From CaliNative;

The classic sign prank was when CalTech transformed the sign to spell "CalTech" before a Bowl Game. But even that was eclipsed by their hijacking of the Washington Huskys card squad in the Rose Bowl in 1960 (?).The Huskys card squad spelled out "CalTech" in the nationally televised half time show. Everybody except the Huskys got a kick out of that. Maybe that was the same year CalTech hijacked the Hollywood sign?

Larry Breed and I were very aware of Cal Tech's shenanigans and went to some length to insure it didn't happen to us. Very early exercise in computer security. (But not my last :-))

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN1opFMXJbY

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mystery location / somewhere along Wilshire



"Original Hollywood Street Scene Wilshire Blvd California 1952 Kodachrome Slide"

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/TQTtQB.jpg
eBay

The right side of the beige building is rather unusual for Wilshire Blvd. (being an one-story building and all). ..If I didn't know better.. I'd say it was a funeral home.


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:previous:


Seen to the left Harry Cooper Inc. was at 9635 Wilshire Blvd. in Beverly Hills.

From the 1956 directory the other buildings would include 9631 and 9601.


https://i.imgur.com/ajsUT4y.jpg
rescarta.lapl.org


Here they are on a 1952 aerial.

https://i.imgur.com/C3pmZqV.jpg
historicaerials.com

The buildings to the right of 9635 are gone by the 1960 aerial.

:previous:
https://i.postimg.cc/d0yn4Vnt/Saks-maybe.jpg
ebay

The description says "Original Hollywood Street Scene Wilshire Blvd W & J Sloane 1952", but there is writing both here and in the prior photo which I think says "Saks Fifth Avenue." Noir_Noir puts this site across the street from the current Saks store.

Here's a link to a Getty Images photo entitled, Saks Fifth Avenue Guest and Gift Shop, Beverly Hills, California, circa 1962.

I'd never heard of this horrific incident, at the time it was considered the worst mass murder in the city's history....



https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...720&fit=bounds



Excerpts from here.....https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the...ce_burned.html

"At 20 minutes to midnight, four men who had been thrown out of the Club Mecca, 5841 S. Normandie Ave., came back with an old five-gallon paint can full of gasoline. One of them, an ex-convict, threw the gas into the bar like a cleaning lady pouring out her mop bucket; another, a delivery driver for a bindery, lit a matchbook and tossed it onto the gas-soaked carpet. The small neighborhood bar, packed with 21 people, exploded in flames.

Firefighters found one victim still sitting on a bar stool, so badly burned it was days before he was positively identified. Four other men and one woman died, and the rest survived, one of them with severe burns. At the time, police called it the biggest mass murder in Los Angeles history.

Detectives found one of the killers, Clyde Bates, 36, and his companion, Oscar Brenhaug, 44, sleeping off a drunk in a blue Plymouth sedan parked in the driveway of Bates’ home at 1623 S. Menlo Ave. Investigators eventually arrested the other two men, Manuel Joseph Hernandez, 18, and Manuel Joseph Chavez, 25.

Claiming that he was too drunk to have helped plan the bombing, Brenhaug turned state’s evidence and the case against him was dismissed for lack of evidence. Hernandez was sentenced to life in prison and vanished from the pages of The Times a few years later.

Bates and Chavez were sentenced to die in the gas chamber at San Quentin, and in 1960, they got into a Death Row brawl with Red Light Bandit Caryl Chessman and convicted killer James Merkouris over watching the Rose Bowl on TV. But in 1966, Gov. Pat Brown commuted their sentences, giving Chavez life in prison and Bates life without the possibility of parole.

In 1972, the state Supreme Court scrapped the death penalty, further reducing Bates' sentence to life in prison. A final Times story says Bates was scheduled to be paroled in March 1977. Chavez had already been freed and was working in Sacramento as a counselor for ex-offenders."



https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...720&fit=bounds




https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...720&fit=bounds
L-R: Manuel Hernandez, Manuel Chavez, Oscar Brenhaug and Clyde Bates.




Apparently the place was reopened....

https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...080&fit=bounds

https://i.imgur.com/jM0Wdnz.jpg
gettyimages.com



9631 Wilshire Blvd. was the home of KMPC radio from 1928 until they moved to Sunset Blvd. in 1944.


Posted here by Notinkeys in 2012.


You can see the roofs of the buildings in this 2015 post by e_r.

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:previous: I don't remember that photograph at all. It's great! :)...(if I say so myself)

Thanks for everyone's help on the Wilshire mystery slide. ...I really appreciate it.


