality Cafeteria and W.F. Novak Hardware in early/mid-'50's Yellow Pages, nothing turned up....I also ran the Bldg. and Safety historical permits for the Lincoln/Van Buren corner, and could not match up anything with these photos.

There's a sign on the side of the hardware store, "Elect Halvorson" maybe?.....I could find no reference to a "Halvorson" running for office in the city in '53.


On the auto seen in the first photo, that could be a Cal. yellow background plate, these were issued '47 through '50....

https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...080&fit=bounds


Here's the Lincoln/Van Buren corner....

https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...720&fit=bounds

:previous:


Way off--it may not look like it with the degradation of the the streetscape, but this is the nec of N. Snelling and Van Buren avenues...in St. Paul MN


https://i.postimg.cc/Kz8VLpFM/stpaulstreet-bmp.jpg

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I could be wrong but I don't believe that we have seen this expansive (and amazing) photograph of the old Reliance-Majestic Studio at 4500 Sunset Boulevard.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq90/924/A7H8cb.jpg

It's from the July 1915 issue of Moving Picture World / New York, Chalmers Publishing Company.




And here's some info. from the mag.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/MuQ3vP.jpg
internetarchive


https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/CLTcDt.jpg
internetarchive


The address 4500 Sunset Boulevard is adjacent to the Vista Theater, which still stands. (I can't remember if the studio was next door. .or across the street. .from the Vista)

:previous:
If the odd/even numbering system is the same as it was in 1915, 4500 Sunset would be south where the Vons market is now, so opposite (south west) of The Vista, which opened in 1923; coming up on it's 100th Anniversary.

Info below from this link:
https://wikimapia.org/6829812/Relian...e-Arts-Studios

4516 Sunset Blvd. (aka 4500 Sunset Blvd, aka 4534 Sunset Blvd.)

This parking lot and grocery store was the site of many historical studios.

Built in 1909 as Revier Laboratory (aka Fox Film Co., not to be confused with William Fox Film Corp.), then occupied by Kinemacolor Studios until they went out of business in 1913. Kinemacolor produced the first color motion pictures. In 1913 Mutual acquired the assets of Kinemacolor, including their Hollywood studio.

1914 LA County plot map shows ownership of the northern half under RH Chambers and shows several building on the lot

Taken over by Reliance (later Majestic-Reliance aka Triangle-Fine Arts-Griffith) in 1913, producing many of DW Griffith's early Hollywood films (after leaving Biograph in NY). Griffith's "Birth of a Nation" and "Intolerance" were shot here in 1914-16.

In 1918 Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa (of Bridge on the River Kwai fame) took over for producing his own films, naming the lot Haworth Studio. He budgeted his films at $350,000 of which $200,000 were his salary. Quite a tidy sum for the late teens. He shut down in 1921.

In 1921 ownership passed to Gooden Studio Motion Pictures Films.(Arthur Gooden Productions). Tattenahm Productions also located here during this year.

It was a rental lot until 1927 when it became Tiffany-Stahl, becoming just Tiffany in 1932, and in 1934, California Tiffany. (Tiffany was founded in 1921 by movie star Mae Murray and director John M. Stahl. Stahl later took over the company and renamed the studio Tiffany-Stahl).
Monogram was based here for a time (circa 1931-1937).

In the later 30's it was taken over by Talisman who used it as a rental lot until 1943, with a brief stop in 1940 as a branch of Columbia, renaming it Sunset Studio and moving its Three Stooges unit here.

The studio burned down in the 1960s and a super market was built on the property.

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Thanks for the information, Martin Pal.

I don't recall ever hearing about a Tiffany-Stahl Studios.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/SdihIg.jpg
dorothysebastian


And yet, there it is! :)

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thank you for looking Odinthor!!

I hike that trail quite a bit - its nice up there. I'll see if I can find any info about the Willacre estate.

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There was an early film studio in Santa Monica?...:stunned:..(color me somewhat stunned)

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/D1y7Z4.jpg
internetarchive

The older building on the left looks vaguely familiar to me. If it's the building that I'm thinking of it's still standing. (could we have such good luck?)
The trouble is I don't recall where the building is located. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?...because I don't. haha





More. . .

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq90/922/lgV3RU.jpg

I'm surprised the article doesn't include the street address for the nascent studio. ...What's up with that? :shrug:


Last paragraph:

"The company has a ranch up in the mountains near the studio which is used for big outdoor sets and western frontier scenes.
It is wild and free from civilization within a few miles of the plant."

Did this "free from civilization" area in the mountains eventually become 'Inceville'?


Inquiring minds want to know. (well, I do, anyway)


Link to Moving Picture World, Here

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