Fix broken link
 

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8105/8...22fd2d0e_o.png
Fly spray gun, Union Oil Co., Southern California, 1931

Helen McClure inspects the latest on fly control at her favorite service station.

USC digital archive/Dick Whittington Photography Collection, 1924-1987




Quick, Henry! the Flit.

http://i.imgur.com/KqRWWal.jpg


Source: http://www.tufts.edu/programs/mma/fa...a/art/ads.html

Theodore Geisel was a long-time Hollywood resident.

Third Street scenes
 

Some familiar photos, shown in much higher resolutions than we are used to seeing.


Third Street looking west toward its intersection with Hill Street, 1890s. Maybe someone here can date the photo more precisely by the hats worn or the buildings then extant?
http://otters.net/img/lanoir/thirdandhill_c1890.jpg
U.S.C Digital Library/California Historical Society


To see a really nice street-level close-up panoramic view, click here. What a charming Victorian neighborhood this was! (Make sure to view this at 100% resolution.)



An even closer view. Carriage wheel tracks can be seen going up the slope to Clay Street. Beyond that, it looks like there is a meandering walkway going up the steeper slope toward Olive Street.

And, is that actually an early street light hanging over the center of the intersection?
http://otters.net/img/lanoir/thirdan...superclose.jpg
U.S.C Digital Library/California Historical Society



Downtown Los Angeles, probably winter 1894, as viewed from the Crocker Mansion. At center, the Stimson Block (1893) – Los Angeles's first 'skyscraper' – and the Bradbury Building (1893), right, are both brand new; the Byrne Building (1895), katty-corner to the Bradbury, has yet to rise. City Hall, left, is only 6 years old.
http://otters.net/img/lanoir/downtown_winter1894.jpg
U.S.C Digital Library/California Historical Society


An even more impressive close-up panorama shot, way too huge to embed here. (Again, magnify to 100% resolution.)



Detail view of the eastern facade of the Crocker Mansion.
http://otters.net/img/lanoir/crockermansionclose.jpg
U.S.C Digital Library/California Historical Society



The Crocker manse and Downtown skyline. In extreme closeup, I can make out a 44- and 45-star flag, which, together with the presence of the Byrne, dates the photo to around 1896-7.
http://otters.net/img/lanoir/crocker...line_c1896.jpg
U.S.C Digital Library/California Historical Society

:previous: very nice JScott!
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It looks like the rescue mission used to be a restaurant with a tent covered roof garden. I had no idea.

http://imageshack.us/a/img26/7182/aa...90laherald.jpg
Los Angeles Herald 1890
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An article highlighting Sonje Henie's connection to the Tropical Ice Gardens and a pic of its post-fire collapse:
http://www.squareone.org/PolarPalace/tropical.html

I read that the Tropical Ice Gardens was featured in Henie's film "It's a Pleasure" (1945), but I checked and it isn't.

Culver City Ice Arena, one of the last:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-r...040%2520PM.jpg
http://laist.com/2009/02/21/laistory...ce_gardens.php

Thank you GW for the info on 650 W 23rd. I knew you'd know the real deal. Still don't know why MSM includes the garden wall on their map...

I do wish the owners would replace the dreary asphalt shingles with a re-creation of the original "Spanish metal tile" roof. That would really help the look of the place.

Glad you liked them. :) Third and Hill is very important to me, as it's where my interest in L.A. history began, in 1962, when my mom took me for my first ride on Angels Flight. It's also one of the places that's undergone some of the most radical and rapid changes in the whole city. The contrast between that Victorian neighborhood and all that's happened there in the intervening years is truly astounding to me.

I also find myself getting completely sucked in to that full-res view of Downtown in 1894. The detail in it is wonderful. I love that old city - I really do.

Thx e_r. Jerry Illich, with his 24-hour restaurant, sounds like a colorful and well-loved character. I don't recall ever hearing of him before.

The Croat Connection
by Charles Perry

If you want Croatian food around here, you go
down to San Pedro, where fishermen from Dalmatia
have lived and worked since early in the 20th century.
But we already had Croatian restaurateurs in
the 1870s.

One was Jake Maritich (whose name also appears
as Giacomo Maritich, showing the close cultural
connections of Dalmatia with Italy). In 1877 he had
a restaurant on Main Street, right across from the
more prominent restaurant of his fellow countryman
Jerry Illich.

