Construction of the Hollywood Freeway, 1952. Does anyone recognize the buildings?


http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/8...ehollywood.jpg
usc digital archive

Holy crap, X and The Jam! I had an attitude about X back then - I thought they were posers - but of course I love them now. (The Germs were more my thing.) And The Jam! Still among my all-time fave bands. (Even though, as The Bags would say, "We Don't Need The English."

-Scott

This is a great post GaylordWilshire. I love the before and after photos.
I'm a bit confused about the sculpture at the top.....was it relocated to an empty field somewhere?

In this picture picture we're in Hollywood, looking west from somewhere between Gower St and Argyle Ave, just below Franklin Ave.

Those dark apartment buildings on left foreground are on Yucca St, north side, right behind is Knickerbocker. The dark, gothic style roof belongs to Fontenoy, and the light -colored, tall building with some writing on it (we're looking at the right side of the building) is quite well known art deco building also on Yucca, just west of Vine St. It's still there http://tinyurl.com/4ghza29 It was recently restored, and it has a name too. I just can't remember it now.
Just year or two later Capitol Records building was built middle of this very same landscape, it would block the Knickerbocker view.

Here, view from 40ft south of the old picture's POV-
http://tinyurl.com/4uz4lbk

Based on that, in the old picture we see is 101 soutbound Gower St exit ramp in process.
It's only two minute walk to Frolic Room from this spot! Done it many times... Hard to believe the bar was already there when this picture was taken.

:previous:

http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics16/00007831.jpgLAPL

http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics03/00011280.jpgLAPL
Great detective work, Wenders. Found these shots of the art deco building you mention below--the
Yucca-Vine Tower. It was designed by Henry Gogerty, who was in business until the '60s and who also
designed Grand Central Air Terminal in Burbank. The LAPL refers to it as the Pacific States Life Building.
It is now the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. Note the Piggly Wiggly to the left of the tower.


A couple of neon references to apartment or hotel buildings recently mentioned:

http://www.publicartinla.com/neon_si...tenoy_neon.jpgpublicartinla
The Fontenoy--the "London" apartment building featured in
William Castle's 13 Frightened Girls.


https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_z...cameo_neon.jpgpublicartinla
The Cameo at 504 S. Bonnie Brae was once the Chelsea

i never get tired of photographs of semaphore signals......

http://www.corbisimages.com/images/U...9-994bcefe3724
Source: Corbis Images

Because she has never had an accident, Warner Bros. star Martha Vickers has been named "Miss Danger Signal 1946" by the Motor Vehicle Bureau of California, to call attention to their current campaign against traffic accidents.

Thanks, GaylordWilshire.
In your Yucca-Vine Tower picture we can also see Alto Nido Apartments (white, on far left, behind Yucca-Vine Tower, on Ivar Ave/up in the hill) that was William Holden character's home in "Sunset Boulevard." http://www.altonidoapts.com/ The building had plenty of other famous residents too, not only old time filmstars, but also more recent ones.
I knew this already in early 90's, and being already fascinated by the neigborhood, I even inquired availabe apartments in there. There was plenty, they were affordable, but I found a nicer 1930's place on Argyle (without known-history) and decided not to sign any emotion -based rental agreements.

Just couple of houses down/south of Alto Nido, but just out of frame, is Nathaneal West's home, where he supposedly wrote "The Day Of Locust." The tudor -style apartment bldg. was still there just couple of years ago. The condition looked good.

Also, if I remember right, The Fontenoy was Ronald Reagan's very first Hollywood home in 1930's. Feel free to correct me if wrong.

edit: I don't have my original source at hand right now to verify West's home, but it should be this one
http://tinyurl.com/4sj262f Alto Nido is in b.g
Probably better not call it tudor style after all. Let's call it Hollywood's idea of Europe.

WOW! Check out that view of Mulholland Dam! Never seen THAT before.

And now I know why....That view of the dam was short-lived. Less than 10 years.

Lake Hollywood is a man-made reservoir built in 1924 to hold more than 2.5 billion gallons of water. The reservoir is part of the Owens River Aqueduct system. The Mulholland Dam was built by engineer William Mulholland who designed and built the system of aqueducts and reservoir providing Los Angeles with most of its drinking water.

The dam is located in Weid Canyon, East of Cahuenga Pass. The dam is 210 feet high, 933 feet long and 16 feet wide at the crest with a maximum depth of 183 feet.

