Lebanon St is a poplar place to shoot movies and car commercials. go to street view and look towards 7th, and you'll instantly recognize it...

Just one:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-m...105%2520PM.jpg

One can hardly see the facades any more b/c of the trees. Note the tower about half way along the length. Pedestrians could used to cut through here until they gated it. It was great short cut. Classiest "alley" ever. A lot of still photography goes on here too. Fashion shoots, wedding parties, etc.

Grand Ave end (with the International Jewelry Center spoiling the view):
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-M...706%2520PM.jpg

Olive St (Pacific Mutual loading dock) side:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-4...702%2520PM.jpg

KevinW covered this too on page 149.

all images above: google maps

Here's a detail of the Grand Ave facade, pre-trees:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_...229%2520PM.jpg
eBay - reddawg

No, not 'Every Single Building on the Sunset Strip' but close...
 

so technically no, e_r, not the Ed Ruscha book you were hoping for but still one I really like. A copy of 'Every Single Building...' goes for somewhat north of a thousand dollars and a new copy of Then and Now will set you back a hundred and a quarter (I got mine used for about half that)...

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8262/8...a8dd0b34_o.jpg
Mystery Photograph

VANISHING

by Hunter Drohojowska-Philp

Ed Ruscha gets it, and he’s made Los Angeles the subject of his art for decades. But these days, anyone living in L.A. gets it -- the city’s everyday landmarks have become expendable. It is not uncommon to round a corner and see that some beloved building has been eradicated, often in less than 24 hours. What has all this to do with Ed Ruscha? "Then & Now," his exhibition at Gagosian Gallery (which is also in Beverly Hills), on view Oct. 27-Dec. 24, 2005, is an extended meditation on this very subject. Inside the lush Richard Meier-designed space is a long white vitrine containing Ruscha’s photographs of every building along the main stretch of Hollywood Boulevard as he photographed them in black and white in 1973 and as he re-photographed them in color in 2004. The work references his ground-breaking 1966 artist’s book, Every Building on the Sunset Strip and Steidl Verlag has published these 142 Hollywood Boulevard photographs as Then and Now, the artist’s first book project in many years.
It is mesmerizing to see the ways that one of the city’s most notorious boulevards has been treated by time, like the proverbial movie star preserved in her youth on celluloid and then appearing in a matronly role at the end of her career. She is still fabulous in maturity but her sassy insouciance has been lost. It is not that the buildings on Hollywood Boulevard are less beautiful. In fact, they were tackier in the ‘70s. By now, they have been "improved" by the "good taste" that is being imposed on the city the way stylists now dress starlets for the academy awards. Bad taste is out, which is why the tasteful Montage Hotel must replace the tacky but authentically strange pseudo-mosque that charmed and intrigued for decades. Ruscha’s installation at Gagosian captures the upsetting nature of these developments. A serpentine vitrine leads a viewer from east to west or vice versa, with two sets of color and black-and-white photos, each facing opposite directions. No matter where one stands, one is faced with two lines of upright photos and two lines of upside down photos. Since one is looking down into the vitrines, as though reading the book, a sort of reverie of passing time takes hold.
The installation generates an intentional disorientation that mimics the effect of living in a city where entire blocks can be quickly transformed into malls or condominium complexes. Years of visual memories are roughly displaced, the character of funky neighborhoods is "improved" and one finds that the terra firma of one’s hometown is no more than the shifting sands of time. Ruscha’s photographs depict some losses: a 1920s Mediterranean apartment building was replaced by the hideous Galaxy movie complex; a modest ranch home is adorned by ridiculous columns and plaster statues on pedestals. Meanwhile, L.A. is greener today with towering trees and privet hedges wrapped around the most modest bungalows. Ruscha’s real theme is change and the bewildering pace of it.

<a href="http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/drohojowska-philp/drohojowska-philp11-28-05_detail.asp?picnum=2" rel="nofollow">www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/drohojowska-philp/droh...</a>

artnet.com

:previous: Is that the Ruscha book MR? How on earth are you going to wrap it for me? ;)
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http://imageshack.us/a/img11/9445/aa...es1901info.jpg


A couple of handsome lads in leotards.

http://imageshack.us/a/img248/2561/a...flores1901.jpg
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Not in leotards, but a fine looking elk none-the-less.

http://imageshack.us/a/img40/1118/aabadtray1909.jpg
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I won't spoil the game (being an art consultant and a friend of the guy).

