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Old Posted Nov 10, 2015, 7:05 PM
srk1941 srk1941 is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Los Angeles
Posts: 67
Yes, I'm the same SRK1941. What I can tell you is that this shopping center was part of the plan for Baldwin Hills Village (Clarence Stein, consulting architect; Reginald D. Johnson, lead architect; Lewis E. Wilson, Edwin Merrill, and Robert E. Alexander, associated architects; Fred Barlow, Jr., landscape architect). Planned to be an integral part of the community, which actually opened the first parcel of the nearly 70 acre superblock on December 7, 1941. So construction on the shopping center didn't take place until after the war, but designed by members of the Baldwin Hills Village design team. Baldwin Hills Village was meant to be basically a self-contained community, so the Thriftimart grocery store and Baldwin Hills shops (Robert E. Alexander, architect; Merrill Winans, landscape architect) and the Baldwin Hills Theatre (Lewis E. Wilson, architect; Merrill Winans, landscape architect http://rosettaapp.getty.edu:1801/del...s_pid=IE112397) were built first. The Hody's (Lewis E. Wilson and Wayne MacAllister, architects; Merrill Winans, landscape architect) came next. There was also a community church at La Brea and Coliseum (Robert E. Alexander, architect; Garrett Eckbo, landscape architect) and the Baldwin Hills Elementary School at Rodeo and Hauser (Robert E. Alexander, architect; Garrett Eckbo, landscape architect http://rosettaapp.getty.edu:1801/del...dps_pid=IE6608) completed the ensemble.

Here is a good image of the corner with the shopping center, taken during the 1963 Baldwin Hills flood. The triangular building is Hody's, and across the street on the right of the image is the Baldwin Hills shops. There is a Hody's take-home window annex on that side of the street too. Across La Brea and Rodeo you see the Thrifty's sign, which is still there (AC Martin and Associates, 1951).

https://www.flickr.com/photos/srk194...7594550635129/


Quote:
Originally Posted by HossC View Post
These are the Baldwin Village Shops, as photographed by Julius Shulman in 1952. It's his "Job 1281: Robert Evans Alexander, Baldwin Village Shops (Los Angeles, Calif.),1952". The first shot shows the back of the shops from the parking lot. The nearest one seems to be a fine foods store called The Penguin.



An open-ended courtyard between the stores.



The parking lot with the Baldwin Hills behind.



The second half of the photoset shows the stores at night.



The Liquor and Spice House was at the front.



Next door was a laundry/cleaners and a Thriftimart.



The reason for this detail shot will become clear below.



All from Getty Research Institute

A post on groceteria.com gave me an address of "3621 S La Brea at Rodeo" for the Thriftimart. The 1956 CD also lists a Van de Kamp's Holland Dutch Bakers at 3621 S La Brea. The laundry/cleaners is listed at 3625 S La Brea, and the Liquor & Spice House at 3629. The groceteria.com post has links to several pictures of the Thriftimart (including the last two images above) hosted by Flickr user srk1941. I'm assuming that's the same srk1941 (aka Steven Keylon) who posts on these pages, so, Steven, any extra info you have would be appreciated.

The detail image above shows a Mobiloil station at the right. Next to it is a neon-lit pylon. Even zoomed-in I couldn't read the sign, but when I worked out the location, I realized we'd seen it before. From my earlier post #25841, here's a daytime shot of Hody's.


eBay

To help visualize where all these stores and restaurants were, here's a 1952 aerial view. Thriftimart is just below the center, with the other Baldwin Village Shops below that. Hody's is the triangular building just north of Rodeo Road.


Historic Aerials

If this block seems familiar, we visited it recently for Julius Shulman's 1963 photoset of Gibraltar Savings.
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