Thanks, e_r: Creeping Phlox would be a good candidate in other parts of the country, but we don't see it too much here in Sunny Southern California. I'm going to place my bet (not a very big one) on Lampranthus spectabilis:

https://s26.postimg.cc/6cpu94f2h/Lampr.jpg
https://delange.org/IcePlant/IcePlant.htm

Odinthor, are you a botanist or horticulturist, or something like that? You really seem to know your stuff... right down to the Latin names!

Civic boosters often substituted "haze" for smog. Sometimes "haze" was indeed that, just water vapor and dust. But more commonly it was air pollution. Could the building under construction be the ATT telephone switching/relay facility on Bunker Hill? Not sure.

The history of "smog"
 

In most sources, the birth of the "smog" era in L.A. has been placed in the WW2 boom in manufacturing for the war. But I've noticed in many of the pics from the 1920s and even earlier a "haze". I wonder if some of this was smog? Are there any pre-WW2 references to air pollution in the L.A. area? Anybody know? I do recall that some of the early Spanish explorers noticed "smoke", presumably from fires, hanging over the basin. :koko:

The geography of Southern California is usually ignored in discussions of smog-haze.
As can be seen in the name is a combination of smoke and fog.
The surrounding mountains and the deserts beyond- desert because the mountains keep moist air from the Pacific Ocean at bay er, well you know .
As I was about to say, seasonal changes are a giant engine
in Spring and SUmmer, the heat in the desrt makes that air rise , pulling air from the west- moist over-ocean air which makes the 'June Gloom" and haze. in the 1950s real pollution, from industry and hiway transportation and backyard incinerators stuck to the haze. THe mountains aid formation/preservation of the inversion layer that traps the mix and cooks it into smog, which brought tears, sore throats and sore chests to folks who breathed it.
When a high pressure dome builds over Utah air flow reverses and the coll desert air is pushed thru the passes to the lower elevation . That fall is called adiabatic heating but we just call it Santa Ana conditions.
Enough of this with one more point
In addition to real haze, film was originally only sensitive to blue light. Moisture in the air scatters blue light and in old photos exaggerates the appearance of haze to a degree. Even modern films, yes there still are some, needs filtration to cut the blue-scatter and let the other colors be recorded, particularly with long lenses such as telephotos
To appreciate what a reeeeeeellllly clear day was like in, say 1910-ish, find a photo made from Echo Mtn - easily accessed via Pacific Electric-which shows the coastal plain distant. If the air hadn't been VERY dry, all down at the level of PAsadena, Los Angeles, etc would have been made invisible.
MAVENS- get us an example pic please

I think that the building under construction is the Health Building, more recently known as City Hall South. Here it is in 1961.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...hBuilding1.jpg
USC Digital Library

The building permit is dated 1952. Note that "HOSPITAL" is crossed out under "Purpose of building".

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...2.jpg~original
www.ladbs.org

I found these plans for what might replace it.

Thanks, Scott Charles! Farmer heritage in my family back to time immemorial translated in me into an interest in horticulture and botany, which latter was nearly a minor for me in college. Throw in my other facets of history and literature, and it's a big mess there you have it!

In one of his (excellent!) books, old Angeleno Jackson Graves mentions that, standing atop Mt. Wilson, he could make out the flagpole atop the Hotel Arcadia in Santa Monica. Now that's clear air!

Perhaps it was smust! Or a smoud!

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/957/4...614f26d9_o.pngLA Times, 5 Feb 1955

newspapers.com

100 South Olive
 

I saw yesterday « The Brasher Doubloon » (1947) on YouTube based on « The High Window » by Raymond Chandler.
At 18:40,
Philip Marlowe parks his car in front of the entrance of the Gladden Apartments at 100 South Olive (which is called The Florence Apartments in the movie). The Gladden is still in a good shape. Philip Marlowe comments : « The Florence Apartments was a rooming house on Bunker Hill. It used to be a choice-place to live in Los Angeles. Nowadays, people live here because they haven't got any choice ».
It is moving to know that Chandler's mother first name was Florence and that he lived with her in the 1910s at the Gladden.
Marlowe enters and we see inside. Probably a studio set. However...
at 19:40
at the end of an upstairs corridor and...
at 20:15
from a room, we have a good view on the City Hall, the State Building, the naked hill between Olive and Hill streets and the blurry shape of the Hall of Records. Just like we would see them from the Gladden upstairs. If it is a studio set, I assume that they went to the Gladden to make sketches and take photos to recapture it. Maybe Chandler gave advice, directions and suggested « Florence » ?
They are several nice screenshots (for those who know how to get them) to post and comment...

Jimmy’s Backyard Hollywood
 

The Pansy Craze: When gay nightlife in Los Angeles really kicked off

A great article on gay nightlife in Los Angeles in the 1920's and 30's. Curious to know if one of the venues exist in photos.

"It was New Years Eve, 1929. Three hundred men in tuxedos were celebrating the opening of Hollywood’s first gay nightclub. It was called Jimmy’s Backyard and it sat in a big craftsman style house on Cosmo Street, just east of Cahuenga. The rooms had been converted to dance floors and on a warm night, music poured from the house and into the backyard which was filled with LA’s hottest crowd, all with a drink and a cigarette in hand."

