I found a photo of the Golden Violin...

http://hollywoodhistoricphotos.com/i...set%20Blvd.jpg


Dated 1962. From left to right:

Hamburger Hamlet | Cavalier | The Opera House | Golden Violin Restaurant (it also says that on the striped awning on the right) | ? | Los Angeles Conservatory of Music (that sign is on the building that became the Whisky-A-Gogo)

You mention the Whisky a Go Go. In the mid 1960s I remember there were "riots" at that place. I was only about 14 at the time, living in the Valley but I remember hearing about the riots on the local news. What were the riots about? Were the Doors rock group performing there at the time? Anybody see the Doors perform? The 1960s were the heyday of the "Sunset Strip", when it was still unincorporated county land. Also, is that the original Hamburger Hamlet? Too bad the chain went away. Very popular before the 1990s.

No trip to Hollywood was complete without a stop at the Hamburger Hamlet on Hollywood Boulevard opposite Grauman's Chinese Theater. Great burgers and the people-watching couldn't be beat!

I am familiar with Ampex from the IT industry. I did not realize they had such a legacy.
https://www.ampex.com/ampex-history/

CaliNative, here's a try at answering your question. This article is very heavily edited by yours truly :cool: in order to focus on the matter at hand:

https://i.postimg.cc/wBYr77Bv/Whiske...AT-91-4-27.jpg
LA Times, April 27, 1991.

1507 N. Vine, in the 1960 street directory.

They must have moved there from 4852 W. Jefferson Boulevard, where they were listed in 1956.

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Here are a small group of well-dressed visitors enjoying Pershing Square in 1955. (originally found on EBAY)




#1

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/Kg313C.jpg









#2

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/7wKRPN.jpg











#3

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











#4

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/pe9Gpc.jpg

The Biltmore Hotel is directly behind the trio.









#5

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/7mN3qZ.jpg












#6

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/m2vGcK.jpg

That's quite a LARGE area to be designated "Keep Off The Grass".

If you look closely you can see the people coralled on the pathway.









#7

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/oNTfJ2.jpg

Perhaps this is the street where the 'well-dressed people' parked and then walked to Pershing Square.

I'm pretty sure it's the street directly behind the Biltmore Hotel. (I can't remember the street's name)

If that's correct, the building on the left is the Mayflower Hotel. (and, of course, that's the Los Angeles Library in the distance)




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Thanks. Wish I had spent more time on the Sunset Strip when I was a teen! Instead I went the nerd study route. But missed a LOT of cultural history..and fun amidst the teenyboppers. Like someone in the 1920s missing out on flappers, speaks, Babe Ruth and the Charleston. Advice to youth... "Gather Yee Rosebuds Why Yee May"...life is short. Carpe Diem.

^^^
Look at how nice Pershing Square used to be. A place people wanted to go. Why can't it be like that again?

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I appreciate all the follow-ups to the Golden Violin.

In that same vein here's another place we haven't seen on NLA.

The Epicurean Coffee House, 6842 W. Sunset Blvd.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...922/Yt8bzO.jpg
adsausage

This ad was in the Los Angeles Free Press, April 1968.


"The 1921 8-bedroom residential building was home to an assortment of businesses over the years; Eugene Riese (a baritone voice teacher) opened his vocal studio,
and Samuel McKee offered Piano by Ear at $3.50 a lesson. Soon after, the wonderfully named coffee house Epicurean opened."......adsausage




Not to be confused with Bab's Epicurean Restaurant on South Spring Street, downtown.
.

:previous:

6842 W. Sunset today:

https://i.postimg.cc/3JjVbNsm/6842-WSunset.jpg
gsv

The tiled building rising behind is an apartment house (?) at 1460 N. Mansfield:

https://i.postimg.cc/rpsHmJKN/1460-Mansfield.jpg
gsv

CaliNative, According to the info accompanying the c.1955 photo below, that is the original Hamburger Hamlet.


https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...17&oe=60332639Old L.A. Restaurants

A commenter on the above photo says: The man who started "Hamburger Hamlet" [in the 1950's] was an actor named Harry Lewis. He played a gangster in the film "Key Largo" [1948] with Bogart. The chain was very successful and Lewis sold it for 28 million in 1987. That might be Lewis to the far left.

An Old L.A. Restaurants blog post states: The first Hamburger Hamlet was at 8931 Sunset, not far from where the Whisky a Go Go nightclub would later flourish for a time. [For a time?]

https://oldlarestaurants.com/wp-cont...s/hamlet02.jpg

The way the story goes, the Lewises opened the first one with all their savings — about $3,000 or $3,500 depending on which account you read. That opening was just before Halloween of 1950 and when they were about to open the doors, they discovered they couldn’t cook. The gas hadn’t been turned on and they were so tapped out that they couldn’t afford to pay the deposit and couldn’t afford to not open on schedule. Marilyn got in touch with a gas man and struck an under-the-table bargain: If he’d come over and turn them on anyway, he could eat there for free as long as they were in business. He did both these things.

The original idea was to open an actors’ hangout but the place quickly caught on with folks of all different vocations and other outlets quickly followed.

Wall signs at the original location:
https://oldlarestaurants.com/wp-cont...s/hamlet03.jpg

A 1960 photo. Caption: Dwayne Hickman, also known as Dobie Gillis, and his main squeeze, Yvonne Lime, strolling past the original Hamburger Hamlet on Sunset Strip between Clark and Hilldale in 1960.