The Mulholland Dam was reinforced in 1933 with tons of earth on the downstream side as a precaution after the similar St. Francis Dam burst in 1928. Later studies confirmed that the St. Francis disaster was not caused by a faulty design.

The reinforced part of the dam, now covered with fully grown trees, makes the dam barely noticeable from Hollywood below.




http://www.hollywoodknolls.org/image...estrC_1926.jpg


http://www.hollywoodknolls.org/image...estrC_1933.jpg

Dam Ominous!
 

[QUOTE=GaylordWilshire;5199860]:previous:

http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics16/00007831.jpgLAPL

Wow. Does this dam look ominous looming over Hollywood or what?
Any current pics showing a visible trace of the dam from a similar angle?

Ninja55 I'm not sure why almost all of your photos give the message that they are currently unavailable from Flickr. I hope this is just temporary because I'm so interested in these photos! I only could see 3 of the photos. I saw one of the two dancers seated...interested to see if my grandma turns up in any of them. If anyone knows why Flicker is not showing the photos please let me know! I'm bummed!

Dam ominous, indeed, OFHomer
 

http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics20/00009730.jpg
Wonder how it felt to live here in 1928, after the San Francisquito dam burst?


http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics44/00041546.jpg

http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics20/00009842.jpg
Under construction, 1923


http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics44/00041589.jpg


http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics44/00041545.jpg
The LAPL's dating of its photos of this dam careen all over the place; it dates the one above 1937; I believe
they must mean 1927. Similarly, some shots with a fully landscaped south face are dated 1925. Oh well, sifting
through the evidence is what we're here for, right?


http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics48/00058543.jpg
Wondered for a moment what the strange body of water was a right...


The dirt is piled on in the early '30s...
http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics32/00050790.jpg

http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics20/00009720.jpg


http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics44/00041588.jpg
Looking up Holly Drive from Odin Street, December 18, 1963. The LAPL caption to this shot, for what it's worth, says that "tall pine trees above home at end of
street, grows [sic] on the front side of the Hollywood Dam." Anyway, it would seem that the dam was pretty well obscured by 1963. "Out of sight, out of
mind...."

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_z...51137%20PM.jpgGoogle Street View


All photos aside from the Google Street View: LAPL


Note to ethereal re the Chelsea Hotel's bellboy statue: it had to have been some sort of roadside advertising--don't know where this shot was taken, whether somewhere, say, just west of Cucamonga, or after it was discarded. Maybe one day it will turn up on ebay.... It would be the ultimate lawn jockey, wouldn't it?

Beaudry I agree with your 80's assessment of L.A. I remember going to see the Subhumans in '84 at the Olympic with friends but my parents only let me go if I agreed to them picking me up!

Thanks GW. Makes me shudder after working below that thing for so many years.
Now I'm wondering how they would notice faults or cracks though that jungle they've installed.
I'm sure I'll be thinking about it next time I'm on set.:uhh:

:previous::drowning::drowning::drowning::drowning::drowning:


http://jpg1.lapl.org/00075/00075797.jpgLAPL

http://jpg1.lapl.org/00075/00075793.jpgLAPL
And the stepped design of the Hollywood dam is eerily reminiscent of the one at San Francisquito canyon...they
shared their design.... Better pack a rubber dingy on set....

Always Pack A Rubber Dingy.
 

I recently read about that disaster in A Bright and Guilty Place. First thing that entered my head when I saw those photos. Besides AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

Great pic. Looking at this picture made me think of that neighborhood, Whitley Heights, which was partially destroyed by the Hollywood Freeway. The freeway bisected it, and took out quite a number of houses, Rudolph Valentino's included, at 6776 Wedgewood Place.
http://www.whitleyheights.org/media/...%20Heights.jpg
whitleyheights.org

This house was not Falcon Lair, which was his other house, the one he lived in before he died of peritonitis.

Here's The Latin Lover himself, in front of his Wedgewood Place home, with his dog and his 1923 Isotta-Fraschini.
http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/4...drudyvalen.jpg
diecast.org

Hehe! "We don't need two cars, we have a car. Not one of those new things made of chromium and spit; an Isotta-Fraschini. Have you heard of Isotta-Fraschinis? All hand-made. Cost me $28,000."-- Norma Desmond, "Sunset Blvd."

