http://imageshack.us/a/img441/3235/a...ectaveebay.jpg

Santa was very good to you. I'm glad you got the photograph. You deserve it. :)
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Is this building reminding anyone else of Johnson's AT&T bldg in NYC? Like a big chiffrobe. Just needs some cabriole legs.[/QUOTE]

In the middle forties I remember the circus coming to the large vacant area across the street...Barnum & Bailey and one other, can't recall the name...
The large main tent and the "sideshow" leading to it...wonderful memories.

The International Mart/Washington Furniture/Mode O' Day
 

That has got to be one of the most surreal photos ever. Poor thing.
The three hoses are the perfect creepy touch.
Meanwhile, life goes on unawares across the street at the Richfield station
and the billboard down the street exhibits a more cheerful image of young womanhood.

Still wish I knew what happened to the rooftop sailing ship.

International Mart & Grauman's Chinese, both 1927, RM Kennedy
 

That would be Raymond M. Kennedy (1891-1976) of Meyer & Holler.

And speaking of "crazy palaces", he did this one too (the same year):
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...M._Kennedy.jpg
wiki - original rendering by RM Kennedy

re: The International Mart/Washington Furniture Co/Mode O' Day building.

The large area where your circus was located is also the site of the great Los Angeles Auto Show fire of 1924.

http://imageshack.us/a/img833/699/aaautoshowf11924.jpg
ebay




http://imageshack.us/a/img72/2508/aa...firedetail.jpg





http://imageshack.us/a/img593/378/aa...e1924detai.jpg






Notice the large temporary medallion on the building.

http://imageshack.us/a/img571/1206/a...1924tallbl.jpg

The above photographs are details from a huge horizontal photo I found on ebay.

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$2.50 presents can be the best
 

Thanks!


Future site of Raymond M Kennedy's magnum opus:
http://imageshack.us/a/img441/3235/a...ectaveebay.jpg
cc pierce

:previous: It was only $2.50? I prefer it over the other photo that went for $140.00
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Oh yea...the other "circus" was Clyde Beatty, the lion-tamer...not as big as the Barnum Bailey "3-ring" circus...but entertaining none the less.

Here is another place in Los Angeles County I've never heard of.....the Sierra Madre Villa.

http://imageshack.us/a/img811/3504/a...madrevilla.jpg
ebay






http://imageshack.us/a/img16/1439/aa...drevillaca.jpg
ebay






http://imageshack.us/a/img38/7132/aa...erandacopy.png
ebay

Does anyone know the history of this place?
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....another mystery.

The LACLEDE Apartments, Dec. 6, 1910. No address given.

http://imageshack.us/a/img543/9238/a...tsfullfoto.jpg
ebay







detail
http://imageshack.us/a/img841/8631/a...aildec1910.jpg

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:previous:


The Laclede might have been on Main Street around 7th...will look further.



As for the Sierra Madre Villa, an 1878 mention of it refers to it as being newly opened; it seems that it might have started out as some sort of destination for invalids.

Later reports refer to it as a fashionable hotel, though not one without its ups and downs:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-j...2520PM.bmp.jpgLos Angeles Times Apr 28, 1890

LA 1924, Fire & Plague
 

What an utter disaster. It looks like a war zone.

1924 was a bit of an iffy year for LA:

L.A. THEN AND NOW
It started with a dead rat in a poor neighborhood near downtown. Not two months later, 37 people had died from the plague.
March 05, 2006|Cecilia Rasmussen | Times Staff Writer

It was a warm, summery day in late September 1924 when a group of Mexican immigrants began to congregate outside a boardinghouse on Clara Street, north of what is now Cesar E. Chavez Avenue and west of Vignes Street. It was a small, bustling, mostly Latino community near downtown, where the Twin Towers jail complex now stands.

Folks were listening to Jesus Lajun's comical story about his detective work in tracking down an overpowering and nauseating odor beneath his house. He had found a decaying rat, he told them; he picked it up with one hand and threw it in the trash.

A week later, Clara Street was in mourning. Lajun's daughter, Francesca, 15, was dead, a victim of what the coroner called double pneumonia.

Then, a neighbor, Lucena Samarano, who was six months pregnant and had cared for Francesca while she was ill, miscarried and also died. A few days after her funeral, attended by a host of friends, Samarano's husband, Guadalupe, died. Within six weeks, the only survivor of the eight-member Samarano family was 14-month-old Raul.

