Here are photos of the Trocadero, notice how it has changed over the years, loosing its roof and changing signs and later being resurrected:
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics40/00039935.jpgLAPL
Originally known as the La Boheme from 1929 to 1933, the Trocadero was opened by Hollywood Reporter William Wilkerson in 1934. After years of serving as one of Hollywood's best evening destinations, the "Troc" was closed in 1946. Back in the 1930s Sunset Boulevard contained the world's hottest nightspots, including the famous trio: The Trocadero (8610 Sunset Blvd. - seen here), Ciro's (8433 Sunset Blvd.), and The Mocambo (8588 Sunset Blvd.).
Exterior view of the Cafe Trocadero on the Sunset Strip before it was remodeled. A second sign below the nightclub name reads, "Phil Ohman's Music."

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http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics21/00045344.jpgLAPL
Exterior view of the Trocadero, located at Sunset Blvd. and Sunset Plaza Drive, as seen from across the street, looking south. Note the art designs on the wall and above each of the doors. Photo dated: February 17, 1938.

http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics31/00065367.jpgLAPL
Exterior view of the new Cafe Trocadero, a low-slung building located at Sunset Blvd. and Sunset Plaza Drive, as seen from across the street. A taxicab is parked in front. circa 1935

http://jpg1.lapl.org/spnb01/00007170.jpg LAPL

http://jpg1.lapl.org/spnb01/00007168.jpgLAPL
Exterior view of the famous nightclub Trocadero, located at 8610 Sunset Boulevard in what is now West Hollywood. This view, from where Sunset Plaza Drive (foreground) meets Sunset Boulevard, shows the nightclub after it had undergone extensive remodeling. circa 1945

Among the celebrities who frequented the Trocadero were Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, Jackie Gleason, Henry Fonda, Judy Garland, Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Jean Harlow, and Norma Shearer. The Trocadero was featured in the 1937 movie A Star is Born starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March. That same year, vaudevillian and Three Stooges manager Ted Healy died shortly after a fight in the parking lot, allegedly at the hands of fellow contractee Wallace Beery and MGM studio executive Eddie Mannix. A 2004 documentary film claimed that Healy's assailants were actually Wallace Beery, gangster Pat DiCicco, and DiCicco's cousin Albert "Cubby" Broccoli.

Actress/comedienne Thelma Todd, who died mysteriously in December 1935, spent an evening at the Trocadero at a party thrown by Ida Lupino and her father Stanley. Todd had formerly been married to Pat DiCicco, and was angry that he had shown up there with another actress, Margaret Lindsay. The party was one of the last times that she was seen alive. (Wikepedia)

Today, a " new" Trocadero stands as a nightclub at 8610 Sunset Boulevard on the Sunset Strip.:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8459/8...98bff5cf_b.jpgGE
Notice the buildings on the left still stand!

I hardly recognized it being cut in half like that. Still blows my mind that they used to do that...and that they did it as regularly as they did, not just as a rare and eccentric decision.

ETA: Question...is there a turret out the back of it? (Because the turret in the photo doesn't match the front or side of the house that you can see from the street.)

:previous:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Y...2520PM.bmp.jpgGoogle SV

It's on the back on the southwest corner of the house....

BifRayRock, many thanks for all the photos of the Dominguez-Wilshire building. I work in this building and love it, and several of the photos you posted are new to me. The lobby of the building has changed very little since the building first opened. Here's how it looks now:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8315/8...6bc42a1a_b.jpg

The owners recently got those Art Deco elevator floor indicators working again in the lobby, and will have them working on all floors soon.

Also, a huge thanks to everyone that responded to my request for info on the buildings that appeared in Hollywood the Unusual. It's great to know some of those gorgeous structures still stand.

Such a nice picture that needed a little touch up.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8460/8...523525df_b.jpg

Recent discussion about this area.

830-832 South Sycamore Avenue, 1927 "Leo P. Schaefer Co., mortgage loan co"
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assets...CHS-41366?v=hrUSC Digital

Twelve years later 1939
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assets...CHS-41367?v=hrUSC Digital

Maybe the angle but updated version may have a different setback: http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8...ed=0CCEQ8gEwAA
http://cbk1.google.com/cbk?output=th...=1&w=300&h=118

I'm still digging around for more Cotton Club stuff and I came across a couple more images, both of which appear to be from around when it opened circa 1928:

http://imageshack.us/a/img829/5602/cottonclub.jpg
Worthpoint.com

http://imageshack.us/a/img716/8309/cottonclub2.jpg
Loyola Marymount Digital Collections

Looked to be quite the colorful place--probably in more ways than one!

