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Illithid Dude Jan 19, 2012 1:34 AM

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-N...2520PM.bmp.jpg

They have either started or are about to start a complete resoration of this building, including re-doing the lost metal and stone work. It will be great.

Earl Jan 19, 2012 2:16 AM

I haven't checked this thread for over 12 months. 303 pages and still going strong! My congratulations to all the regular posters. You may have put together the best photographic database of LA history to be found on the interweb.

MWR Jan 19, 2012 4:27 AM

I may be posting this in the wrong forum, and if that's the case please ignore me. But you all seem to be pretty informed about older homes (and much much more) in the area, and I thought you might be able to help me. I've been looking for the house in the following screen caps. I most recently saw it on a rerun of MSW. None of the actors were shown with the house so it could very well have been stock footage the production company bought. Of course stock footage could come from anywhere, but the fact that the same house has been used by different productions over different decades made me think it might be somewhere in the Los Angeles area.

It seems to be big old home - Victorian, turret, wrap-around porch, and all that. And it seems to be on a corner lot. I've looked through as many classic Victorians I could find in the LA area listed online, but have never come across this one.

Anyway, does anyone recognize this house?

sopas ej Jan 19, 2012 5:15 AM

:previous:
Hi MWR, my first thought was possibly Angelino Heights, but as you said, this footage can be from anywhere. It's possible that it might not even be Los Angeles but somewhere else in SoCal or even NorCal.

Welcome to the forums, BTW. :)

sopas ej Jan 19, 2012 5:17 AM

Is that Mildred Pierce waiting for a bus? Of course decades later, that drive-in diner-looking place would be the site of Tower Records. Ah, Tower Records, how I miss that place.

1940, Sunset and Holloway, West Hollywood.
http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/927...oway1940he.jpg
LAPL

3940dxer Jan 19, 2012 5:35 AM

GREAT photo, sopas_ej. I had to stare at it for a few minutes before the recognition locked in, but...fascinating. Too bad we can't read the billboards.

How about Dino's? Of course, that was Dean Martin's bar-restaurant on the strip, just a few blocks away at 8524 Sunset. They had a cozy fireplace, a good bar, and superb views. It was actually a pretty great little spot, within walking distance of my WeHo digs back then, and even a nobody like me was made to feel welcome. Man, I'd love to go back there one more time. Good memories. (The menu is dated 1959, well before my time there. ;))

http://dbase1.lapl.org/images/menus/...a/14229-01.jpg

http://dbase1.lapl.org/images/menus/...a/14229-02.jpg

http://dbase1.lapl.org/images/menus/...a/14229-03.jpg

http://dbase1.lapl.org/dbtw-wpd/exec...=&MF=&MQ=&TI=0

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vF5HhjX4fU...4a6_large.jpeg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_RS9H0TpQnt...3466b6db47.jpg

http://martinostimemachine.blogspot....nos-lodge.html

FredH Jan 19, 2012 5:49 AM

The Los Angeles Times has just run a nice set of photos, showing Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell
signing their names in cement at Grauman's Chinese Theater in 1953.

http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg263...jpg&res=medium
Los Angeles Times

http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg268...jpg&res=medium
Los Angeles Times

The story and four additional pictures are here:

http://framework.latimes.com/2012/01...their-fame/#/0

Ya think Marilyn took some time picking out just the right dress to wear?

Made a good choice! :dancingbacon

JeffDiego Jan 19, 2012 6:19 AM

Scotty Bower's book, "Full Service," about his adventures as Hollywood's male madam of the 40's and 50's, arrived today from Amazon. A wild story, and extremely well-written. Definitely some surprises. Gore Vidal recommends it in his blog.
The gas station Scotty and his crew worked out of from 1946 to 1950 was called Hollywood Richfield Gas Station at 5777 Hollywood Boulevard, corner of Van Ness.
Bowers writes that there was "a brick motel across the street" where rooms were available for overflow customers. Anyone know what motel that was?

