Quote:
Originally Posted by Tourmaline
Rear screen projection for a moving advertisement?
The roof structure is certainly imposing, but it may still have been mostly a hollow shell, that could easily accommodate projection equipment. The "picture framing" seems to lend itself to a performance or moving advertisement that needed protection from the weather or unwanted interlopers. An attempt to gain attention by an owner keen to develop in a poor real estate market ????
On an unrelated subject, it has been claimed that the first hotel in San Fernando Valley was the Hotel Cecil, owned by Mrs. Cecil Wilcox. Curious if "Cecil" is short for "Cecilia" of if "Cecil" was Mr. Wilcox's first name. If it is the former, makes one wonder if another Hotel Cecil, with an infamous water tank, should have received a different feminine pronunciation. Could the two establishments be related? The later, on Main Street, was built in '27. For unknown reason, I always assumed the Main Street-Cecil was based on a last name.
1888
 http://waterandpower.org/1%20Histori...otel_Cecil.jpg
No apparent relation to the Wilcox Bldg. http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/si.../id/1981/rec/1 http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=3036 Interesting remains of the Wilcox: http://urbandiachrony.wordpress.com/...ets-1924-2013/ |
Cecil Wilcox was the husband and his wife's given name was Clara. They appear in the censuses. He owned a furniture/book store and was apparently the publisher of a San Fernando Valley newspaper "The Lankershim Laconic" While it is not mentioned in the censuses, a newspaper article in the early 1950's promoting a "pioneer picnic" in Toluca/Lankershim, lists her as a widow who was the owner of the hotel. The water and power website has a date on the picture of 1888 but this cannot be correct since Cecil was born in 1876. Clara (Hoegerman) and Cecil were married in 1897 in Los Angeles County. Cecil had died in 1933. Clara died in 1958. Ancestry.com has a picture of Clara and her sister Rose.