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Those Who Squirm! Oct 3, 2013 5:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality (Post 5752615)
:previous: I was intrigued by that 'whiffenpoof' headline as well kanhawk.
I initially thought 'whiffenpoof' was slang for 'queer' until I recalled the famous 'Whiffenpoof Song'.*

(*The 'Yale Whiffenpoofs' are the oldest collegiate a cappella group in the United States, established in 1909)

That said, it does seems quite a stretch to connect this elite vocal group with an out of control 'nymphet';
but who knows...stranger things have happened.

___

Back when a far smaller percentage of HS graduates went to any kind of college at all, let alone an Ivy League one, there was a lot of fascination with college life in popular culture--just think of all those college movie comedies from the 1920s and 30s, and the two Pacific Coast steamers of the early 20th century, Harvard and Yale.

Lorendoc Oct 3, 2013 6:30 AM

**
 
To remind readers who are less devoted to/interested in Laurel Canyon than I am (i.e. the entire thread readership :)), I had identified Wulff's Peak as a landmark in the 1908 Lookout Mountain Park subdivision. It was the highest spot between Laurel and Coldwater Canyons.

In earlier posts, I located this peak, and even, with the help of 3940dxer, climbed it. I also found that in 1913 the LMP owners sold the land containing the peak ("The Belvedere of America" - LA Times) to Teapot Dome crook and LA philanthropist E.L. Doheny.

Having nothing better to do at lunch today, I googled "Wulff's Peak" and to my surprise, the first hit was from the Stanford University Libraries:

http://imageshack.us/a/img38/4228/szm2.jpg
http://insight.stanford.edu/luna/servlet/detail/Stanford~3~1~479098911~9597:Wulff-s-peak-area

"L.S.J.U. Geological Survey" seemed like an odd acronym, but then I realized it was "Leland Stanford Junior University." Who knew they had their own version of the USGS in 1910?

Looking at the map, I saw that the only named feature was Coldwater Canyon, but the general topography was familiar. Wulff's Peak is present at the right lower edge of the map, and only if the surveyors had gone even 300 feet to the east, they would have picked up the Lookout Mountain Inn. (The irregular strip on the right side of the map is an elevation view of a line "A" to "B" running from the top to the bottom of the map on its west side.


Here is an inset:
http://imageshack.us/a/img822/3320/d7sn.jpg

I have marked the curve of Wonderland Avenue (still there) and the Peak itself. As you can see, a road climbed up from Upper Crescent and ascended Wulff's Peak from the south, and ended with a loop around the summit.

This rang a bell with a 1909 newspaper "bird's-eye view" posted by e_r:
http://imageshack.us/a/img28/1070/ruew.jpg

This highly embellished view shows a loop road around the summit, too. So it seems that the newspaper view was based in reality, although it called the mountain "Wullf's Peak."

When Doheny bought the mountain in 1913, I am sure he blocked off access for the unwashed who would have come from the area of the Lookout Mountain Inn (today 2355 Sunset Plaza Drive).

Samuel Johnson's observation that patriotism is the last refuge for a scoundrel is furnished here an object lesson from 1914:
http://imageshack.com/a/img543/4755/psaw.jpg

Interestingly, the road up the peak is missing from the 1926 USGS topo, an insert of which follows below, with the missing road drawn back in in blue:
http://imageshack.us/a/img94/5299/04qv.jpg

Today Wulff's Peak is anonymous on maps, fenced off from the public, and festooned with water tanks and antennas. I wonder how long the giant flag lasted. These things seem to be seen only at SoCal car dealerships today, possibly some scoundrels there, too :)

alester young Oct 3, 2013 2:14 PM

McDonnell's
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Krell58 (Post 6288221)
McDonnell's history can be found here, includes a menu.

Shoestring potatoes are very thin French Fries. Hope that helps.
Eric

Thanks for the link, Eric. The old menu was a great find. Interesting to see what was offered by way of fare at the time. You have got to love the prices!

It's largely (and unsurprisingly) the visual that predominates with historical sites -it's so easy to forget the other senses.

HossC Oct 3, 2013 3:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorendoc (Post 6288517)
Samuel Johnson's observation that patriotism is the last refuge for a scoundrel is furnished here an object lesson from 1914:
http://imageshack.com/a/img543/4755/psaw.jpg

Thanks for your continued obsession research (;)), Lorendoc. Maybe Samuel Johnson would've been more impressed with the use of the English language in the article. I loved the line "Mountain roads are seldom laid out with a ruler. They are full of quips and quirks and wanton wiles."

oldstuff Oct 3, 2013 4:53 PM

I remember going to McDonnell's when I was a child. There was one on San Fernando Road and Sonora in Glendale, just opposite the Grand Central Airport. They did have a dining room, not just car service, since I recall sitting inside and watching the planes take off and land from the airport. (very exciting to a child of 2-3 years old) They had the most amazing cream of chicken soup, with big, fat, homemade noodles and big pieces of chicken. I have tried to replicate it but cannot get it right.

