noirish Los Angeles

[odinthor]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

There is a street at the boundary between San Marcos and Vista, where I now live, that is called Smilax St. So I guess there are Smilaxes out there, but it does sound like a made up name.

Smilax is a plant, or rather a whole genus of plants which have a history of being used by florists for greenery. The vine is on the left in this fruit label:


eBay https://www.ebay.com/itm/363554672033

[Martin Pal]

Originally Posted by Noir_Noir

Maybe one discreetly posited picture would be ok?

I didn't know you could do this!

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I didn't know you could do this!

[CanyonKid]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

That is dedication, to go through the hundreds or thousands of pages going back over 10 years before you felt ready to enter the present specialized world of noirishers. I went through perhaps the first 50 pages before I started posting once in a while, maybe 5 years ago. I noticed quite a few of the posts and photos were about or from the1920s and 1930s, my specialty, so I was hooked. Welcome Canyon Kid to noirish land.

Thank you, CaliNative. It’s great to meet you!

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by HossC

That's the Burbank Theatre at 548 S Main Street. You can see more pictures at cinematreasures.org.

Lili St. Cyr, mentioned above on the marquee of the Burbank Theater on Main St., was a well known adult entertainer (classier title than "stripper") who worked from the 1940s into the early 1970s. In her 1940s-1950s-early 1960s heyday, she was almost as popular as Gypsy Rose Lee. She performed mostly in Quebec in her early years, and in the 1950s relocated mostly to to Los Angeles, and sometimes San Francisco and Las Vegas. She was known for her slim and athletic good looks, her long blond hair, and for often taking a bubble bath on stage. She died in 1999. She appeared in some films and T.V. shows. According to her Wikipedia bio, Howard Hughes was a fan and helped her land some minor film roles. She was a favorite model for photographer Bruno Bernard ("Bernard of Hollywood"). Maybe someone can post some photos of "Darling Lili" so we can appreciate her beauty.
*****

Now watching a pretty good L.A. noir on Turner Classics, "Tension" from 1949. Stars Richard Baseheart, Cyd Charise, Barry Sullivan, and a young William Conrad among others.

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by odinthor

Smilax is a plant, or rather a whole genus of plants which have a history of being used by florists for greenery. The vine is on the left in this fruit label:


eBay https://www.ebay.com/itm/363554672033

A genus of plants. Didn't know that. Thanks Odinthor. Is it in the grape family, which are also vines?

[odinthor]

Back not so long ago, it was in the Lily Family, the Liliaceæ, which was quite a diverse family. But DNA studies in this group and all groups have shattered and recombined elements of the traditional botanical taxonomic understanding such that, in this case, genus Smilax is now the star of family Smilacaceæ, which only has two or maybe three genera: Smilax, Heterosmilax, and maybe Nemexica if the latter is not considered as part of Smilax. Meantime, grapes are in another genus Vitis in another family Vitaceæ which, classification-wise, is rather distant from the Smilacaceæ and the Liliaceæ.

Sasparilla, alias Sarsaparilla, the drink, is made from a species or two or three of Smilax!

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by odinthor

Interesting. Root Beer too. Smilax, a useful genus indeed.

DNA sequencing has revolutionized taxonomy, of both plants and animals. Among the invetebrates, mammals and other vertebrates are most closely related to Echinoderms (starfish, sea urchins etc.). DNA sequencing has confirmed older embryologic evidence of this that has been known since the1920s. Apparently vertebrates/chordates and echinoderms shared a common ancestor in the late Pre-Cambrian when multicellular animals started to appear in the sea. Vertebrate and Arthropod ancestors split much earlier, at a simpler stage at the base of multicellular stage. Land plants first appeared in the Silurian Period, just over 400 million years ago. Apparently evolved from multicellular green algae in the shallow water near the shorelone. The first trees appeared in the Devonian, giant ferns, club moss and the like when the structural carbohydrate lignin (which wood is made of) appeared in plants, . Became even larger in the next Period, the Carboniferous. Highest oxygen levels ever. Allowed arthropods without lungs to grow to enormous size. Dragonflies with 2 foot wingspans, foot long cockroaches, spiders the size of house cats etc. Arachniphobes like me would have hated the Carboniferous. Cheers.

[ethereal_reality]

.

This astonishing cabinet card just showed up on eBay and blew my mind.


Initially I thought it was showing a St. Nicholas Rail Station in 1880s Los Angeles. (the sign says offering meals for 25 cent so perhaps it's a railside restaurant)

Seller's description:...Cabinet Photo~Los Angeles Terminal Ry Train, St. Nicholas Sign, Meals 25¢~Calif.



eBay


I could point out everything that I find so fascinating about it but I think I'll just let you all savor it.


.

[ethereal_reality]

.

I kept quiet long enough. (2 minutes)

What do you think the sign above (and behind) the passenger car says?


detail


.

