:previous: It's so much fun to see this area BEFORE the construction of Park La Brea (160 acres waiting for 4,000 apartments ).
If you look closely, you can see the Pan Pacific Auditorium at the extreme upper right (near the Gilmore Baseball Stadium).
Thanks for posting this 'Los Angeles'!

_____



below: Here is the 'after' to the above photograph. The Park La Brea Apartments have risen on that 160 acres.
The mid-century modern CBS Television City (top right) has replaced the Gilmore Race Track & Gilmore Baseball Stadium. :(
The Pan Pacific Auditorium is out of view in this photo.


http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/8894/labreabuilt.jpg
http://www.ilovelabut.com/2011/08/27...-park-la-brea/

I briefly lived in the apartment building that I've outlined in red. This is where paramedics hauled away dead tenants on a weekly basis (or so it seemed). You can see the apartment much better in the before photograph.


The Lee Tower at the corner of Wilshire & Cochran (the dark monolith in the above photo) placed an eternal shadow over my old apartment building. It's no wonder the elderly tenants were 'checking out' on a weekly basis.

http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/235...58proposal.jpg
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search...ner-m4769.html

My old apartment on Cochran is conveniently missing from this 1958 illustration (it would be behind the twin palms at the right).



____

I really like this photo posted by cantoneseboyLA:

http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/7510/aaaen1223.jpg

For one thing, I cannot believe that the large building with the three towers was chopped down to this:

http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/7965/cbsseafood.jpg
Google Street View

Yet, when I look at the L.A. County Assessor's website, it shows that the building goes back to 1887. Wow!

Also, the Willys & Overland dealership on Broadway turned into our old friend the Bozzani Dodge/Plymouth dealership in later years.

http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/5...yhall1952d.jpg
USC Digital Archive

By the way, does anyone know what the large building (the one with the water tower on the roof) in the background is? (top picture)

its not too elaborate upstairs (ive been to a couple of the floors) and they are doing some rehabbing currently. i really wish they would fix up the first floor facade. its crap currently

Speaking of the Pan Pacific Auditorium
 

Does anyone know what relationship exists between the Pan Pacific Auditorium...

http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg861...jpg&res=medium
http://www.historiasztuki.com.pl/020...TREAMLINE.html

...and Robert Taylor's dog track in the 1941 movie Johnny Eager?

http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg690...jpg&res=medium
Johnny Eager (1941)

Same architect, or some Hollywood trickery?


(Where the hell do I come up with these questions anyway?)

by the way, great job to everyone that has contributed to this thread. this may be the greatest thread in SSP history

Sadly, that office building still exists. It gets my vote for the most appallingly ugly building in all of Los Angeles. It's a giant slab of hideousness, the exterior being a badly aged mix of dark grays and muddy blacks. Every time it comes into view (which is, unfortunately, a daily occurrence) another small piece of my soul is crushed.

Mcafee
 

I'm interested in all I can find out about Guy Mcafee - a one-time LAPD vice squad commander - and all round "bent" policeman who was connected to the "City Hall Gang".

He had two spells with the LAPD - being dismissed for running craps games in the police locker room - and skimming from the kick-backs from the gambling ships in Santa Monica Bay. I'm not sure of the dates of employment in the LAPD but it was at least during the 1920s.

At the time he was married to Marie - a high profile Hollywood "madam" who he probably met through Albert Marco - she sadly died 8th May 1932 but I don't know the reason.

The 1926 L A Directory shows Guy and Marie living in the "Merrill Appartments" at 1026 Ingraham Street - and the 1926 voters list shows their occupations as - Guy - hotelier and Marie - appartment housekeeper.

As they were both into the prostitution racket at this time - is it possible the Merrill Appartments were a "brothel" ?

How could I find out who owned the appartments at that time ?

How could I find out who was behind the "Chateau Sunset Corporation" ?

Living in the U K I'm not sure what information like this I can access -

thanks for reading this.....:cheers:

Here are even earlier some shots of the Bozzani Willys-later-CryCo building in a prior post: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=3299

There are a a number of posts from about a year back describing the changes to the Bozzani corner--the removal of the tunnel, etc.

http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics23/00031292.jpgLAPL

A shot showing Ogden intact between 6th & Wilshire, as well as Genessee--the center of the three lower streets--before it was diverted to Ogden for the complex between Ogden & Spaulding.

http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics23/00046341.jpgLAPL

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-c...SCORRECTED.jpgLAPL

Los Angeles spreads west...

The yellow bus you asked is owned and bought new by Los Angeles Transit Lines, not LARy. A 6100 class diesel. I can't remember what line the bus was running, parallel to PE and BTW, in this photo showed a burned out building in the background. I wonder what was the building?

Very cool pic GW! :cheers: Thank you again. Amazing seeing it so pristine still in areas with the natural stream running through still. I used to :cough: sneak over a fence when I was little and catch crawdads in it ;) And look at all those wells!

It has really changed my view of LA when I drive around now after looking at so many pictures from this thread :cool:

Thanks GaylordWilshire, I had forgotten about that post last March with the train station photo. I do remember the earlier discussion about the transformation of that entire intersection...

...and that the little Colima Restaurant building (across from Bozzani) has amazingly survived the surrounding carnage:

http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/6901/colima.jpg
Google Street View

Hi Bilbo!

