noirish Los Angeles

[Noir_Noir]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

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A mystery location for Tuesday afternoon.


Here are a couple of fun snapshots that show a small group of well dressed ladies in from of a drinking establishment. (afternoon drinking club? )



eBay. .note that it says "shuffleboard" on the window.


I found a Casey's Club but the street number isn't even close to the number on the building. (746)

sandiego.gov

[ethereal_reality]

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Harrumph, the seller said it was Los Angeles.


Since there are what seems like a 1,000 branches of B of A I doubt we'll be able to narrow the location down but the fancy car and the tweedy woman intrigued me enough to post the slide.



eBay

The car and the woman look like they should be somewhere in Scotland, not Southern California.

I'll wager a guess that the fancy car is. .um. . a Triumph. (am I close?)
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[Martin Pal]

Is that someone on the roof of the bank!

[ethereal_reality]

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It looks like Romeo Televox.

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[Earl Boebert]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

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Harrumph, the seller said it was Los Angeles.


Since there are what seems like a 1,000 branches of B of A I doubt we'll be able to narrow the location down but the fancy car and the tweedy woman intrigued me enough to post the slide.



eBay

The car and the woman look like they should be somewhere in Scotland, not Southern California.

I'll wager a guess that the fancy car is. .um. . a Triumph. (am I close?)
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MG TD. Woman may be a member of the group of anglophile sports car fans that were prevalent in CA when I was active there. We called them "Teabaggers" because at the time no true Brit would use one. One of them raced his Austin-Healey while wearing a Harris Tweed jacket. When the SF Region of the SCCA imposed a rule mandating fireproof clothing he had his jacket fireproofed.

Cheers,

Earl

Edit: Made "anglophile" lower case to avoid misunderstanding. They weren't an organized group, just people who had similar tastes.

[ethereal_reality]

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That's very interesting, Earl. I've never heard of the Anglophile car club.


Today we have an undated mystery negative.


It shows a starlet (dancer?) posing on a roof with a huge metal flue in what looks like downtown Los Angeles. ..(the seller simply says Los Angeles)


eBay

I've often noticed that laundries have this type of infrastructure on their roofs to handle all the steam. Could our young lady be on the roof of a laundry?




Here's an enlargement with a better look at the background. (and a better look of the pretty young lady)



Unfortunately I don't see any signs but I do see a nicely peaked mountain & a rather large apartment(?) building in the middle distance. At first I thought it had a wrap-around porch and bay windows
but now I believe the windows belong to a completely different building that is closer to the viewer.

The only person I can think of that the young lady resembles is Rita Moreno. Does she look familiar to any of you noirishers?


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[Martin Pal]

80 years ago today

[vexedbystuff]

Could those be streetcars or buses in the distance? They're sort of in-line with the top of the stairs near the left side, and it looks to *me* that there are 3 (judging by the light colored trim near their roofs). Also, does that sign near her left wrist seems to say "Hotel" or "Motel".

[HenryHuntington]

Originally Posted by vexedbystuff

Could those be streetcars or buses in the distance? They're sort of in-line with the top of the stairs near the left side, and it looks to *me* that there are 3 (judging by the light colored trim near their roofs). Also, does that sign near her left wrist seems to say "Hotel" or "Motel".

_____________________

Busses, certainly, vexedbystuffed. I think you might've hit the jackpot with that observation!

The busses in question appear to be Twin Coach Model 40s, a type used by Los Angeles Motor Coach in the 1930s; and the livery seems to match. LAMC's garage was located at Santa Monica Blvd. and Virgil Ave., although I'm not sure that the busses we see here were parked at the garage itself. But I think we're in the right neighborhood, at least.

The peak shown in the distance has a match in Griffith Park (Mt. Hollywood?), so I think we're reasonably well-triangulated. The not-so-good news is that sleuthing in the Googlemobile didn't turn up much in the way of landmark structures. Many of the multistory apartment buildings there now are dingbats, with a few surviving Spanish Colonial Revival apartments still hanging on.