Whitley Heights, undated photo
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics39/00039363.jpg
LAPL

http://www.imcdb.org/i054604.jpgimcdb.com


"So Max got that old bus down off its blocks and polished it up...."


https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_z...ggerisotto.jpgimcdb.com


http://www.oudedaf.nl/fotomap%20pagi...i%20folder.jpgoudedaf.nl


But I did like Joe's Plymouth--seen here at that fateful moment when he turned into... 10086 Sunset Boulevard....
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_z...oChase_flv.jpgjalopnik.com

^^^
Love the pics, Gaylord.

Hmm, looking at Valentino's Wedgewood Place house, it's pretty modest, not quite a great big elephant of a place, the kind that crazy movie people built in the crazy 20s.

Ah, X. I thought I read somewhere that they used to live upstairs from the Circus of Books in West Hollywood, on Santa Monica Blvd. That place is from my youth.

http://0.tqn.com/d/gaytravel/1/0/b/1...cusOfBooks.jpg
about.com

When I would go there to look at mags, I would sometimes be mistaken for a rent boy, which would surprise me and flatter me at the same time. Weird, I know. Out of frame and to the left is the Gold Coast, of which the alley behind was referred to as Vaseline Alley.

Here's Circus of Books in 1982. I didn't start going here to look at mags until 1987, when I was 17.
http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/2...fbooks1982.jpg
paulomurillo.com


WeHo, Santa Monica Blvd., 1982.
http://img806.imageshack.us/img806/524/1982n.jpg
paulomurillo.com

Wow, the RTD. What a blast from the past. This was back when West Hollywood was still an unincorporated community (it incorporated as a city in 1984); not its own city, and outside the jurisdiction of the City of Los Angeles, and the LAPD. Being that it was County area, the LA Sheriffs patrolled the area, and were also a little more lenient than the LAPD, which is what allowed the nightclubs and speakeasies to flourish on the Sunset Strip, and the gay bars to exist on Santa Monica Blvd. I remember when the PE railroad tracks still existed on the median of Santa Monica Blvd., but by the time I was going to WeHo, the median was already landscaped, though the rail tracks were still there. I didn't realize that in the early 80s, the median was just dirt.


Vaseline Alley in 1982.
http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/9...ealley1982.jpg
paulomurillo.com


Mother Lode, 1982. It still exists.
http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/254...erlode1982.jpg
paulomurillo.com


I forgot about this place. International Male, 1982.
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/1...almale1982.jpg
paulomurillo.com

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg
amazon.com

Reading through my WPA Guide to the City of Angels, I saw a few entries for Ninja55's restaurants:

Lucca Restaurant, 501 S. Western Ave. Ample servings of everything from antipasto to spumone in a florid setting with strolling singers.

Musso & Frank Grill, 6667 Hollywood Blvd. Dinner a la carte only. Steaks, and salad mixed at your table, are favorites.

Paris Inn (listed under Night Clubs), 210 East Market St. Dinner from 5:30 p.m. Orchestra. Dancing. Floor shows 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. Separate bar. A rather unusual bar and singing waiters. Closed Sundays.
______________________________________________

Some other entries that I thought were cool:

Perino's Restaurant, 3927 Wilshire Blvd. Table d'hote and a la carte. Specialties include scallopini of veal, chicken curry, crepes suzette, and strawberry Italienne. ("Damnit, Perino's is MY, PLACE!!)

Brown Derby Cafe, 1628 N. Vine St. A la carte only. Frequented by movie stars, especially Friday nights after the American Legion prize fights. Excellent cuisine.

The Hollywood Tropics, 1525 N. Vine St. So atmospheric you feel the rainy season coming on.

Cocoanut Grove, Ambassador Hotel, 3400 Wilshire Blvd. Dinner from 7 p.m.; couvert charge. Orchestra; dancing. Floor show 11 p.m. Bar. Very popular; consistently good entertainment.

Cafe Casino, 425 S. Main St. Prices reasonable. You can use your own judgment where to stop. Very ripe entertainment. Oldtime burlesque with seminude girls.

Beachcomber Cafe, 1727 N. McCadden Pl. Prices are slightly stiff. Specializes in Oriental food and drinks. Frequented by the many lesser Hollywood actors.

Bali Restaurant, 8804 Sunset Blvd. Dinner; no couvert, no minimum. Atmosphere in keeping with the name. Light, risque entertainment. East Indian curry a specialty.