Thanks tovangar2 for all the good information on the Pacific Mutual Garage.:)

I took a good look at the Grand Ave. side of the garage and my one complaint would be the huge ficus nitida trees that block the view. They are number one on my list of nuisance trees that no city should ever plant. They destroy paving, block out 99% of sunlight and make a mess with their fruit and leaves. :yuck:

Speaking of alleys, a favorite blind alley used to run west from St Andrew's Place between Sunset and DeLongpre, a block north of Paul William's Assistance League Building. It looked like a set and I often thought it must have been used often for a location, but I only every saw it once. It was in Monogram's Mr Wong in Chinatown (1939):

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Z...94001%2BAM.jpg
Monogram Pictures/netflix

Does anyone know if it was used as a location for anything else?

Thanks for the welcome, e_r and tovangar2! Bear with me as I learn the ins/outs of posting & uploading! Apologies in advance if my photographs don't display appropriately or not at all!:???:

Followed with interest the "search" for that streamline moderne 4032 awhile back, and it reminded me of a medical office building at 879 Martin Luther King Blvd., across from the 1932 swimming stadium near the Coliseum. By itself, it's a nice example of the style, built in 1938.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lemster2024/8669616154/
gsv


As for the elusive "4032", my thoughts are that if it wasn't demolished and replaced by the newer building on Wilshire as previously suggested, it might be located in a business district servicing a smaller neighborhood, where a small medical clinic might be useful (e.g. medical office buildings on Santa Rosalia near Baldwin Hills). Just speculating...!:shrug:

OK, I gotta re-read the instructions on how to get the pix to display from my Flickr account!

Everyone has problems the first time around lemster2024. You'll figure it out.:) If not, some one here can help you out.
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There's always a little extra added frisson of noir about this location as the last place anyone saw Elizabeth Short alive (except her killer) was as she exited the front door of the Biltmore on Olive and headed south. I guess we will forever be left wondering how far she got.

Residence of Col G.G. Green, Altadena (carriage house at left).

http://imageshack.us/a/img845/7987/a...colgggreen.jpg
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The house is gone but the impressive carriage house still stands.

http://imageshack.us/a/img827/3762/a...olgreencoa.jpg
http://www.altadenablog.com/2010/04/





http://imageshack.us/a/img826/6900/a...riagehouse.jpg
http://www.altadenablog.com/2010/04/
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1936 Los Angeles Electrical Exposition.

http://imageshack.us/a/img542/5648/a...electrical.jpg
http://www.retronaut.com/2012/11/gir...al-exposition/
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December 17th, 1930

Buster Keaton

http://imageshack.us/a/img19/4264/aa...onwithdoll.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img62/4264/aa...onwithdoll.jpg
http://www.retronaut.com/2013/04/bus...r-keaton-doll/
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1941

Listening post and air raid lights in Pershing Square.

http://imageshack.us/a/img20/6886/aa...ostandsear.jpg
http://www.retronaut.com/2013/04/lis...e-los-angeles/




Listening device before radar. (no date given)

http://imageshack.us/a/img593/6932/a...ngpreradar.jpg
http://www.retronaut.com/2011/07/lis...-before-radar/
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A Short Post (get it?)
 

Since the subject of Elizabeth Short popped up again, is there any particular book about her murder that anyone here can recommend that might deal more with realistic possibilities than with random guesswork? I don't really want to read about offbeat speculation (maybe The National Enquirer's 'Bat Boy' did it!) Thanks guys.

Has one got something to do with the other?

I don't have a book recommendation but Larry Harnisch is a reputable source on the Black Dahlia. I don't remember if Larry has ever actually recommended a specific book but he has spent a lot of energy debunked some of the more dicey entries. You might start with some of his columns. Try 'thedailymirror' and look for the index on the Dahlia.

1230 W. 49th Street, circa 1911.

before
http://imageshack.us/a/img850/2982/a...9thstreet1.jpg
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after
http://imageshack.us/a/img195/3382/a...9thsttoday.jpg
gsv
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Dr. A.U. Michelson, founder and radio minister.

http://imageshack.us/a/img541/2438/a...ynoguecopy.jpg
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