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-USHlZASWH...-gallery-4.jpg
VLA Memories of Hamburger Hamlet


A 1966 photo by Ed Ruscha:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EkYZ_1SU...pg&name=mediumVLA on Twitter

_______________________________________________________________________________________


Cavalier

Next door to Hamburger Hamlet was a place called Cavalier. (8927 Sunset Blvd. maybe?) It's in the top photo in this post very clearly, and noticeable in the bottom Ruscha photo.

All I've been able to figure out about this place is that it sold...something. (Looks like clothes.) One person on a blog wrote that it closed before it was open, although you can see it in the very first photo in this post above, dated 1962 and the very last one, the Ed Ruscha photo dated 1966, where you can see a "Going Out of Business" banner for the Cavalier. So, it was there up to 4 years at least.

^^^

Guess I'll continue on down the block...

I was looking at the Dwayne Hickman photo above and see the place to the right of Cavalier is called The Handlebar in that 1960 photo.

Here's another 1960 photo with Dwayne Hickman and that name on the awning:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/...1MjI@._V1_.jpgIMDB

In the 1962 photo at the top it's called The Opera House. On a website about the strip a commenter wrote: Does anyone remember a club
called "Fred Pratt's Opera House"? I think it might have existed in the [same] building right before it became Jesse James' Opera House...
...which then became London Fog. I think it may have been Fred Pratt's Opera House from 1961 - 1965. Anyone?

I haven't been able to find anything else about anyone named Fred Pratt.
Maybe in the 1962 photo where it just says "The Opera House", that place was run by Fred Pratt?

Here's an undated photo with the Jesse James Opera House banner:

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...29&oe=60344216


Apparently after Jesse James acquired the Opera House, he opened a new club there called London Fog. I could have sworn that this location was posted on NLA at one time or another, or at least mentioned, but I tried searching and found no evidence that was the case.

http://www.doorshistory.com/londonfogfront.jpgDoorsHistory

From a 1965 issue of the publication 'Nite Life West' regarding how Jesse James came up with the name 'London Fog': "Asked how he came to call it 'London Fog', Jesse replied he was combing his hair to look like the Beatles, and with his hair down over his eyes, he remarked, 'Looking through my hair is like looking in a London fog'. Immediately the idea struck him as the name for his new club."

There's a Facebook page for London Fog and even they don't have any really good photos of the place. I found this one in another location:

London Fog, 8919 Sunset Blvd.
Despite it's notoriety, it opened in 1965 and closed in 1966.

http://www.doorshistory.com/londonfogsunset.jpgDoorsHistory

You'll notice the Doors banner in the photo. They were hired as the house band there for a time. One of the band members said, after their audition night where they invited dozens of friends to come, “The London Fog immediately went back to its usual clientele. A few businessmen, two sailors on shore leave in their angel whites, a couple of prostitutes, an occasional transvestite hustler, a small group of guys and girls from the valley looking for strip action – it sure wasn’t at the London Fog – and a random hippie or two. But never at the same time. Always scattered over the evening, so that any given moment there were approximately ten people in the joint.”

Known bands to have played there: The Doors, The Us, The Enemys and The Lost Souls.

This is Us ;) in front of the club:

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...e6&oe=60379452DoorsHistory

If you click on the above photo, there's a similar cut off version in color.

The Enemys became a house band at the Whisky, and even appeared on The Beverly Hillbillies!
• Video Link

There's an even longer clip with them from the show, but...it's dubbed in Japanese!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSwW...ature=youtu.be

So far, I haven't found out what was there after London Fog closed in 1966, but right now it's a barbershop!

Moving on down the block... (to be continued)

:previous:

CBD, those 1955 photos posted were even after the entire park was demolished and excavated in 1952 to build a three-level underground parking garage.
We all like the park as it was before 1952. (For 8 decades!)

https://www.laconservancy.org/sites/...%20Bank%29.jpgL.A. Conservancy


How refreshing on a hot day... (1960's postcard)
https://www.laconservancy.org/sites/...rd%201960s.jpgL.A. Conservancy

It seems over time it gets increasingly worse anytime they think they're upgrading it.

2010:
https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/los-...-194730693.jpgL.A. Conservancy

In February (2020) it was announced the new design would be going ahead, starting in the fall (2020) in 4 phases.

It does look like more trees and shade are in the offering in this rendering:

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WvnJ..._GARDENS.0.jpg

Pershing Square Redevelopment Will Begin By End of Year, Now That Funds Are Secured
https://www.archpaper.com/2020/02/pe...funds-secured/

The long-planned redevelopment of Downtown's Pershing Square is moving forward, but in incremental stages. The Department of Recreation and Parks announced that the $110 million project will be built over 10 years in at least four phases.

[TEN YEARS!? :psycho:]

Part of the reason for the phased approach is to not disrupt the operating parking garage underneath Pershing Square, and make sure the construction is safe, according to Michael Shull, general manager for the Department of Recreation and Parks.

The article was from almost a year ago. Anyone know if the construction began last fall? Online I hear crickets...

Horrible cement block seating.....wide open spaces, so cops can see the entire park. The minute I hear ''safe'', I get cynical.

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Late night mystery location.

Los Angeles

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/nw6Z5B.jpg
eBay

Does anyone have an idea where this might be?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .That might be the corner of a park on the right - - - - - >. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Now, look up. :previous: ;)


He looks like my uncle when he was young.




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507 S Flower
 

...was the locus for a number of car rental agencies in the 1956 CD.

We pay these guys and gals that run the city? Of course the developers pay them too :rolleyes: