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nickdahammer Apr 8, 2013 1:44 AM

That is fantastic. I work downtown and that will make for a great lunch break. Bonnie Brea has some great apartments to check out. Thanks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality (Post 6081968)
I seldom bid on items on ebay, but I did with this 1922 Los Angeles Apartment Directory.
I didn't win the auction :( -this is the only fragment I have...a portion of page one

http://imageshack.us/a/img11/9181/aa...at746sbonn.jpg



I searched some of the addresses and found this little jewel of an apartment named the Beverly on Bonnie Brae.


http://imageshack.us/a/img546/9181/a...at746sbonn.jpg
gsv

Notice the sparkly sign above the front door. It's still named the Beverly! How cool is that?



What architectural style is this? I'm baffled.

http://imageshack.us/a/img585/9181/a...at746sbonn.jpg
gsv


ethereal_reality Apr 8, 2013 3:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nickdahammer (Post 6082372)
That is fantastic. I work downtown and that will make for a great lunch break. Bonnie Brea has some great apartments to check out. Thanks.

Don't forget to take your camera. I'd love to see some clearer photos. ;)
__

belmont bob Apr 8, 2013 4:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HenryHuntington (Post 6080751)
Fortunately for those of us of a certain age, it's the short-term memory that goes first. ;) Given our attraction (or addiction) to SoCal history, that's probably a handy arrangement.

not because I'm thrilled about my age you understand, but my 1948 third grade class visited Olvera Street by big yellow bus...we came all the way from Logan Street School in Echo Park..haha...funny too, a girl friend at Belmont HS worked part time in one of the shops on Olvera Street, so i got to know the area pretty well....not noir..just fond memories...

belmont bob Apr 8, 2013 4:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JScott (Post 6080821)
Does anyone remember a coin shop on Hill Street in the late 1960s? In my dim recollection, it was one block north of Pershing Square on the east side of the street. The proprietor got very upset with my mother for leaving me there for over an hour while she went shopping. "This is not a baby-sitting service, Madam!" Anyway, just a random Downtown memory!

I used to be a coin collector, this was from about 1958 until 1964 when I went into the Air Force, but most of my collection came from Robinsons Dept. Store and there coin dept. However, as much time as I spent downtown in those days, I think I would have discovered a coin shop on Hill. After I returned home from the military in 1968, I met my wife and as we began dating and got engaged I no longer had any money for coin collecting. Haha. Priorities you know…HER’S…. So if the store was indeed there in the late 60’s I probably would not have seen it. I recall that neighborhood as going downhill by that time, so I wonder if that kind of a business might have been down closer to 7th street and the early beginnings of the Jewelry dist. BTW, I still have all those coins from 50 years ago and I think I’ve earned a tidy sum on them.

belmont bob Apr 8, 2013 4:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WS1911 (Post 6081029)
_______________

Thanks for posting the photo of the bookstore. In the 60s I got off the streetcar or bus on Broadway and walked out 5th to the Central Library many, many times. I always stopped at the newsstand/bookstore. Don't remember the name of it, though.


As I mentioned in an earlier post, I too spent a lot of time at that book store. Mostly browsing but occasionally buying something. Brings back a lot of memories of the years I worked downtown and left a lot of shoe leather on those sidewalks. The barber shop next door reminds me. Wasn’t there a large barber shop on directly across the street? I never went in there but I remember it being very large with two rows of chairs, maybe 6 or so per side.

Seems as that kind of a place would have had its share of noir being so close to Bunker Hill.

Flyingwedge Apr 8, 2013 8:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rbpjr (Post 6082090)
My folks lived in an apartment building at 440 S. Bonnie Brae in the early fifties...was wondering if it is listed in your apartment guide at an earlier year and what it was called?

The LA City Directories at LAPL are some help. Starting with 1932, they list 440 S. Bonnie Brae as the Vista Grande:
http://rescarta.lapl.org/ResCarta-We...oc=bonnie+brae

But the Vista Grande is listed in the 1926 (as the Vista Grand), 1927, and 1929 LA City Directories at 400 S. Bonnie Brae:
http://rescarta.lapl.org/ResCarta-We...nd&submit=Find
http://rescarta.lapl.org/ResCarta-We...c=Vista+Grande
http://rescarta.lapl.org/ResCarta-We...ae&submit=Find

The LA County Assessor says it was built in 1923. I hope that's more than you knew before!

so-cal-bear Apr 8, 2013 12:32 PM

.