Sonny☼LA Oct 3, 2013 5:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality (Post 6288082)
Now that's interesting, I thought the lettering was long gone.
Do you have a scanner? (hint hint.):)
__

I'll get it up soon - the lettering is great. It's a neat little forgotten-feeling corner of the park. I have so many photos I need to get on the net...rolls and rolls of moseying around LA. Many noirish-inspired explorations - also on my Flickr

ethereal_reality Oct 3, 2013 8:09 PM

You must have been thrilled when you located this map Lorendoc.

originally posted by Lorendoc
http://imageshack.us/a/img199/1838/ttce.jpg

And thanks for explaining the irregular strip on the right hand side. I thought it was a scanning error at first.

I was going to surprise you with a vintage photograph of Doheny's giant flag flying over Wullf's Peak but I came up empty handed.
I tried every combination of words I could think of, to no avail.:( I've seen flags flying over Lookout Mountain in postcards.
(maybe one of the flags was on Wullf's Peak and I didn't realize it was Wullf's Peak)

p.s. I was surprised the road 'loop' on the 1909 illustration showed up on the map.
I thought most of what was featured on that illustration was fantasy and wishful thinking.
__

ethereal_reality Oct 3, 2013 10:10 PM

something truly noirish.



At first I was confused by this 1932 photograph of a John Doe in Los Angeles. Why did they just have his clothes on the slab?
http://imageshack.us/a/img820/1883/yzju.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7388762...-cAAFmj-aRhWND



Well it turns out, this is the flayed skin of a murder victim!
http://imageshack.us/a/img34/4726/su74.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7388762...-cAAFmj-aRhWND

-unsolved it says. -f*cking frightening.
__

ethereal_reality Oct 3, 2013 10:28 PM

Los Angeles Times Pressmen 1930
http://imageshack.us/a/img853/7688/b0tx.jpg
from the collection of Frank O.H. White, whose father was a L.A. Times pressman for forty years
(1924 to 1964).

photograph found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/2109644...-9Q2YqA-7Auwr2

GaylordWilshire Oct 3, 2013 10:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality (Post 6289530)
something truly noirish.
Well it turns out, this is the skin of a murder victim!!

http://imageshack.us/a/img34/4726/su74.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7388762...-cAAFmj-aRhWND

-unsolved it says. -f*cking frightening.
__


Wow, ER--my blood ran cold. So why was I a little disappointed when I read "no evidence of foul play"?

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-3...211%2520PM.jpgLATimes Dec 31, 1932

ethereal_reality Oct 3, 2013 11:50 PM

:previous: Perhaps the murderer 'embalmed' the victim's skin himself, formaldehyde wasn't all that difficult to find in 1930s Los Angeles.
;)
__

sportbiker Oct 4, 2013 12:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire (Post 4855115)
http://www.dwellinthegarden.com/pickfair/pickfair.jpgLAPL
Pickfair, post-Phillips, pre-final Wallace Neff makeover.

Pickfair wasn't the first real estate project Pick and Fair took on. In 1928, they built a Normanish apartment building called "Trianon" off Hollywood and Western. The architect was Leland Bryant, who also designed the Sunset Tower/Argyle Hotel. Here's how it looked then:

http://jpg1.lapl.org/00097/00097466.jpg
lapl

Each floor had only four units, and semi-private elevators meant you shared the elevator with only one other person on your floor.

Here's how it looks now:

http://i1169.photobucket.com/albums/...ps057e4012.jpg

Actually, it looks like this:

http://i1169.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0e96643b.jpg

(That blob in the upper left is a tree canopy. I couldn't get rid of it while keeping the same perspective)

The cottage-like section on the left is a separate 3-bedroom unit where Pick and Fair lived while they were building Pickfair.

Trianon is still an in-use apartment building.

(There's always a chance this info has already been posted. As of page 71, it hadn't been.)

sportbiker Oct 4, 2013 12:54 AM

BTW, in the early pages I'm now going through, roughly a third to a half of the photo links are broken. A lot of knowledge from a lot of contributors is going down the memory hole. Again.

ethereal_reality Oct 4, 2013 1:19 AM

:previous: sportbiker, the early pages of noirish Los Angeles were archived by several members befoe the photographs disappeared.
The thread will live on, one way or another. -perhaps in a library, or resurrected online sometime in the future.
(with help from skyscraperpage.com of course)
__


Lorendoc, is the flag on the right on Wulff's Peak? -it clearly shows the 'looped' road mentioned earlier.
http://imageshack.us/a/img513/9969/3tc0.jpg
ebay
-admittedly, I am a bit slow to comprehend the Lookout Mountain area.

__

GaylordWilshire Oct 4, 2013 2:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sportbiker (Post 6289717)
Pickfair wasn't the first real estate project Pick and Fair took on. In 1928, they built a Normanish apartment building called "Trianon" off Hollywood and Western. The architect was Leland Bryant, who also designed the Sunset Tower/Argyle Hotel.