Guy Mcafee was indeed an interesting character. He seems to have gotten away with a lot of dastardly deeds over the decades, and came through it rather unscathed!! Here is a blurb about him from our friends at LAPL:

"Guy McAfee (1888-1960) was once a vice squad captain of the Los Angeles Police Department. Seeing he could make more money catering to crime, than fighting against it, he decided to leave the LAPD and soon became a reputed gambling "baron", establishing himself as a businessman on the Sunset Strip. In 1930, he arrived in Las Vegas and was licensed to run a business with restricted legal gambling. That became the start of a successful and fruitful venture for years to come. In 1931, McAfee was briefly detained following a double-homicide of two rival businessmen, newspaper reporter Herbert S. Spencer and Los Angeles politician Charles H. Crawford. McAfee denied any involvement and was never charged with a crime. After a 1939 grand jury investigation into local crime, headed by then-mayor Fletcher Bowron, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and U.S. Attorney General Frank Murphy, McAfee and his wife, former film actress June Brewster moved to Las Vegas. McAfee's first major purchase was the Pair-O-Dice Nightclub and Casino (renamed the 91 Club - after Highway 91), which he paid $20,000 for. In 1940, he opened a small casino he named the Frontier Club, and soon after, opened the Mandalay Lounge nightclub. In 1942 he bought the Pioneer Club on Fremont, and in 1945 he acquired the SS Rex (later renamed Benny Binion's Horseshoe). In 1946 McAfee opened the Golden Nugget Saloon, the largest casino in Las Vegas at the time. In 1951, he and two partners bought the Last Frontier for $5.5 million, and sold it in 1955 for an undisclosed amount. Less than a decade after moving to Las Vegas, McAfee had become the city's veritable gambling kingpin; he died on February 20, 1960 at the age of 71."


As far as the Merrill Apartments I will keep sleuthing, but miraculously, the building still stands like an island in sea of newer construction.

http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/4...eeingraham.jpg
http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/6...eingraham2.jpg
Google Streetview

I am now obsessed with finding all I can on Guy and the ill-fated Marie. Stay tuned....:D

~Jon Paul

I've been driving past the Colima Cafe for decades and have long been curious about it. I know that it's been mentioned on this thread before, and that it's been around for ages under the same name. I ate at the Colima a couple weeks ago and took a couple of photos. Here's an outside shot taken from the south, and a photo of one of the murals inside. The interior isn't especially old looking or remarkable. The Chicken mole was "ok". :cool: LAPL has a Colima menu listed but it's just a few years old and doesn't mention the history. Would like to know more about this place.

http://dkse.net/david/Colima.cafe.JPG



http://dkse.net/david/Colima.mural.JPG


Oh, re Guy McAfee, I know that he's been mentioned a few times on this thread. About a month ago I posted an old L.A. Times article about him getting his nose busted.

...and relentlessly west...

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-M...20PM.bmp-1.jpgLAPL

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-B.../WILSHIRE2.jpgLAPLl

http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics24/00046793.jpgLAPL

Vertigo
 

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-o...2520PM.bmp.jpgGoogle Satellite

According to at least one source, "The street layout was created in a masonic pattern as a reference to the masonic heritage of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, which built the complex"....

Massery House, 826 S. Burlington Ave.
 

http://photonet1.hotpads.com/search/...303_medium.jpg

Built in 1899 by John Austin of the Shrine Auditorium fame, this incredible house is now for sale!

http://www.johnaaroegroup.idxco.com/...ingID=12575783

It was built for the Masserly family. Has anyone heard of them or could you direct me to a place where I could research?

I believe the photo was taken after 1935, due to new frwy access from Bernard St, visible in lower right of photo. In 1935, two houses, on northside of Bernard St. west of Broadway, 411 and 417, were moved back 15ft for widening of Bernard St for access to new yet to be opened Arroyo Seco Parkway via Hill St.[formerly Castelar St]. One house, 413, [ not in picture] was sold in 1935 to a group connected to Better Homes & Gardens, moved to a spot near Wilshire Bl for remuddling to a modern home. There is a 1935 [or 1936, note sure which year] LA Times article about the old 1887 house being transformed into a modern Colonial home. The xeroxed LAT article is in our current library at 411. The three houses, 411, 413, and 417 were owned and built by the Fritz family since 1886 since new. Fred Fritz, and his son worked for the Southern Pacific's Building & Bridges Dept. The last owner, Fred's granddaughter, she lived to be 100 years old, having born in 411 in 1892 passed away in her ancestral 411 family house. The Chinese Historical Society of So Cal quickly bought the two houses from the Fritz estate for use as a museum exhibit center. Open on weekdays and Sundays all year today. New Chinatown was started in 1937, one of the buildings is barely visible at extreme bottom right corner, where the future Bamboo Lane is. So the photograph is probably taken in 1940. All the houses on the north side of Bernard St. are still there today, everthing south of it is gone for parking lot building and expansion of Chinatown. Thanks for posting, seeing what the area south of Bernard St was like, that photo had made my jaw drop!

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-h...2520PM.bmp.jpghttps://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-L...2520PM.bmp.jpg
The southwest corner of Sunset and Carol. Interesting survivor--if you can take your eyes off the Caddy.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-E...2520PM.bmp.jpghttps://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-c...2520PM.bmp.jpg
Sunset at Doheny Road. I think we might have seen this building on the thread before....

Then pics: youtube.com Now pics: Google Street View