GaylordWilshire Jan 19, 2012 1:18 PM

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-E...shireccext.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-W...shireccint.jpgGoogle Books
The Wilshire Country Club, ca. 1922. From what I can see via Google, the building has been replaced or remodeled...
anyone know?


https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-6...2520AM.bmp.jpgjericl cat



Well, Jeff, while we're reviewing books...I looked at Full Service at the Strand, where it's half-price, no shipping... and I still didn't buy it...the book, I mean. Maybe every word is true, but it looks like a sad rehash of the same old stories, such as Cary & Randolph, Rock Hudson, ad nauseum. Exposés of Hollywood hypocrisy seems a little unsurprising at this point. Somehow you doubt that this guy was as personally popular as he thinks he was with the stars who paid him--and what a pal to try to cash in (again) on it all now. (And Gore Vidal's rec is not exactly worth much these days. There's another one screaming, remember me!? I'm not dead yet! I'm not a bourgeois square! I slept with stars! I had sex once!)

And while I actually slogged through the whole thing...Michael Gross's new Unreal Estate is similarly mind-numbing. Panting descriptions of the excesses of owners of some houses in BH, Bel-Air etc wear mighty thin.

Btw, I wouldn't want to read so much repetitive detail about the sex lives or domestic arrangements of poor people either! And I am very very interested in L.A. domestic architecture of the early-20th-century....

GaylordWilshire Jan 19, 2012 7:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sopas ej (Post 5555632)
Is that Mildred Pierce waiting for a bus? Of course decades later, that drive-in diner-looking place would be the site of Tower Records. Ah, Tower Records, how I miss that place.

1940, Sunset and Holloway, West Hollywood.
http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/927...oway1940he.jpg
LAPL

sopas... I think you're right--this is exactly the moment when, down on her luck, looking for work, Mildred looked across the street at the drive-in and told herself..."I'm going to have a chain of my own restaurants!"

GaylordWilshire Jan 19, 2012 7:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 3940dxer (Post 5555667)
How about Dino's? Of course, that was Dean Martin's bar-restaurant on the strip, just a few blocks away at 8524 Sunset.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_RS9H0TpQnt...3466b6db47.jpg

Naturally I'm reminded of 77 Sunset Strip...

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-L...2520PM.bmp.jpgyoutube
I'm guessing that this is a set, with Dino's entrance reproduced for authenticity...? Anyway, if
it were real, "77" would be the next address west of the restaurant, where the Mary Webb
Davis modeling agency at 8532 Sunset actually existed.


This is a shot of the Strip from the opening of the tv show:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-q...2520PM.bmp.jpgyoutube


Speaking of 1959, I like this shot with three '59 Ford products, including an Edsel...
an uncool note between the cool Dino's and #77:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-b...90/77edsel.jpgyoutube

JeffDiego Jan 19, 2012 8:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire (Post 5555880)
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-E...shireccext.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-W...shireccint.jpgGoogle Books
The Wilshire Country Club, ca. 1922. From what I can see via Google, the building has been replaced or remodeled...
anyone know?


https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-6...2520AM.bmp.jpgjericl cat



Well, Jeff, while we're reviewing books...I looked at Full Service at the Strand, where it's half-price, no shipping... and I still didn't buy it...the book, I mean. Maybe every word is true, but it looks like a sad rehash of the same old stories, such as Cary & Randolph, Rock Hudson, ad nauseum. Exposés of Hollywood hypocrisy seems a little unsurprising at this point. Somehow you doubt that this guy was as personally popular as he thinks he was with the stars who paid him--and what a pal to try to cash in (again) on it all now. (And Gore Vidal's rec is not exactly worth much these days. There's another one screaming, remember me!? I'm not dead yet! I'm not a bourgeois square! I slept with stars! I had sex once!)

And while I actually slogged through the whole thing...Michael Gross's new Unreal Estate is similarly mind-numbing. Panting descriptions of the excesses of owners of some houses in BH, Bel-Air etc wear mighty thin.

Btw, I wouldn't want to read so much repetitive detail about the sex lives or domestic arrangements of poor people either! And I am very very interested in L.A. domestic architecture of the early-20th-century....

Gaylord:
"Full Service" is definitely not a tired rehash of old familiar stories, although a glance at the cover photos of Rock, Cary and Randolph etc. might give that impression.
It is probably testament to your healthy-mindedness that this kind of thing, along with tales of the excesses of the super-rich, simply bores you.
To many people, probably including you, Gore Vidal is an irritating relic, but his reputation is not that of one who would recommend a book of stale gossip by someone with an over-inflated ego.
I too am absolutely fascinated by early 20th-century Los Angeles architecture, but also enjoy gossip and lore about old Hollywood, Los Angeles crime, and the oddities and eccentricities of this city.
I also hugely appreciate your contributions to Noirish Los Angeles. Keep it up.

GaylordWilshire Jan 19, 2012 9:43 PM

The houses that cafeterias built, part II...
 
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-a...2520PM.bmp.jpgDonald Clinton Archive/Los Feliz Observer

Like the houses of the Boos brothers, this big beautiful place at 5470 Los Feliz Blvd (southeast corner of Western) was paid for by
mashed potatoes and Jello... Clifford Clinton of Clifton's lived here from 1936 to 1949. A bomb once went off in the kitchen....


https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-T...2520PM.bmp.jpgGoogle Street View
The house became L.A. Historic-Cultural Monument #997 last year.

Click HERE for a brief but highly enjoyable history of the house by son Don Clinton in the fall 2010 issue of the Los
Feliz Observer
(scroll down to page 6). The story includes references to the noir-era bombings we've covered here
before: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...&postcount=950).


https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-J...2520PM.bmp.jpgCharles J. Fisher

kanhawk Jan 20, 2012 4:58 AM

http://cdn.screenrant.com/wp-content....-Noir-TNT.jpg

New TV pilot to be written by Frank Darabont, director of The Shawshank Redemption. Will become a TV show on TNT, if they like the pilot episode.

http://screenrant.com/frank-darabont...t-yman-146591/

ethereal_reality Jan 20, 2012 5:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sopas ej (Post 5555632)

1940, Sunset and Holloway, West Hollywood.
http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/927...oway1940he.jpg
LAPL

What a great photograph sopas_ej! This is my neck of the woods when I lived in Los Angeles.
The buildings at the extreme left are mostly still intact (albeit some 'modernization).

http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/1...h2booksoup.jpg
google street view

It looks as if 'Book Soup' has expanded...enveloping two storefronts in the same building.

____

Just to the right of 'Book Soup' (see the photo above) is a mysterious passageway that leads to a business that seems straight out of the 1940s.

http://img813.imageshack.us/img813/4...hindbookso.jpg
detail

It's described as such...


http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/4...hindbookso.jpg
http://www.yelp.com/biz/mystery-pier...west-hollywood




http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/442...hindbookso.jpg
http://www.yelp.com/biz/mystery-pier...west-hollywood


http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/442...hindbookso.jpg
http://www.yelp.com/biz/mystery-pier...west-hollywood



The passageway described is on the left in the photo below.
It actually descends below a sort of 'bridge of sighs' that connects two of the buildings on Sunset Boulevard.

http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/4...hindbookso.jpg
google street view





http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/4...hindbookso.jpg
google street view

This is the type of place we would 'wax nostalgic' if it no longer existed.

For any of you in the L.A. area....go and visit the father and son proprietors.
It's been said that they know everything about crime in Los Angeles!
(and everyone seems to agree that they're also very friendly) :)

____



It also reminds me of the book shop in The Big Sleep (minus Dorothy Malone).

http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/6...hebigsleep.jpg
The Big Sleep (1946)

____

ethereal_reality Jan 20, 2012 6:54 AM

A scene from the 1967 cult film 'Mondo Hollywood' shows these two surfers leaving the Hollywood Hills
to catch some waves in Malibu.