Illich had been born on the island of Brazza (now
Otok Brac) in 1850. At the age of 13 he went to
sea, and seven years later he jumped ship in San
Francisco and started working in restaurants. Very
possibly Illich got to know the Croatian family who
had established San Francisco’s famous Tadich seafood
restaurant during the Gold Rush.

Around 1877 he moved down to Los Angeles,
which had just started growing explosively after the
transcontinental railway connection went through.
He started a small chophouse at 145 N. Main and
expanded it to two floors. He made it into a fashionable hangout –
he particularly catered to journalists
and politicians. The Kansas Club, later influential in
L.A. city politics, was founded at a dinner at Jerry
Illich’s.

In the process, he provided unwelcome competition for
another recent immigrant, Victor Dol, who
had opened the first serious French restaurant in
town in 1876 – later remembered as the first restaurant
in Los Angeles that didn’t have dirt floors and
barefoot cooks. At his Commercial Restaurant, just
a block south of where Illich infuriatingly moved in,
Dol was also catering to the City Hall crowd.
Both restaurants boasted that they had the finest
ingredients, especially seafood, though the cuisine
was different. When Illich died, it was remembered
that he had “served ‘paste’ and other foreign dishes.”
Pasta, that is. As a Dalmatian, Illich would have had
an Italian streak in his cuisine.

The Dol-Illich rivalry became legend. Dol advertised his
restaurant as “the Delmonico’s of Los
Angeles.” Illich referred to his own place as “the
Delmonico’s of Los Angeles.” In the 1880s, Dol left
the Commercial and opened a restaurant grandly
titled La Maison Doree, after the most fashionable
restaurant in Paris at the time. Illich brought in a
French chef as a partner (referred to in a newspaper
ad as “the clever French cook, Mr. Bailhe”) and
named the restaurant . . . La Maison Doree. One
imagines some heated words passed between Dol
and Illich.

Meanwhile, he continued to run Jerry Illich’s, the
largest restaurant in town – and a 24-hour restaurant,
by the way. In 1896 he moved it to a three-story
building at 219 W. Third St.

He retired just before the end of the century. In
1902 he died of Bright’s disease (the Los Angeles
Times regularly reporting to the public on his condition)
and was buried with a Masonic funeral. The
carriages of his mourners extended for two blocks,
and hundreds more came by trolley. Not bad for an
immigrant kid.

http://chscsite.org/wp-content/uploa...ummer-2004.pdf

He's buried in Hollywood Forever Cemetery

:previous: very interesting T2! thx for the info.
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http://imageshack.us/a/img12/7118/aa...illeaerial.jpg
https://www.hollywoodphotographs.com...?c=20&i=1&r=48



Fire today at Granville Towers on Crescent Heights Blvd. :(

http://imageshack.us/a/img837/4761/aabfire0323.jpg
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ushome/index.html



http://imageshack.us/a/img853/7870/aabfire0323a.jpg
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[QUOTE=MichaelRyerson;6056536]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8507/8...c301cc8a_o.png
View from the Richfield Tower, Dick Whittington, 1930

A view of the Richfield Tower not frequently seen.

USC digital archive/Dick Whittington Photography Collection, 1924-1987


What an absolutely fascinating picture! Thank you for posting. I have an interest in radio towers and structures such as this that were mounted atop old buildings. The Richfield building is also of great interest, along with it's steel derrick. I often wonder how things such as towers and flagpoles were attached to the building's structural system. Seems the flagpoles are in some kind of cross-structure supporting them. Would love to know (or see architectural drawings) of how the Richfield's tower and other radio antennas of the period were installed. Just a strange interest I have!:)

Nice find on the video, very snazzy interior but like you stated, so little natural light.:(

Through a Lens Darkly...
 