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This image just popped up in a humor forum that I read. The description there describes it as "1936 Mack Art Deco armored truck with a cupola for an armed guard - designed by Wellington Everett Miller, built by Advanced Auto Body Works in Los Angeles, California, USA". I traced the photo back to an article titled 'Wellington Everett Miller, Designer and Engineer – Part II' at theoldmotor.com. They just describe it as "In a combination of the conventional and streamlined, Advance built a Miller-designed armored truck that carried guards in a rear turret." They say that the picture is courtesy of Pasadena-based auto designer Strother MacMinn.

https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...rmoredCar1.jpg
theoldmotor.com

In 1936, Advance Auto Body Works Inc was at 1000 Macy Street.

A couple of previous mentions of Advance Auto Body Works:

Advance Auto body works?
 

Hello Gents and Dames,
You have awakened my loitering once again and I have a question if you don't mind?
They started widening the 5 Fwy about 5 years ago and one landmark building, and it's 2 vehicles disappeared. I have driven that route since 1988. But I don't have a photo and I forgot the name of the business. It was a storage, cartage, or moving company and it had a Art Deco Truck/ Tractor and it's companion trailer that were streamlined and both vehicles were always kept shiny and clean , and I believe that the color combo was orange on top and a grey or silver on the lower parts of the vehicles.
Picture this: Flying Southbound on the 5 Fwy, passing the 710 and heading towards a meeting at Disneyland, (10AM ish) , you get past the 605 and the " pinch point" starts ! The " North Woods Inn" restaurant with it's signature roof is on your left of the Fwy as you still head South at a slog pace and on the right side is this old storage or cartage company with these 2 Deco trucks on a platform I believe . I was always happy to see them, it ment I was the past the 1/2 way point for my commute! and whomever owned these vehicles, and the Co kept them in good condition from 1988 to around 2015.
Anyway , I wonder if there are any pictures out there , Company name , and also if they were made locally ?
I love Art Deco, and Deco vehicles are unique and always hand made the old school way, a lot of work and sweat and usually one of a kind.
If any of you have a photo or name I would love to close that question of the company that has been lurking for 5 or 6 years in my " what did I forget" inbox.
Thanks ,
Jerry

:previous:

Dunkel Brothers were at 14620 Firestone Blvd.


• Video Link

:shrug:

:previous:
Hoss, maybe all the regular posters should go back to the earliest pages, and pick out their favorite early post (not one of their own) and bring it forward to remember and comment on like I did with the Hollywoodland post. A Noirish L.A. Hall of Fame. JUST ONE per poster per week or two, or it will clog up the works. Bad idea? Don't want to get lost in the past...wait, that's what we do LOL. Maybe focus on the good early posters who are no longer here but should be remembered for their quality posts? If ethereal is opposed, won't do it. But some of those old posts are really good, and the new noirishers should see the best of them.

:previous:
Here is a curiosity posted by ethereal in 2009. Post #118. The big heads are not identified in the original post, but I believe these are political figures from the 1920s. The freckled unsmiling babyish one on the left is Calvin Coolidge, the next one to his right is Warren Harding, to his right is Democrat Al Smith, and next to him on the far right is Herbert Hoover who beat Smith in 1928. It also looks like WC Fields, but that makes no sense. The donkeys on the left are Democrat icons. There is no GOP elephant, maybe it was missing, but there is a frog and an alligator head on the right, which makes no political sense, unless the frog is supposed to be Hoover and the alligator Al Smith. "See 'ya later AL-ligator" was a popular goodbye for a time in the late '20s among hip youth, especially after Smith lost to Hoover.

Ceres Avenue.
 

Ceres Avenue, once identified by the LAPD as the 'most dangerous street in the city.'

:previous:

https://i.postimg.cc/kMjwHYh7/Ceres-LAT-1892-6-4.jpg
LA Times, 6/4/1892.

Telephoned? Ha! That's great.
 

She telephoned the police in 1892!

Telephones were fairly common, at least in the homes of more affluent people and most businesses, by the late 1880s and more so the 1890s. Look at all the old pics of that era and telephone poles are everywhere on city streets. Rural homes though were less commonly wired for phones until the late 1890s or later. By the late 1890s, many apartment/tenement buildings had the proverbial phone in the hall for common use for a price, even in poor areas. Most people in cities could make a phone call if they really needed to with a borrowed phone and operator assistance (even a long distance call), but that was expensive. Dial phones didn't become common until the 1920s. Party lines, where people shared a line to save money, were common into the 1950s.

Further to the matter of Mesdames Pitkin and--correcting the name--Schneider:

In 1897:

https://i.postimg.cc/KjMPRbtb/Pitkin-Her-1897-12-10.jpg
LA Herald, 12/10/1897

Mrs. Pitkin seems to have lived a somewhat tumultuous life over the years with a couple of undesirable husbands (not simultaneously), burglary of her premises, and a back injury from a streetcar accident coming home from the Tournament of Roses in Pasadena.