The cottage-like section on the left is a separate 3-bedroom unit where Pick and Fair lived while they were building Pickfair.


sportbiker--Pickfair actually came first. Fair bought it for Pick from Lee Allen Phillips around the time they got married in 1920. Maybe the couple lived at the Trianon during a later renovation, but they were living at Pickfair for 8 years by the time the apartment building went up.

Those Who Squirm! Oct 4, 2013 4:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire (Post 6288193)
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-7.../3741KKKad.jpgLATimes Jan 11, 1935


I can find very little info on the curiously named Kalifornia Kiddie Kollege that was in several locations in L.A. during the noir era, including in the house at 3741 West 27th Street from 1933-37. This being only a decade after the heyday of another, better-known KKK, surely this was not a little training ground of some sort....? At best, it seems kind of clueless to have named anything that would have the initials KKK--and who would have actually wanted to send a child to a school with such a dopey misspelled name? Apparently some people did--the school was in San Bernardino in the '50s.

Egregiously cutesy misspellings, particularly with "K" for "C", used to be quite the thing back in the day. For instance:

Koveralls--a long defunct brand of children's playwear from a widely known manufacturer of jeans and casual slacks. The ad copy informs us, "Koveralls Keep Kids Kleen!"

Lorendoc Oct 4, 2013 7:00 AM

More Lookout Mountain views
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality (Post 6289753)
Lorendoc, is the flag on the right on Wulff's Peak? -it clearly shows the 'looped' road mentioned earlier.
http://imageshack.us/a/img513/9969/3tc0.jpg
ebay
-admittedly, I am a bit slow to comprehend the Lookout Mountain area.
__

You and me both.

That postcard is the one I concluded was an unreliable collage, with the bottom half based on photos looking NW from Lookout Mountain to the Lookout Mountain Inn along Appian Way and upper Sunset Plaza. The upper half of the collage is a reverse view from the Inn towards Cyprean Ridge on the left, and Lookout Mountain (with flag) on the right.

Here is another (more realistic) postcard which looks from the Inn SE towards the Bandstand on Lookout Mountain:
http://imageshack.us/a/img513/8876/zj7o.jpg
http://www.hollywoodphotographs.com/...b/HA-031-3.jpg

The loop on Lookout Mountain is circled in red. If you look closely at the summit, you will see the Bandstand.

The Laurel Canyon Association web site has a close-in view of the latter:
http://imageshack.us/a/img690/9893/stu5.jpg
http://laurelcanyonassoc.com/Canyon1900.html

So both Wulff's Peak and Lookout Mountain had loops around their summits. These can be seen on the newspaper illustration e_r found, I've circled both loops. On the left, you can barely see a caption "Lookout Mountain." And the Inn is not present in this 1909 image, so we can conclude that it was built shortly thereafter.
http://imageshack.us/a/img856/1479/r5sg.jpg

And finally here is a picture of the area that is new to me. From the "Los Angeles in the 1900s" blog:
http://imageshack.us/a/img826/5805/zsec.jpg
http://www.ulwaf.com/LA-1900s/09.02.html

This is taken from the slope just below the Inn, looking SE towards Lookout Mountain and its loop. (No flagpole yet, but there are other photos which show one I'll try to post another time.) It clearly shows proto-Appian Way, with Lookout Mountain Avenue descending into the lower left corner of the picture, and Cyprean Drive coming off Appian at the middle-left edge.

But what interests me most about this one is that it clearly shows the site of my present house on the saddle just below Lookout Mountain on Appian Way about 45 years before it was built. Very cool :D

ethereal_reality Oct 4, 2013 3:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorendoc (Post 6290105)
What interests me most about this one is that it clearly shows the site of my present house on the saddle just below Lookout Mountain on Appian Way about 45 years before it was built. Pretty cool :D

wow..that is pretty neat. -Thanks for the additional information Lorendoc.
__

srk1941 Oct 4, 2013 3:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire (Post 6289830)
sportbiker--Pickfair actually came first. Fair bought it for Pick from Lee Allen Phillips around the time they got married in 1920. Maybe the couple lived at the Trianon during a later renovation, but they were living at Pickfair for 8 years by the time the apartment building went up.

Steve Vaught at the wonderful Paradise Leased has all the answers, and Pickford and Fairbanks are not in the equation...

http://paradiseleased.wordpress.com/...-parade-again/

CityBoyDoug Oct 4, 2013 5:27 PM

So. Cal. architecture....
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by srk1941 (Post 6290438)
Steve Vaught at the wonderful Paradise Leased has all the answers, and Pickford and Fairbanks are not in the equation...

http://paradiseleased.wordpress.com/...-parade-again/

If you like the topic of old Hollywood, LA homes and other related topics, you'll like this blog. Thanks SRK, I was not aware of this site.!!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ps947d0338.jpg


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