MichaelRyerson Apr 8, 2013 12:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SoCal1954 (Post 6082231)
E-R, really cool stuff!! :tup:

So much detail!!

This site will become a historical reference point, for years to come!!


Not if people continue to hot-link.

ethereal_reality Apr 8, 2013 2:06 PM

Torrential downpour 1938, corner of 7th and Grand.

http://imageshack.us/a/img542/9084/a...hgrand1938.jpg
ebay





Venice 1938, same storm
http://imageshack.us/a/img854/5922/a...venice1938.jpg
ebay
__

BifRayRock Apr 8, 2013 2:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sopas ej (Post 4614918)
Aliso Street viaduct, early 1950s
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/4...aductearly.jpg
USC archive

This of course is now the 101 freeway headed west into the LA Civic Center/downtown LA area. This photo really puts things into perspective for me, on how huge those gas storage tanks were. They look like they dominate the skyline. It's funny to me that those tanks basically were like a gateway into downtown when approaching from this route; I always associated the City Hall and the skyscraper skyline as being the visual focal point when headed this way. This would make a great "then" for a then and now. Looking at the lamp posts on the Aliso St. viaduct, I think it's a shame they couldn't have kept the old twin-pendant street lamps. This picture was also taken not too long after the Pacific Electric streetcar was abandoned through this area; you can see the curved right-of-way along the bottom left corner of the photo; the poles that held the trolley wires are still standing too at this point in time.





Pre - FWY (Late '40s) vvvv


http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3283/3...5a9a35df_o.jpghttp://farm4.staticflickr.com/3283/3...5a9a35df_o.jpg


http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3274/3...40cc7eb9_b.jpghttp://farm4.staticflickr.com/3274/3...40cc7eb9_b.jpg

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3142/3...7b4329e2_b.jpghttp://farm4.staticflickr.com/3142/3...7b4329e2_b.jpg






Santa Ana Freeway circa '52 -
http://catalog.library.ca.gov/exlibr...4R9PBUFUMS.jpghttp://catalog.library.ca.gov/exlibr...4R9PBUFUMS.jpg






SoCal1954 Apr 8, 2013 4:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality (Post 6082753)
Torrential downpour 1938, corner of 7th and Grand.

http://imageshack.us/a/img542/9084/a...hgrand1938.jpg
ebay





Venice 1938, same storm
http://imageshack.us/a/img854/5922/a...venice1938.jpg
ebay
__


Yes, this was a mega-event, across the entire southland, in Feb/Mar of 1938!
The foothill communities, closest to the mtn. canyons, such as Altadena, Pasadena, La Crescenta, LaCanada, Tujunga, etc. were hit very hard with the torrents; and then the L.A. basin just filled up with water, as depicted in these photos. In the first photo, Security First National Bank of Los Angeles. Is that bank building still standing, or is it since removed from the corner?

The Los Angeles flood of 1938 was a major flooding event which was responsible for inundating much of Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside counties, California, during early 1938. The flood was caused by a pair of oceanic storms that swept inland across the Los Angeles Basin in February and March 1938, causing abnormal rainfall across much of coastal Southern California. 113 to 115 people perished in the flood, which was one of the most catastrophic disasters in area history. Source: Wiki

tovangar2 Apr 8, 2013 6:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BifRayRock (Post 6082760)

When I was a kid the tanks were so familiar that one didn't really notice them. They were just there. I missed them when they were gone though.

American Film Noir has a page on the tanks http://americanfilmnoir.com/page21.html although the site owner seems to be under the impression that the DTLA pair three* were the only ones.

*Thx BRR!

SoCal1954 Apr 8, 2013 7:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tovangar2 (Post 6083080)
When I was a kid the tanks were so familiar that one didn't really notice them. They were just there. I missed them when they were gone though.


They're gone!!??

When did that happen!!!




:P

MichaelRyerson Apr 8, 2013 7:51 PM

1934, another year, same result...
 