4350 Beverly Blvd. Photo is recent, but 1922 building does not look modern.

http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics23/00061355.jpglapl

So it is! Thanks. :tup:

William Wilkerson, another man with a place in Noir History, He was the developer behind the Flamingo resort, one time Mentor to Benjamin "Bugsy" Segal. He ended up running to france to escape Segal's jealousy, someone here could probably tell this story better than i can, but i can say that Wilkerson and the Fall of Bugsy Segal are integral to L.A. Noir amd that bloody year of 1947.

kznyc2k your work is just excellent,i had a book on black music in los angeles and they had a couple of pages dedicated to the cc. its one of the clubs i always wanted to know about and ive had the book for over 20 yrs!so thanks again.

Unihikid, glad to be of help! I'm ecstatic to be able to contribute some detective skills to this most amazing of all threads. Heck, calling it a "thread" at this point almost sounds belittling...what we have on our hands now is a friggin' tome!

HxLxPx represent! Highland Park can thankfully accommodate both hipster and 'banger and does so very well, better here than anywhere I'd say. If its main problem is that it's gangy (esp now with those Avenues Drew St bust pops gettin' sprung and having to fight it out with Dogtown, who've taken over some turf), big whoop. One can only go to latimes.com, find "Crime" in the masthead, hit "Crime Alerts" or that "Crime Neighborhood Rankings" top ten and you'll find Highland Park not represented therein. Of course, if HlP's main problem is hipsters, big whoop squared; though I hate their Neil Young guitar riffs at 3pm on a Tuesday, can they be heard over the conjunto? To beat their collective band, HlP is LA's fastest-growing black community, as our neighbors from below the border push historically African-American neighborhoods northward.

Sorry, diverted into diversity where I should stay on the subject of architecture: I steward an ample 1907 Tudor/Craftsman, double lot, original fixtures and built-ins and servants' bells and laundry chutes and the greater nine yards, purchased for a song. Half a song. No, literally, a third of a song. Point being: Highland Park is, as the first great suburb of downtown (I said great suburb, Lincoln Heights!) a) the last place, as one treks inexorably east, to buy a primo pad in this burg with maximum bang for the buck and b) where LA's preservation community has the biggest and most watchful stick up its shingled butt when it comes to vigilance over this, our largest HPOZ.

As long as we're on the subject...

Squint your eyes at this http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8176/8...65d2341d_b.jpgand argue that it's not a weirdly groundbreaking modernist building...here in Garvanza when Gill and Wright were still in short-pants. http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assets.../view/CHS-5206

Catapult yourself forward fifty-three years to...the local Optimist Home!
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics49/00044463.jpg
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics49/00044463.jpg
...of 1953, at 6957 Figueroa.

I could (read: can and will) go on, but you get the idea. Highland Park is Old LA in extremis. Easy to get uppity when reading the derision heaped upon her in, say, CurbedLA. Ours is the most ridiculed and profiled area in town. Cui bono?

Can you show us a picture of the 1922 building?

Interesting to see what was originally on that corner of Washington and National. In the 1980's, the building that now stands on the corner as Surfas was Mike Miller Toyota. I bought a car there in 1987. :)

Excellent points Beaudry! the hipsters don't really bother me, it was just my reaction from growing up there and seeing it changed so fast, but it did bring alot of business to that strip of York blvd. Either way Highland Park for life!:cheers:

Given the builder and his artwork around town, you'd think there would be some somewhere, but I haven't found any old shots of 4350 Beverly Blvd. Apparently it was designed by Einar Petersen as his own and other artists' studios. Not that I had really ever heard of him: See The Daily Mirror

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-R...2520PM.bmp.jpgThe Daily Mirror
The New Rosslyn Hotel

http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics30/00064766.jpgLAPL
The Beverly Hills branch of the Security Pacific bank, 1937


He also did murals at Cliftons Brookdale cafeteria--are they still there? Will we see them in the newly restored Cliftons?

Got to be a story here: A Coca Cola ship on 14th street?
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8032/8...1a11d696_b.jpgGE

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8037/8...a610a80b_b.jpgGE

I stumbled upon this when I was looking for the Humming Bird on 1143 E. 12th Street which sounded like a fun place in 1925.