I couldn't find any major brickpiles in the few blocks SW of Santa Monica and Virgil, but maybe I didn't look far enough. It's been about 90 years or so since the photo was taken, and the street trees and other foliage don't help with the sight lines. Perhaps someone else can see something I've missed?

[ethereal_reality]

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You two definitely have better eyes than I do! I wasn't even sure what photograph you were talking about.

On closer inspection I believe I see what you're talking about.


Is this right?


detail

I appreciate the help, vexedbystuff and Henry Huntington.


oops. I cropped off the mountain peak that HH mentioned.


Here it is.



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[ethereal_reality]

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Here's another intriguing photograph that I happened upon on eBay...(yesterday)


It shows three people posed on an oversized sign advertising the Ye Bull Pen Inn at the Hope Street location. (it later moved into the Mayflower Hotel)


eBay

So where do you think thhis rather huge sign was located?...My guess is somewhere on the outskirts of Los Angeles. (that narrows it down )


Now, about the 'A Cafe' Unique', as you can it it clearly see the C and A go OVER the shadow of the gentleman's leg. .. Am I daft for not understanding how that's possible?
My only explanation would be that it's a watermark.




To jog some memories: Here is the Ye Bull-Pen Inn at 633 So. Hope St.


LAPL


Stay tuned. I have an old service station on Figueroa coming up next.
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[Godzilla]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

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Here's another intriguing photograph that I happened upon on eBay...(yesterday)


It shows three people posed on an oversized sign advertising the Ye Bull Pen Inn at the Hope Street location. (it later moved into the Mayflower Hotel)


eBay

So where do you think thhis rather huge sign was located?...My guess is somewhere on the outskirts of Los Angeles. (that narrows it down )


Now, about the 'A Cafe' Unique', as you can it it clearly see the C and A go OVER the shadow of the gentleman's leg. .. Am I daft for not understanding how that's possible?
My only explanation would be that it's a watermark.




To jog some memories: Here is the Ye Bull-Pen Inn at 633 So. Hope St.


LAPL


Stay tuned. I have an old service station on Figueroa coming up next.
.

https://jhgraham.com/2015/09/01/ye-bull-pen-inn/
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/55/8d/f1/5...833f875566.jpg
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/jp09...00062246.0.jpg

[HenryHuntington]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

.
You two definitely have better eyes than I do! I wasn't even sure what photograph you were talking about.

On closer inspection I believe I see what you're talking about.


Is this right?


detail

I appreciate the help, vexedbystuff and Henry Huntington.


oops. I cropped off the mountain peak that HH mentioned.


Here it is.



.

_______________________

You picked out the busses and the hotel sign just fine, e_r. Thanks!

Meanwhile, I've given up trying to make a Santa Monica & Virgil location work. If I'm right about the peak belonging to Mt. Hollywood, then our neighborhood has to be SW of there to place the peak just wide of and a bit higher than our model's right shoulder.

Also note the low hills a bit more distant, and how the streets with houses appear to conform to the curves of the slopes rather than running on compass points where the buildings are closer. Even though the print is kind of murky, there was enough sunlight to cause some diffuse highlights and especially to capture the photographer's shadow near the lower right corner of the frame. A hazy late afternoon in winter would place the sun to the SW behind him.

Taking a 45-degree angle to compass points from Mt. Hollywood places us in the neighborhood of Franklin Ave. & Vine St., which since has been obliterated by the Hollywood Fwy. But the low hill above Franklin is where we'd expect it, and the streets do wind around the hillside. And there are some apartment buildings along Argyle Ave. whose architecture is similar to the ones in the photo. The church steeple that lines up with Mt. Hollywood might belong to the Monastery of the Angels retreat house.

And the busses are there, but I can't make a good case for LAMC using that neighborhood as a layover point. Their nearest route in 1935 ran eastward along Hollywood Blvd. and then turned south on Vine St., but maybe staging equipment if needed up by Franklin was the best they could come up with. I dunno.