[Noir_Noir]

I think it says "SANTA'S" as it's Saint Nicholas Station.


Must have been a festive promotional event with a special meal at 25¢ to tie in with Christmas Day.

[John Maddox Roberts]

Originally Posted by Noir_Noir

I think it says "SANTA'S" as it's Saint Nicholas Station.


Must have been a festive promotional event with a special meal at 25¢ to tie in with Christmas Day.

There used to be a Santa's Kitchen restaurant on 101 just south of Santa Barbara. I doubt it dated from this far back. Good food, though. Specialty was strawberry pie.

[JDRCRASH]

Don't know if any of you guys have had a chance to read this, it’s an interesting recent NYT article about the LA river that has some old photos of it: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...290eda09ba4d13

By the way, inside the comments section is a link to another lengthy nugget worth reading…:

An old Olmsted family plan for the LA River (and beyond):

http://libraryarchives.metro.net/DPG...les_region.pdf

[robeach11]

From what I've been able to deduce:
The willow tree was chopped down. The trunk may have been there for a while.
A gift shop now covers the area where the tree once stood.
Sad.

Originally Posted by bighen

Beaudry post: Anna May Wong

Thank you for the excellent post. Just curious if you know whatever happened to those trees that she planted in Chinatown Plaza 1938? It seems like they were taken down or perhaps replanted elsewhere. Sorry I don't have any pics to post so I hope you are familiar with them.

[Noir_Noir]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

.

This astonishing cabinet card just showed up on eBay and blew my mind.


Initially I thought it was showing a St. Nicholas Rail Station in 1880s Los Angeles. (the sign says offering meals for 25 cent so perhaps it's a railside restaurant)

Seller's description:...Cabinet Photo~Los Angeles Terminal Ry Train, St. Nicholas Sign, Meals 25¢~Calif.



eBay

.

The signs in the picture are selling the St. Nicholas Hotel in Pasadena. The $1 a day pitch in a 1888 directory.



archive.org - California State Gazetteer and Business Directory 1888


I can't find a picture but here's the hotel to the left on a 1889 Sanborn map.



loc.gov


Two railway lines passed close by just west and east of the hotel.



loc.gov


I can't find any exact information on what would have been the closest LA Terminal Railway stop to the hotel - the likely location of the picture.

[ethereal_reality]

.

Exemplary sleuthing, Noir Noir.

Here's the owner. . James Laws

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re: Ascertaining the train stop.

My eyes have been drawn to the front of the train and to, what appears to be, some kind of culvert.




Could this be a clue? - near a wash?





It would be remiss of me if I didn't point out the right end of the photograph.

I love that we see a couple, obviously train passengers, boarding while the conductor(?) and another man look on.



This small interaction brings the cabinet card alive and at the moment. .........(is that a rose bush, odinthor?)




Unless I'm seeing things the writing on the railcar might say 'Edendale'. I see the 'Dale' but not the 'Eden'.

,

[odinthor]

Yes, e_r, that's definitely a rose! Hard to be more specific, though, as to what class or variety.

Here's just a little on the Los Angeles Terminal Railway.

First, according to both the Los Angeles Herald and the Los Angeles Times, its articles of incorporation were filed August 27, 1890.


two excerpts from History of the Chamber of Commerce of Los Angeles, by Charles Dwight Willard, 1899, p. 272


LA Times, 10/21/1973

[Martin Pal]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

.
Unless I'm seeing things the writing on the railcar might say 'Edendale'. I see the 'Dale' but not the 'Eden'.
,
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Before I saw what you wrote, when I first noticed it, I thought it said Glendale. Could be either?

[ethereal_reality]

.
Yep, it's Glendale alright. ..Good eye, MP.


Interesting information about the Los Angeles Terminal Railway, odinthor. ... Thanks for posting the articles.


hmm. .does anyone else see a figure behind the couple getting on the train? ...perhaps a lady in mourning . . or a bee keeper
.

[Albany NY]

My eyes have been drawn to the front of the train and to, what appears to be, some kind of culvert.




OK, I'm confused. The signage is obviously on the side of the hotel in the background. And we know there were railroad tracks very near the hotel. And yes, there appear to be passengers and railroad workers in the full photo. But why in the heck are there no rail tracks in the photo? Look at the front wheel. It is definitely not on any track. Or am I missing something?

[odinthor]

Hmmm. In Noir Noir's very useful maps (thanks N N!), the tracks are a couple of blocks away from the hotel.

I can't explain the absence of actual tracks in the photo; but I'm thinking that, along one of the RR's excursion lines (see the paragraphs in my earlier posting), perhaps the hotel put up a cheap frame structure actually adjacent to the tracks to cater to tourists' needs. The building(s) in the photo, from what we can see, seem pretty skimpy for 1890s Pasadena proper.

I infer from the LA Times piece that the local station in Pasadena for the Los Angeles Terminal Railway was at the site of Pasadena's current one ("rebuilt in 1935").