I know there are videos of that area from old Buster Keaton silents but I wonder if anyone can track down the exact location.

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jh7gD_0JX...r+2011+738.jpg

-Victor in LA

You can still do that today on a really clear Santa Ana wind day or a clear day after a winter storm. Once in a while, you can see a 100 miles in L.A. from Mt. Wilson. That being said, I bet there were days of significant smog pre WW2. Even though the pop. of the basin was much smaller, there were no pollution controls and there were temp. inversions that held in pollutants. The news just didn't mention it.

oops
 

I just realized I forgot to include the reverse side of the old Westlake Park photograph that I posted last night.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...922/H92uZQ.jpg


https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...923/KbnNPC.jpg


"odinthor, can you tell us what kind of ground cover that is?"

Thanks for answering my question odinthor. I appreciate it. :)

Here's another attractive border plant. (is 'Lampranthus spectabilis' considered a border plant?)

Border of Margharitas, Pasadena [between 1898 and 1905]

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/6vIu32.jpg
loc.gov

Do you think that's a road or a city street?

_

Update: Why the missing photo above? That's not what I posted. Hoss explains in a new post that I was very naughty in posting a hotlink photo. If there are any questions, please call my attorney. The shame I feel is monumental.

That's the building I thought was under construction too, Hoss. but I couldn't remember the name/purpose of the building.

& now that I have the name (thanks to you), I still can't find any photographs or information. Did you have the same trouble Hoss?

__

Hello, Victor -

According to this 2014 “LGBT Historic Context” document, Jimmy's Backyard was located at 1608 Cosmo Street:

https://i.imgur.com/mQKULFO.jpg

This would be at the opposite end of the block-long Cosmo Street (south end as opposed to north) of where Chaplin filmed The Kid, Harold Lloyd shot Safety Last!, and Buster Keaton shot Cops (strictly speaking, Keaton was on Cahuenga). A terrific John Bengtson article on the subject can be found here.

This is 1608 Cosmo Street today:

https://i.imgur.com/1FxwedG.jpgGSV LINK

I actually went to this bar/club a handful of times in the late 80s (possibly early 90s). I can't recall the name of the place, but the 1987 City Directory says it was called the Gaslight Room at the time.

https://i.imgur.com/J57gTol.jpg

It's so long ago, I barely remember anything about the place, who I went with, etc, etc. If it was a gay bar at the time, I certainly wasn't aware of it; when I was there the clientele was evenly split between male and female, unlike the nearby Spot Light Room at 1601 Cahuenga, which was all-male, all the time.

It seems(?) that the original Jimmy’s building might have been torn down; your link describes the building as a “craftsman style house”, while the above building is nothing of the sort - the above building is clearly in the Streamline Moderne style. Perhaps the Craftsman style house was torn down in the 30s, the heyday of Streamline Moderne buildings?

PS: I tried to find a photo of Jimmy's Backyard, but came up empty handed.

Very cool, Odinthor! I have a similar interest in local plant life, but I am nowhere near to the level of knowledge that you possess!

Grandpa Reding's 'mystery' building.


https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq90/921/lodtej.jpg
EBAY

"This building Grandpa Reding helped to build. It is in Los Angeles."

Does anyone recognize it?

__

I'd say in Britain or Scandinavia or Germany or such it could be considered a border plant, because it would just survive until the winter, and so would be in effect an annual, and would be used in edgings and drifts and the like among other border plants. In warmer climes, what happens is that it survives from year to year. So what? Well, then it builds up, making a layer of what would be called thatch in a lawn . . . which is the perfect hiding place for snails and slugs, which are inimical inimical I tells ya to the neighboring border plants. The consequence is that it's not normally thought of as a border plant, and its usage is most frequently where it's separated from most plants--parkways, groundcover for slopes, beds yes but beds where it's all by itself. Such, at least, is the fruit of my own horticulture experience and observation.

e_r, I vote driveway!

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...924/TLp4HC.jpg
laweekly

"Established in 1963, the Spotlight Room, or just the Spotlight, is one of the oldest gay bars in L.A.
Located on Cahuenga Boulevard a block south of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, with its huge sign out front,
it’s an old-fashioned dive bar for mostly gay men, with a regular crowd of older guys mixed
with younger lads as the night picks up. The music is loud, the room is dark and it smells
of long-ago-spilled drinks. The friendly bartender quickly serves you a beer, although you can order
some fancy drink, if you insist. There’s always a feeling that something secret and naughty is happening,
which may be the remnants of a vibe lingering from times not so long ago when cruising
someone of the same sex could get you arrested — by an undercover cop. The Spotlight survived
that dangerous era, and now contends with the annoying Disney-fication of Hollywood by deep-pocketed
developers who likely don’t appreciate a dive gay bar nearby. No matter.
The Spotlight lives on, in all of its gritty splendor."
1601 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hlywd. (323) 467-2425. —PATRICK RANGE McDONALD

CLOSED


2006 & 2017
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...921/v2Ab0R.jpghttps://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...923/X2aZbh.jpg
LATACO & GSV

I've never been there. Hollywood seemed too dangerous back in the 1980s. (especially for a lil' ol' country boy like myself ;))
_