The man who had found the rat, Lajun -- also spelled Loujon -- was nursing a bloody cough and a painful, egg-sized swollen gland in his groin. By the end of October, he too was dead.

An ambulance driver who transported the sick became ill and died. So did Father M. Brualla, who had administered last rites to several victims and said Mass at Lucena Samarano's funeral. Within days, a dozen more deaths occurred in the neighborhood and in the Belvedere district on the east side of the river, according to Dr. Robert S. Cleland, a former Los Angeles County Hospital pathologist who colorfully described the events in a 1971 article for Westways magazine.

Doctors suspected meningitis, influenza, pneumonia, even typhus. But the culprit was something more insidious that had inspired fear since before the Middle Ages...

The rest is at: http://articles.latimes.com/2006/mar/05/local/me-then5


DO NOT miss these photos:
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=...doc.view=items

A thankless task at the 1924 LA plague lab:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-e...110%2520PM.jpg

A current video of the plague lab https://vimeo.com/170246948

Nora Sterry (1880-1941):
http://www.sterryelementary.org/uplo...8/3131824.jpeg
nora sterry elementary school

Ms Sterry, lauded in the article above, was the younger sister of famed show biz attorney Norman Sterry (1879-1971) who represented, amongst others, Lillian Gish (re slander), Mary Miles Minter (against her mother) and Barbara Hutton Grant (against an ex). Nora and Norman Sterry lived as young people with their parents and siblings at 2607 Wilshire Blvd, two blocks west of MacArthur Park

Marilyn Monroe attended Nora Sterry Elementary School (when it was still Sawtelle Blvd School) here in WLA when Ms Sterry was the principal there.
Sterry was a legendary educator and loved by all.

P.S. Excellent 1924 plague video. Great images:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t7KTeNKjws

Macy Street School (mentioned in the article above) being torn down in 1937. It was inside the quarantine area.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-a...210%2520PM.jpg
reddawgcollectables/eBay

The Plague lab will set you back a million bucks now:
http://www.loopnet.com/Listing/17875...os-Angeles-CA/

:previous:

There are some great posts and pics about the rat plague in and around this post of ER's:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=1395


Excellent read: Whitewashed Adobe by William Deverell


A good post about the auto show fire: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=5248

fire & plague
 

The auto show fire was in 1929? Lol, I was sitting here wondering if the 1924 plague fires started the auto show fire. When I'm wrong , I'm really wrong.

A little bit of Esther's story:

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/9785/easthercompl.jpgLAT


It seems that she was born in Nebraska on March 12, 1905, the daughter of Philip and Dora Stein; she had three sisters and two brothers. The Steins moved into their various residences several decades after they were built, each of their houses reflecting the changing architectural styles of the city and its westward development; in 1920, the family lived in a Victorian cottage at 275 East 49th St; in 1930, in a Craftsman at 1763 West 41st; in 1940, in a Mediterranean cottage at 1717 S Mansfield Ave.


http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/6...housecompl.jpg
GoogleSV

Chriss Cross (1949) question
 

I don't think anyone ever answered Beaudry's question
(or maybe he was just teasing us):

Brad Pitt/Det Mills in Se7en (1995)
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8k2VBLsT42...0/Biltmore.JPG
itsfilmedthere.com

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1...214%2520PM.jpg
gsv

Approx 530 S Grand, the exit lane from the third Pacific Mutual Building (1926) underground parking (LA's first). I've posted on this site before because it's a favorite.

And from the other direction:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-n...057%2520PM.jpg
IMDB scrreen grab from Chinatown (1974),
showing the Mayflower/Checkers Hotel (1927) across Grand, same as in Chriss Cross:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-T...920%2520PM.jpg
gsv

This location always looks great.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-n...334%2520PM.jpg
gsv

C.C. Pierce photos from eBay seller c.w.hall
 

It was only when I realized they were going so cheaply (or not selling at all) that I bid on one, the most expensive one as it turned out. LOL, do I know how to pick them, or what? I actually like the photo I have the best.

Thx again, if it weren't for your post I would not have the photo.

I'm the one who had the date of the auto show fire wrong t2. I accidentally led you on a wild goose chase. -my bad-:(
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Nora Sterry
 

Not to worry, I love any excuse to talk about Nora Sterry (and her brother's clients).

Thanks for the information on the Sierra Madre Villa GW. I had no idea it was so close to Pasadena.
(I see that the article also mentions the Lamanda Park area.)
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I just found this....it mentions Cogswell.

http://imageshack.us/a/img38/7028/ss...illalosang.png
ebay

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