"In November of 1933, what became known as the Pickens Canyon Fire had denuded some 7,000 acres of mountainside north of the Crescenta Valley. Shortly thereafter the area was beset by weeks of steady rains, and on December 31 showers that had begun to fall intensified to a downpour that dropped a record 7.31 inches in 24 hours (in pale comparison Los Angeles’ total rainfall this year, 2009, so far is around 9 inches). By midnight when the city was ringing in 1934, the San Gabriels began wringing out massive flows of mud, rocks and trees down dozens of steep narrow canyons, which reached the basin floor as 20-foot walls of debris-choked torrents..."

Blogging Los Angeles, Will Campbell

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8391/8...7406aa95_o.jpg
New Year's flood, Glendale, Montrose, Los Angeles,1934

Photo shows A. Van EEnooghe at 2615 Manhattan Avenue in Montrose, digging out debris caused by flooding.

LAPL

"Well, I got one here that I wrote up, uh [pauses]. When all of these okies got to California, it was a sort of a natural thing for them to drift down to all the river bottoms, along all the mountain streams and all the creeks.

I know that I’ve been in a lot of okie camps in California where a hard-working man didn’t make a dollar every two weeks. And all he depended on was maybe the fish he could catch along some of the rivers or some of the creeks..."

Woody Guthrie, 1934


http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8123/8...7f1a6108_o.jpg
New Year's flood, Glendale, Montrose, Los Angeles,1934 (2)

This home in Montrose was gutted by mud, rocks and water that came through the back of the house. No one was around at that time.

LAPL

"So along these rivers and creeks that all these Okies was camped around, why there was a lot of things happened that sort of go down as a black mark somewhere another in history because these mountain streams and all these rivers had a habit of having cloudbursts – big rains and cloudbursts — and they’d hit up on the mountains and they’d flood all them rivers and they’d flood all them creeks. And in fifteen minutes time – a lot of times – it’d wash away five- or six-hundred families of people and totally take everything that they had in the world..."
Woody Guthrie, 1934


http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8525/8...2868e41b_o.jpg
New Year's flood, Glendale, Montrose, Los Angeles,1934 (3)

After great quantities of debris piled up behind small check dams and water pipes crossing Pickens Canyon, the dams and pipes gave way under the heavy pressure. Wall after wall of water was sent down the canyon. This water hurtled down upon La Crescenta and Montrose. The arrow points out one of the pipes. A few feet back of it was a check dam, five and a half feet high, which also was broken. In the foreground are boys holding some wire that was part of the dam structure.

LAPL

"In 1934 on New Year’s night was one of the worst that ever hit at anywhere and anytime and it killed over one hundred people – and that many was reported; I guess there was a hundred more than there was reported. But then they had all the morgues and all the funeral homes and all the church houses full of people that was drowned in this storm. And it rolled great big boulders down all the streets of Montrose, California; Tujunga, California; and all down the streets of Glendale, California; northern Burbank, California — and Los Angeles, California, the same thing..."

Woody Guthrie, 1934



http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8101/8...d75ce940_o.jpg
New Year's flood, Glendale, Montrose, Los Angeles,1934 (4)

Scene near Rossmoyne, where torrents swept away 400 feet of La Canada Boulevard and buried autos under rocks and mud. The arrow points out an auto in which one body was found. Glendale High school student, Dean Meredith, peers into the second car hidden by whole trees and debris.

LAPL

tovangar2 Apr 8, 2013 8:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SoCal1954 (Post 6083161)
They're gone!!??

They were replaced (see below). You don't want to end up in this tank.
A friend's brother, hands cuffed behind his back, was beaten to death by guards here.
I love LA, but this town will break. your. heart.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-N...42635%2BPM.jpg
gsv

BifRayRock Apr 8, 2013 8:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tovangar2 (Post 6083080)
When I was a kid the tanks were so familiar that one didn't really notice them. They were just there. I missed them when they were gone though.

American Film Noir has a page on the tanks http://americanfilmnoir.com/page21.html although the site owner seems to be under the impression that the DTLA pair were the only ones.