Fine art photographer Garry Winogand (1928-1984) on LA:

Los Angeles (1964)
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-k...124%2520PM.jpg
http://masters-of-photography.com/W/...eles_full.html

Los Angeles, California (1969)
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-A...223%2520PM.jpg
http://artblart.com/2012/09/14/

Los Angeles (1980-83)
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-D...643%2520PM.jpg
http://www.allartnews.com/first-majo...uts-at-sfmoma/

-and-

Ted Pushinsky, Garry Winogrand, On the Prowl, Los Angeles, California (n.d.)
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-a...204%2520PM.jpg
http://www.motherjones.com/media/201...-retrospective

I'd love to know the story behind this photograph.
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The Lilia Hotel, 560 N. Hill Street.

http://imageshack.us/a/img854/1048/aabnewslilia2.jpg
Los Angeles Herald 1909

http://imageshack.us/a/img407/5506/a...ilia2a1909.jpg
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I’ve seen pictures of this house many times, but this has to be one of the most amazing photos I’ve ever seen of such a wonderful structure I’ve ever seen. What detail, it’s as if I was just next door.

Another couple of pix came up on the Granville fire:

Spooky:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-_...829%2520PM.jpg

Mighty fine weather we're having:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-T...016%2520PM.jpg

both: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...shes-fire.html

E.R.

The L.A. Times ran this photo today on the construction of the four level interchange:

http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/8...lconstruct.jpg
L.A. Times

Their photo is dated February, 1948, which means your photo might be a little earlier than 1952/53.

Temple Street is on the left, Figueroa along the bottom, and Sunset up the right.

Didn't we just have a post recently showing that little detour on Sunset?

Never quite understood why this building's address has been listed as both odd and even, e.g., 1421 and 1424. Reasonably sure that Joseph Schenk and his wife, Norma Talmadge had something to do with the construction and/or ownership of the building, formerly known as the Voltaire Apts. Apparently, it is no stranger to fires.


February, 1935
http://www.lafire.com/stations/archi...reFire_650.gif http://www.lafire.com/stations/archi...ltaireFire.htm





On the tangentially related subject of Norma Talmadge, I don't recall seeing this aerial image of her then, 1-year-old namesake, at 3278 Wilshire Blvd., circa 1924. Hard to say with certainty, but it looks as much Wilshire frontage shows evidence of clearing. That is to say, missing buildings. Absent from image is Immanuel Presbyterian Church 3300 Wilshire, as it was not completed until '28.

1924
http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics14/00026660.jpg Lapl

no date
http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics53/00076408.jpglapl
http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics53/00076407.jpglapl

1/29/1931 - Willard H. George Co. Furriers, 3330 Wilshire Boulevard west of Immanuel Presbyterian. Seen in above shot.
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics27/00033006.jpg lapl


1937
http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics30/00064720.jpglapl

Whoa, never knew about this fire! Truly frightening.
oh...and that 1924 photo of 'The Talmadge' is excellent.
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St. Vincent's College tract? -never heard of it-

http://imageshack.us/a/img585/6627/68232888.jpg
Los Angeles Herald




today
http://imageshack.us/a/img341/7471/a...cyplacestv.jpg
gsv




it's next door to this
http://imageshack.us/a/img819/5273/a...cypl1decoc.jpg
gsv





http://imageshack.us/a/img441/5020/a...cypl1anext.jpg
gsv
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Beautiful leathers and an out-of-this-world interior
 

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8366/8...b896e1e0_o.png
Departure of Mr. French to San Francisco, Southern California, 1933

I'm going to assume this is Mr. French standing on the wing and Mr. Steele in the cockpit.



http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8374/8...b7e8f896_o.png
Departure of Mr. French to San Francisco, Southern California, 1933 (2)

Well, apparently Mr. French is going to be responsible for some northbound mail. Still nice leathers and great luggage. And the third gentleman in plus fours.


Now a Ford Trimotor (I think) to go up and film an eclipse? Wait a minute. does that make sense? Do they get a better view of the eclipse from what would be by today's standards, a modest altitude, from a moving airplane? Hmmm, seems like a stunt.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8232/8...028344f5_o.png
Richfield plane to photograph eclipse, Southern California, 1930


Here we get our first glimpse of the star-chart themed interior of the tri-motor.


http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8365/8...3d512004_o.png
Richfield plane to photograph eclipse, Southern California, 1930 (2)


http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8371/8...215402b0_o.png
Richfield plane to photograph eclipse, Southern California, 1930 (3)

Seat covers, table top and don't miss the headliner. Beautiful. And the elevated flight deck.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8101/8...e96293cb_o.png
Richfield plane to photograph eclipse, Southern California, 1930 (4)

USC digital archive/Dick Whittington Photography Collection, 1924-1987