Quote:
Originally Posted by ethereal_reality
I briefly lived on Cochran as well sopas_ej!
My apartment was just north of Wilshire on the west side of Cochran behind the 5455 Tower. 
google street view |
There is an interesting series of photos depicting Bob's Air Mail Service Station at 5453 Wilshire - next door to your former residence. The quad-engined ("4" propellers/12 blades) and twin-boomed aircraft "The Happy Landing" memorably forms the center piece of a Mobil gas station. (Notice the Neon at the leading edge of the wings: "It's Faster - It's Better") (Some of the photos may be attributable to LIFE, others seem to be part of Pomona Pub Library's collection. All of the photos are circa '36. One or two have been posted here before, but am presently unable to locate them using the search function.) At least one of the photos depicts a painted advertisement for "Wilshire Cochran Apartments." The second photo is also noteworthy because under its nose is "A&P Parking" which was the subject of other posts on this forum.
I have wondered how the aircraft came to be placed there. Was it flown to one of the nearby airstrips (at Wilshire and Fairfax) and taxied to the Cochran site, or was it moved a la the "Spruce Goose" and "Big Rock," and later assembled. I also wonder how long it lasted. Until the Lee Tower construction?
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Long gone former residents of that neighborhood in the '40s(?) (who remembered the Ritz Theater and also described another "art" theater ("
Fox La Brea" 857 South LaBrea http://sites.google.com/site/wilshir...es/fox-la-brea ) have also mentioned that there was another gas station on the SW corner of Cochran and Third Street (
Chevron?). Evidently, it was replaced by a mini-mall in the 80's. The A&P was replaced by "
Roman Foods." But is it possible that the A&P moved west to larger quarters? Could it have moved to the location eventually occupied by an appliance store called "
Adray's"? Or, was it Adray's that occupied
Van DeKamps, or was that
DuPars?
Then there is another topic peripherally mentioned in this forum (
what topic hasn't been touched upon?), the
Three Stooges. I mention this because they shot some sequences of a '36 short entitled "
False Alarms" at
Station 61. Locations on Larchmont have been documented elsewhere on this forum.
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show....php?p=5080555 (Thanks gsjansen!) Likewise, Moe and Curly had homes on Highland; although, it is strongly believed that Moe also had another nearby residence on
Vista or
Martel between Beverly and Third Street -
possibly when he shot False Alarms.
http://imgzoom.cdlib.org/Fullscreen....nd=calisphere#
http://pleasantfamilyshopping.blogsp...acific-in.html
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=Three...,r:13,s:0,i:96
http://www.lafire.com/stations/FS061/FS061.htm
http://www.lafire.com/stations/FS061..._1929-1984.htm