A third tank hiding in plain sight? :naughty:

Look again and you may see that the tallest tank seems to be eclipsing a smaller tank. Would expect this to be very evident with aerial shots, but I have taken things for granted . . .



tovangar2 Apr 8, 2013 8:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BifRayRock (Post 6083240)


A third tank hiding in plain sight? :naughty:

Look again and you may see that the tallest tank seems to be eclipsing a smaller tank. Would expect this to be very evident with aerial shots, but I have taken things for granted . . .


You're right. But it was often hidden (at least from the POV I usually had) which is why, I guess, I thought of them as a pair. I can't find an aerial.
Beaudry put up a nice post on construction here:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=3592

WS1911 Apr 8, 2013 9:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by belmont bob (Post 6082508)
I used to be a coin collector, this was from about 1958 until 1964 when I went into the Air Force, but most of my collection came from Robinsons Dept. Store and there coin dept. However, as much time as I spent downtown in those days, I think I would have discovered a coin shop on Hill. After I returned home from the military in 1968, I met my wife and as we began dating and got engaged I no longer had any money for coin collecting. Haha. Priorities you know…HER’S…. So if the store was indeed there in the late 60’s I probably would not have seen it. I recall that neighborhood as going downhill by that time, so I wonder if that kind of a business might have been down closer to 7th street and the early beginnings of the Jewelry dist. BTW, I still have all those coins from 50 years ago and I think I’ve earned a tidy sum on them.

________

Thanks for bringing back memories of the coin and paper currency dept. at Robinson’s. I had forgotten all about it. I didn’t buy much, since I was young and didn’t have much money – I was 10 years old in 1958. But I continued to stop there well into my teens and perhaps early 20s at which time I did buy some U. S. currency.

I also collected stamps and went often to the Natick Store on 4th near Spring. I distinctly remember an older guy named Archie with white hair and think he may have been the owner.

Robinson's ca. 1917, not long after opening

http://imageshack.us/a/img248/3928/r...cardca1917.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img707/3928/r...cardca1917.jpg

ebay images

tovangar2 Apr 8, 2013 10:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WS1911 (Post 6083365)
________

Robinson's ca. 1917, not long after opening

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Z...44332%2BPM.jpg
http://departmentstoremuseum.blogspo...s-angeles.html

We shopped downtown when I was a kid and in Hollywood, as well as the Miracle Mile, of course, although my mother actively disliked anything pre-war (especially our house).
She wouldn't have cared if it was a Ming vase, she thought everything pre-war should be swept away.

Her favorite store was the glamorous Beverly Hills Robinson's. A better match between store and customer has never existed:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-e...43430%2BPM.jpg
http://departmentstoremuseum.blogspo...s-angeles.html
(Wm Pereira, 1952 - Interiors by Raymond Loewy - Landscaping by Florence Yoch)

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lano...g-tribute.html

I seem to recall that at the grand opening, or maybe it was a later promotion, bubble machines were placed on the entrance canopies so one entered the store
surrounded by bubbles scented with Joy, "the world's most expensive perfume". What a place.

JScott Apr 8, 2013 10:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by belmont bob (Post 6082508)
I used to be a coin collector, this was from about 1958 until 1964 when I went into the Air Force, but most of my collection came from Robinsons Dept. Store and there coin dept. However, as much time as I spent downtown in those days, I think I would have discovered a coin shop on Hill. After I returned home from the military in 1968, I met my wife and as we began dating and got engaged I no longer had any money for coin collecting. Haha. Priorities you know…HER’S…. So if the store was indeed there in the late 60’s I probably would not have seen it. I recall that neighborhood as going downhill by that time, so I wonder if that kind of a business might have been down closer to 7th street and the early beginnings of the Jewelry dist. BTW, I still have all those coins from 50 years ago and I think I’ve earned a tidy sum on them.

Yeah, you're right, it makes more sense that it would have been in the direction of 7th. Maybe in this case I just have a reverse-image memory, and the coin shop was on the west side of Olive between 6th and 7th. :shrug: I'll probably never know...

I got a lot of my coins at Robinson's, too! It was mostly at the one in Pasadena, though. The last coin my mom bought me was a MS-64 1876 20-cent piece at the Downtown Robinson's. It's worth more than a pretty penny now. :D

http://i699.photobucket.com/albums/v...ted20cents.jpg
coinauctionshelp.com


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