Two words: automobiles and visibility. And it looks like it was wired for lighting, the decision to do so coming after the inscription was ordered....

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-J...2520PM.bmp.jpg

Is that Jennie Wallace in the window?

Architecturally, 516-1/2 S. Figueroa does look like it could be from that approximate time period. However, it does not appear in that location on the 1894 Sanborn map.

http://otters.net/img/lapast/sanborn1894_sky.jpg
Los Angeles Public Library/Digital Sanborn Maps 1867-1970


But it IS there on the 1906 map.

http://otters.net/img/lapast/sanborn1906_sky.jpg
Los Angeles Public Library/Digital Sanborn Maps 1867-1970


And it still is on the 1955 map.

http://otters.net/img/lapast/sanborn1955_sky.jpg
Los Angeles Public Library/Digital Sanborn Maps 1867-1970


I found our little relict structure in this panoramic photo taken circa 1916. It's the square white building at dead center.

http://otters.net/img/lapast/apartme..._c1916_sky.jpg
USC Digital Library/California Historical Society: Panoramic view of Los Angeles, showing Sixth Street, Figueroa Street, Flower Street, east side of Sixth Street, ca.1916 (composite detail). Photographer: C.C. Pierce.

Closer:

http://otters.net/img/lapast/500bloc..._c1916_sky.jpg
USC Digital Library/California Historical Society: Panoramic view of Los Angeles, showing Sixth Street, Figueroa Street, Flower Street, east side of Sixth Street, ca.1916 (detail). Photographer: C.C. Pierce.


And closer still. It looks to be in pretty good condition here.

http://otters.net/img/lapast/5165sou..._c1916_sky.jpg
USC Digital Library/California Historical Society: Panoramic view of Los Angeles, showing Sixth Street, Figueroa Street, Flower Street, east side of Sixth Street, ca.1916 (detail). Photographer: C.C. Pierce.


The full set of photos on the USC page is quite remarkable, especially the portion showing the Apartment District in its heyday. Definitely worth a long look-see.


I had a chuckle seeing the big ad on the hilltop in the distance. It appears to read "SILVERWOOD'S $3.00 HATS".

http://otters.net/img/lapast/silverw...arhats_sky.jpg
USC Digital Library/California Historical Society: Panoramic view of Los Angeles, showing Sixth Street, Figueroa Street, Flower Street, east side of Sixth Street, ca.1916 (detail). Photographer: C.C. Pierce.

:previous:

JScott-- I'd say the house was simply moved back on the same lot by 1906, and altered a bit, to accommodate the St. Dunstan--an owner maximizing the return on his lot. The Bellevue Terrace tract appears to have opened in the mid-1880s, although of course the house could date from even before that, and been shifted around more than once.

Yep, buildings did have a tendency to move around in old L.A., as we've seen many times here. :)

I wish Beaudry would visit the thread a bit more often. This is the sort of mystery he could probably solve for us right off the top of his head.

I've posted these two interior shots of Pacific-Southwest Trust and Savings Bank branches recently, and they both have the same picture on their walls. The enlargement below has been stretched and straightened.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...6thSpring1.jpg
Detail of picture in USC Digital Library

I assumed it was their main office at 6th and Spring, but the first pictures I found looked like this one from 1926. The building in the picture above is much narrower.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...6thSpring2.jpg
USC Digital Library

Then I came across this 1925 picture which includes the phrase "Doubling our Banking Room!" on the board at the front. It clearly shows that the building is being enlarged.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...6thSpring3.jpg
USC Digital Library

This photo montage and caption from a book called 'Early Downtown Los Angeles' by Cory Stargel, Sarah Stargel fills in some of the background history. The picture in the middle pretty much matches the photo in the branches.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...6thSpring4.jpg
books.google.com

The old Pacific-Southwest Bank building at 215 W 6th Street is now the SB Manhattan Lofts.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...6thSpring5.jpg
Wikimedia

Amazing to see the neighborhood as it looked back then. Thanks for finding that panorama pic & digging up the Sanborn maps! GaylordWilshire, looks to me like a safe bet that you're right about the property owners moving the house back and altering it. So I guess the Palmer Conner caption of "oldest bldg in Downtown LA" was wrong, but it probably did predate everything else left on the block by the time the photo was taken.