Alas, Mrs. Schneider--"Celina" seems to be her actual given name--at length committed suicide April 12, 1911, "by drinking a chloral solution and inhaling gas at her home at 522 Ceres" (LA Herald, April 13, 1911).

Mmmmm, maybe. It might be a stretch to characterize these ladies as 'affluent' But perhaps. In about twenty years, LAPD is going to characterize Ceres and surrounding streets as easily the most crime ridden in the city. Maybe they fell on hard times quickly. "In 1879, the Los Angeles Telephone Company obtained a ten-year franchise to provide phone service, most likely in the area that is now considered downtown L.A. There were seven customers when the company set up shop. In 1902, the Home Telephone and Telegraph Company, a private interest group that was not pleased with the telephone service available, acquired the plant and equipment of the Empire Construction Company, obtained a 50-year franchise to provide telephone and telegraph services, and, by 1903, had 10,177 stations installed, all automatic. The central office equipment and customer telephones were Strowger, manufactured by Automatic Electric."

Population in 1890 50,000, in 1900 102,400.

from TELEPHONE COLLECTORS INTERNATIONAL WEBSITE (TCI)

When all is said and done, I'm not picking a fight with you. I (personally) find using a telephone in that part of the city in 1892 remarkable.

I never pick fights. I'm just sharing what I thought I knew about phone use in the U.S.. Maybe phone use was more common in eastern cities in the 1890s than L.A.--I grant you that. I can't argue with your numbers. Businesses were of course faster to put in phone lines. So maybe a phone call in 1892 from a private residence was a rarity in L.A., like color T.V.s were in the 1950s, even early 1960s.

Speaking of color T.V.s, those early models were not very good in color quality. When "Bonanza" and a few other shows (especially those on NBC, owned by set maker RCA) started color broadcasts in the late 1950s, color sales started to jump. By 1966, most shows were broadcast in color (although ABC lagged) & set sales really boomed. Color quality was better too. My family bought a Zenith in 1965, and the color fidelity was good. Some other brands were less so. RCA was a notch down from Zenith in tge 1960s in my opinion, and Philco and Emerson even more so. Some people swore by Magnevox, but I found the color not so good. Magnevox seemed to put more attention in the wooden housing of the set than the picture tubes. Zenith had the best color picture tubes.

The 21 inch Zenith we bought had a partly round screen on the sides, and was housed in an attractive walnut wood housing. But the picture quality was the thing. It cost about $500 in 1965, which would be over $2000 in 2022 money, and at least twice the weekly salary at the time for most people. Quite a big purchase for us.

Watching those color broadcasts was thrilling at the time. The color travelogs like the syndicated "Happy Wanderer" with Slim Barnard were popular in L.A.-Slim had a laugh you would remember...I do after 55 years. But Bonanza on Sunday night was the highlight of the week. Big Hoss was most everybody's favorite Cartwright, but the ladies sometimes liked Little Joe, who had a troubled James Dean attitude going. Pretty sure Landon put some Dean in the role. The episides that featured Hoss were often more comic, those with Little Joe often darker and serious. Even more serious than Joe was Adam, the older brother, who only lasted a few seasons. He moved away from the Ponderosa, and grew up to be Trapper John, M.D. Hoss was always in a friendly mood, didn't seek out trouble, but could whip anybody in Nevada if it came to fisticuffs. Hop Sing the cook, half his size, wasn't afraid of him though, and would sometimes yell at him and brandish a frying pan for sampling a food item before it was ready. Hop Sing guarded his realm well. Hoss was always hungry. Bet Hop Sing made a mean chop suey and egg foo young.

Dunkel Bros.
 

Thank you Noir Noir, Yes that is the place I remember, quite a nice set up of tractor and hauler. :cheers:
A couple of interesting things on the truck in the Video were nicely detailed also. For 1947 that still looks like Streamlined Deco or a derivative....
- it was a " GM Official Hauler" didn't know that.
- the rear axle on the trailer was waaay far toward the back of the trailer, so DOT regulations must have not been in place yet.
- and the telephone # of RIchmond 9-0882 harks back to the switchboards of long ago and far away.
- nice Cadillac on the back end, sweeet.

Their website indicates a beginning since 1975 but makes no mention of the 47/49 Tractor/ Trailer setup, and I find that interesting that it would be left out? They specialize in moving machinery and large equipment around.
I am originally from Flint, Michigan and all my family were Chevy and Buick skilled trades , we called these companies " Cartage Haulers" and my friend down the streets Father owned one of these companies. Some nights back in the 1970's we would see Haulers moving around Flint with the giant presses and stamping machines that were as big as 2 story houses, and grunting and groaning as they were moved from factory to factory or factory to major repair / modification facilities with these behemoth loads. It was a sight!


Thanks for the response and I have never seen a cleaner engine in my life!
Loved it , J