[alanlutz]

General Post to the members of Noirish Los Angeles. I have been "lurking" here for the last month or so. Not sure how I stumbled on your page but it had something to do with my 17th annual field trip leading 6th graders on a walking tour of downtown Los Angeles. One of my friends on Facebook said his dad used to work at the Hall of Records in L.A. so I did a little research on the old Hall of Records and the New Hall of Records. Probably how I ended up here. My point is, I have been HOOKED ever since on your pages. I started out on page 1 on Feb 24 and now it is April 10 and I am only on page 140. I spend an hour each night poring over your pages and reading the comments, familiarizing myself with the locations of the old buildings and so on. I love the "then and now" photos. I have lived in the L.A. area since 1963 as a 7th grader and recall very few trips downtown during those early years. I remember seeing the Occidental Building as a high rise south of downtown and actually sang on stage at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in 1969. I remember looking down the Civic Center Mall from the Music Center and see the Old Hall Of Records building (vaguely) and some man was telling me it was going to be removed soon to make the mall clear.
OK, so after seeing all these pictures of the Historic Core and the old Plaza area, I decided it was finally time to take myself on a sight seeing tour of some of these old neighborhoods and see how it looks today. I did that yesterday and have a ton of pictures to share with you guys IF you're interested. Mind you, the last 17 years of taking kids on tours, I mainly stayed in the Civic Center and Music Center and New Bunker Hill area, ending up at Westin Bonaventure Hotel, the Central Library, then a subway trip on the Red Line back to Union Station and the Metrolink back to Orange. I wanted to break free of that I go where I wanted so I did.
Anyway, Thanks again for ALL the OLD file photos you guys have dug up and posted. I am very grateful and hope to contribute lots more in the months ahead.