LA ...moving day....
 

'' OK guys, can you get it just a little bit higher....up, up, up...there, just right.''

East 90th Street ...South Central.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ps71d3d21b.jpg
LAPL

A couple of days ago, Gaylord Wilshire posted a color photo of the Vanderbilt Hotel. I went over to the website to see if there were more images of it and somehow ran into this:

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps7a8f8506.jpg
http://hdl.huntington.org/cdm/single.../id/8916/rec/2

What caught my eye was the caption: "Old building being wrecked above Philippe’s" (June 1960, Ord Street)

Somewhere in the fog bank of my memory, I recall a great post (maybe a couple years back) where someone proposed (quite successfully) that the two buildings in this photo were reduced to one floor and still exist. I can't find the post (or much of anything) with our search function.

Anyway, both buildings are shown in the background of this China City photo.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps6a619f94.jpg
LAPL

The Sunset Hotel, is also shown here:

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...psa88c4bfa.jpg
LAPL

The two buildings are now reduced to:

This
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps845ccba6.jpg
Google Street View

And this
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps9992ca1d.jpg
Google Street View

If anyone can locate that old post, it would be great.


And, Oh would I love to have this '58 Chevy!

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps605f35a5.jpg
http://hdl.huntington.org/cdm/single.../id/8916/rec/2

Before I realized that the little wooden house's identity and location had been pretty much fully determined, I started looking at Sanborn maps of the S. 300 block of Figueroa from about the time of the photo. It's sadly astonishing how much of historic DTLA had already been cleared for parking by that time.

OTOH when researching the Vanderbilt I was surprised to see from the LAT article that it was built 1910, not even 50 years before it collapsed. I'd thought it must have dated from the 1890s at the latest.

Here's a 1912 false-fronted building from way out west...in the Sawtelle district.

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7330/...87b259_z_d.jpg
Own work, larger versions are available from my Flickr stream.

At least, I think the center section has a false front, unless it really is a foot taller all around. In any case, the cornice detail is rather interesting and unique for anywhere in the city, let alone the Westside. Barely visible ahead, washed out in the sunlight, is the Ohio Avenue gate to the V.A. property, so this little section of West L.A. is a lot older than most people realize.

June, 1965 - Looking north toward 3rd Street from 4th Street. The building left of center is the Lux Theater, 827 West 3rd Street.
The Stanley Apartments are on the hill at Flower Street above the 2nd Street tunnel. Flower Street ends at the Department of Water and Power.


http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...psc047c1cc.jpg
http://hdl.huntington.org/cdm/ref/co...d/8477/rec/469

The Lux

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps8a8e76a9.jpg
http://hdl.huntington.org/cdm/ref/co...d/8477/rec/469


The Stanley

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps5cb52263.jpg
http://hdl.huntington.org/cdm/ref/co...d/8477/rec/469

Good work JScott!

I couldn't find any building permits or old photos, but I did find a little info on 516 S. Figueroa, which I first found mentioned in the 1897 LA City Directory:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...c.jpg~original
fold3.com

Mr. Norries was still there in 1904:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...1.jpg~original
fold3.com

But by 1905 the Lamberts had moved in; perhaps it was they who built the apartment building at 516 moved the small home back to 516-1/2:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...6.jpg~original
fold3.com

The 1906 Directory has three Lamberts at 516 S. Fig:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...7.jpg~original
fold3.com

The 1906 Directory is the first to list 516 S. Figueroa as the St. Dunstan:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...c.jpg~original
fold3.com

July 17, 1905 robbery at 516 S. Figueroa mentioned in "Fair Prisoner is Identified" story:
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042462/1905-10-07/ed-1/seq-7/#date1=1904&sort=relevance&rows=20&words=Lambert&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=13&state=California&date2=1905&proxtext=Lambert&y=14&x=14&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=2

Here are the posts that I can quickly find on the Sunset and San Fernando hotels:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=14361

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=14368

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=14390

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=14398

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=14429

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=14445

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=14521

Had to take at look... the house appears to have been being delivered to its new lot, where it still stands. Perhaps right behind the truck was another delivery for the same lot--is that a bit of the second truck at far right? Or was this house being moved around to the back of the front house's lot? In any case, two vintage houses are now on the lot:


https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-r...2520AM.bmp.jpg

The blue house at left middle is the one is CBD's pic. Its former address appears to be "3022" or maybe "5022"... I wonder where it came from?