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/8643/...dmysteryar.jpg
Mondo Hollywood




As they speed down the hill you see a giant arrow in the distance.

http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/8...dmysteryar.jpg
Mondo Hollywood

Can anyone tell me where this humongous arrow was located??
___

GaylordWilshire Jan 20, 2012 12:17 PM

Ruth Roman, Jack Cassidy, and... Paul Anka?
 
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-8...2520AM.bmp.jpgyoutube

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-i...2520AM.bmp.jpgyoutube

I don't know about the whole movie, but the trailer is kind of wonderful:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8y_7aPJMlY

"The revealing story of today's adult delinquents...nothing between their secrets and the neighborhood except a pane of glass!"

"They're the reason kids like us do the things we do."

"The shades are up and their morals are showing."


Co-starring George Dolenz, father of a Monkee, and Gigi Perreau of The Shadow on the Wall...

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_zXN_GwdMYMo/TQ...85148%20AM.jpgMGM
(See http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=2120)


ethereal... Mystery Pier Books looks like a must-visit....


.

RudyJK Jan 20, 2012 2:25 PM

Great...thanks 3940dxr.

Reading that menu from Dino's Lodge made me really hungry. :slob:

jg6544 Jan 20, 2012 5:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RudyJK (Post 5557343)
Great...thanks 3940dxr.

Reading that menu from Dino's Lodge made me really hungry. :slob:

Pretty exotic for its times, too. One thing caught my eye - the bird stuffed with wild rice and served with cherries ("Montmorency"). That was a staple of any restaurant anywhere in the country aspiring to be something more than pedestrian in the 1950s - 60s.

nostalgie Jan 20, 2012 6:45 PM

Wilshire Country Club
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire (Post 5555880)
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-E...shireccext.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-W...shireccint.jpgGoogle Books
The Wilshire Country Club, ca. 1922. From what I can see via Google, the building has been replaced or remodeled...
anyone know?


https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-6...2520AM.bmp.jpgjericl cat



Well, Jeff, while we're reviewing books...I looked at Full Service at the Strand, where it's half-price, no shipping... and I still didn't buy it...the book, I mean. Maybe every word is true, but it looks like a sad rehash of the same old stories, such as Cary & Randolph, Rock Hudson, ad nauseum. Exposés of Hollywood hypocrisy seems a little unsurprising at this point. Somehow you doubt that this guy was as personally popular as he thinks he was with the stars who paid him--and what a pal to try to cash in (again) on it all now. (And Gore Vidal's rec is not exactly worth much these days. There's another one screaming, remember me!? I'm not dead yet! I'm not a bourgeois square! I slept with stars! I had sex once!)

And while I actually slogged through the whole thing...Michael Gross's new Unreal Estate is similarly mind-numbing. Panting descriptions of the excesses of owners of some houses in BH, Bel-Air etc wear mighty thin.

Btw, I wouldn't want to read so much repetitive detail about the sex lives or domestic arrangements of poor people either! And I am very very interested in L.A. domestic architecture of the early-20th-century....

RE: You're wondering about the Wilshire Country Club. The club's buildings underwent a massive restoration/remodeling just a couple of years ago. As far as I've been able to find out, they still ARE the original buildings but had been victimized by a really unfortunate remodel 30+ years back, and it's that ugly remodel that was torn up & replaced. I haven't been inside since the work was done but am told it really looks good.

Ah - the fabulous Mystery Pier! The owners are great guys & do not discourage browsing. With the demise of the Mystery Bookshop, Mystery Pier
is the last man standing of great themed bookshops in L.A. Even if you only have a short time in town, Mystery Pier is SO worth your time.

As always, Ethereal & GW and all the other regular contributors, I'm truly awed by your breadth of knowledge & willingness to share. No other place on the web makes me feel as good about being an Angeleno as these pages.


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