https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-S...2520AM.bmp.jpg

Was the front house built there or also moved to the lot?


https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-F...2520AM.bmp.jpg

Across the street is 1626 East 90th--note the powerline tower. The house has been altered, but there are some façade details that remain.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-7...2520AM.bmp.jpg

All GSV

I lived in this house from 1979 to 1985. Later, my parents sold it to pianist Michael Feinstein and his partner, who own it still. It was built in 1926 for Carl Ray, a rather high-living theater and film studio owner (and bigamist) who also owned the lot next to it. From the late '30s until 1951, the "Glendower House" (as it was known) was the Soviet consul's residence. Bette Davis wanted to purchase it in the '50s, but the homeowner was turned off by Ms. Davis's incessant smoking and refused to sell it to her.

A beautiful, beautiful house, designed by architect Harold S. Johnson. Slate-roofed. Brick-veneered. Steel-beamed! The garage originally held six cars! The master bathroom is covered floor to ceiling in Batchelder tiles, as is the library's fireplace (one of three). The Glendower family crest appears here and there in the interior. (Carl Ray, who'd bought the land in 1924 and apparently named the street, thought himself a descendant of Owen Glendower, the medieval Welsh Prince who fought against England's Edward IV.)
.

Thanks HossC, I knew that we had chewed it up pretty well. I don't know why I can't find anything on our search function. I'm either doing something wrong or I'm a dolt...probably both.

Besides the forum search function, it has been noted in the past you can also go to google, say, and enter what you're searching for after you type in this:

site:http://forum.skyscraperpage.com noirish

That said, it seems familiar that at least one of the following has made an appearance here before, though I didn't find anything. Also haven't found any photos of these establishments, yet, either:

Frank Kerwin’s Merry-Go-Round
1611 Vine Street
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3764/...cdb540227b.jpg
Frank Kelsey/Flickr

Café Gala
Because of it's actual location on a side street, but visible location from
Sunset Blvd. it had two addresses, but they were both the same spot.
8795 Sunset Blvd. / 1114 Horn Ave.
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8336/...e637e524db.jpgFrank Kelsey/Flickrhttps://farm9.staticflickr.com/8183/...41750c67ea.jpg

El Dumpo
1738 West 7th Street
https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8045/8...b2680a42d8.jpgFrank Kelsey/Flickr

Inch by Inch.....
 

Very good detective work GW...!

My guess is that the house movers removed the fence between the two existing houses. Then they raised the one in my photo to travel between the houses and over the top of the existing house roofs. They might have laid a wooden roadway for the house to travel on, as any sinking of the trucks would have spelled total disaster. I suppose it was easy for the movers but it sure looks scary to me.

The house probably came from the Wilshire district where there was a lot of new construction taking place in the Post-War 1950s era.

The front house kind of looks like it was built on that site. The new ''moved'' house on the lot would make for rental income for the property owner. The added house would usually cost the owner approx. 1/2 of what a new built house would have cost at that time [including the cost of moving the house].

Workers in this photo appear to be turning the house so that they can back it in and then place it at the back of the lot.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ps71d3d21b.jpg
LAPL

Coffee Dan’s, West Covina location
https://farm1.staticflickr.com/238/1...35a71e0eee.jpgCharles Hathaway/Flickr

A photographer took a series of color photos around Los Angeles in the 1950’s that were meant to be seen with a special 3-d type viewer. I came across a blog that was doing some posts about them. The source for these photos has slipped my grasp and I have been unable to find it again. (?) The following three are the (double image) photos of a Coffee Dan’s, including a multiple exposure image of the neon.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8246/8...830a9791_z.jpg

https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8242/8...2815c7f7_z.jpg

https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8520/8...6562de2c_z.jpg

Well, thanks largely to the good people here at Noirish Los Angeles, I've been able to piece together this remarkable building's story.

So much so, in fact, that I'll be giving an hour-long slideshow talk about it this Saturday, at the Los Angeles Central Library.

Hope to see some of you there: http://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/...ve-never-heard

.