noirish Los Angeles

[GaylordWilshire]

Los Angeles Times, Aug 18, 1933

Originally Posted by DouglasUrantia

The famous MGM brothel "T&M" was located in the Piazza Del Sol, 8439 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood and survives to this day as the Hacienda Arms. Yes, it was "up a flight of stairs" but on Sunset rather than Santa Monica. We can see the stairs in the pix below. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacienda_Arms_Apartments

Seems the building was called the Coronet between its times as the Hacienda and the Piazza Del Sol...

[FredH]

I had never heard of this original flag salute (a few years ahead of my time).


Los Angeles Times

April 12, 1942: Actress Irene Rich leads 4,000 citizens in salute to the flag during program at the Hollywood Bowl. The 4,000 – including several
Hollywood celebrities – were sworn in as air-raid wardens, fire watchers, messengers and auxiliary policemen. The flag salute, as shown in this image,
was replaced by the hand-over-heart method. Credit: Los Angeles Times

On Dec. 22, 1942, Congress amended the flag code to replace the salute with the hand-over-heart method. The previous salute started with the
hand outstretched toward the flag, palm down, and ended with palm up, but it was too similar to salutes used by U.S. enemies during World War II.


Los Angeles Times

March 29, 1943: Vierling Kersey, superintendent of schools, left, and Roy J. Becker, Board of Education president, demonstrate old and new methods
of saluting Old Glory. The new hand-over-heart method goes in effect in schools on Army Day.

This photo accompanied a March 30, 1943, L.A. Times article, which explained:

Members of the Board of Education yesterday adopted a resolution ordering a change in the method of saluting the American Flag, whereby the right
hand will be placed over the heart throughout the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.

Last year Congress adopted this method of salute and urged that it be made uniform throughout the nation.

The old method of extending the hand toward the flag was criticized by several national patriotic groups as being too much like the Nazi and Fascist salutes.


Wikipedia

[tovangar2]

Originally Posted by DouglasUrantia

The famous MGM brothel "T&M" was located in the Piazza Del Sol, 8439 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood and survives to this day as the Hacienda Arms. Yes, it was "up a flight of stairs" but on Sunset rather than Santa Monica.

Thanks so much DU. I knew about Lee Francis' place, but had never heard of T&M. I didn't realize they were one and the same. Leaves one wondering what "T&M" stood for...

Originally Posted by FredH

I had never heard of this original flag salute (a few years ahead of my time).

Ack, I never could stand "the Pledge" and refused to do it. When "under God" was added in '54, they really lost me. Don't like loyalty oaths. I think they're creepy.

Originally Posted by kznyc2k

Some Christmas-themed stuff courtesy of Vintage Los Angeles on Facebook.

Hollywood and Cherokee in 1948:

Great photo of the Kress building and signage, now (sort of) restored, after having spent all those years looking pathetic, painted purple as Fredericks of Hollywood

[Silverlaker]

Originally Posted by ProphetM

Silverlaker - close, it's just north of San Onofre. See my earlier post on page 528.[/URL]

Aha - I knew I recognized it from the area (grew up in south OC so have driven that stretch many times). Thanks ProphetM, you must have posted while I was still on Google Maps trying to pinpoint the hill through the clouds. Now I wish we had a pic of the vintage train that the photo was taken from and which used to run the old coast line. Any train buffs out there to help here?

[tovangar2]

Two more nifty aerials showing Hollywood's explosive growth:

1922, Hollywood against the hills on the right with the Sherman rail yards on the left:

chsc/usc

1931, almost completely filled in and urbanized with new roads crisscrossing the hills (Sherman rail yards appear just below center in this view). The farmland between Hollywood & West Hollywood is gone. Santa Monica Blvd veers east at La Cienega at the foot of the Beakins (now Emser) building:

chsc/usc

[GaylordWilshire]

Originally Posted by FredH

I had never heard of this original flag salute (a few years ahead of my time).


Los Angeles Times

More on the "Bellamy Salute" here: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=1665

[FredH]

Wow! Thanks Gaylord Wilshire, I did not remember that post at all. But, I'm not surprised, at this point I have trouble remembering what I had for breakfast.

By the way, Irene Rich was a fairly attractive actress in her younger days...


www.estay.com

...and had this rather noirish incident in her background.

per Wikipedia:

She (Irene Rich) became involved in a deadly love triangle in 1949 when Agnes Elizabeth Garnier shot and killed wealthy businessman John Edwin Owen (1881-1949). Owen, formerly a businessman and politician from Michigan, was president of the National Apartment House Owner's Association, among other business interests, including cattle and horse ranching in Gunnison, Colorado and Riverside, California. The Riverside County Sheriff's Department investigator said that Garnier killed Owen (who was married, but estranged and separated from his wife) and blamed Rich for coming between them. Garnier, Owne's personal secretary, told the district attorney that the gun went off accidentally and she took the gun from an intoxicated Owen as he was going to bed. Rich said that she was not in love with Owen and that they were just friends. Garnier, plead innocent, the prosecutor decided not to try for first degree murder, and she was found guilty of manslaughter, and received a sentence of "one-to-ten" years.

[tovangar2]

Originally Posted by FredH

And tovanger2: My opinion on loyalty oaths is here:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...th#post5485405

LOL. Brilliant FredH :-)

The Supremes do occasionally (and eventually) get it right:

"In 1943 the Supreme Court reversed its previous decision,
ruling in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette
that public school students are not required to say the Pledge,
concluding that "compulsory unification of opinion" violates the
First Amendment.
In a later opinion, the Court held that students are also not
required to stand for the Pledge."
- quoted from Wikipedia

Although trying to explain the law to my children's recalcitrant teachers fifty years later was nothing less than exhausting.

(Sorry, seriously off topic again)

[tovangar2]

Back on topic and I hope no one has told this story before (the "Search" feature defeats me sometimes).

When I came home to LA after 15 years away in Chicago and London, the Hollywood sign was in total disrepair:

wiki

I attended a fundraiser at the Yamashiro Restaurant (Bernheimer mansion) re the sign's restoration in 1975 or thereabouts. The featured speaker was an elderly gentleman named Mr. Roach. He told us he had been a commercial artist in the teens and 20's and had been contracted by the Hollywoodland developers to do a newspaper ad for the project.

He drew a representation of the Beachwood Canyon setting, including the ridge line of the Hollywood Hills, with lots of actually-not-yet-built houses nestled in its curves. Near the top of the ad he spelt out "Hollywoodland" in large white letters to contrast with the hillside. Other info was clustered at the bottom of the ad in much smaller type.

You can tell what's coming, right?

Roach took the ad to his client for approval and was completely gob-smacked when the guy (can't remember if it was Woodruff or Shoults) leapt from his chair and excitedly exclaimed, "How long will it take to build it?"

Roach is the one who found and worked with the Crescent Sign Company to turn his 2-D graphic into three dimensions, although Tom Goff, Crescent's owner, got credit for the design.

Dunno if Mr. Roach's story is true, but that's how he told it. It was a good enough story for me to chip in twenty bucks.


Yamashiro's courtyard

Yamashirorestaurant


photographersgallery.com/photographer unknown 1923


hollywoodphotogaphs.com 1923

[mdiederi]

Trying to locate a photo of the original Googie's Coffee Shop that Lautner designed and where the googie architecture style gets it's name.

I read that it was in West Hollywood and built in 1949, but the only photo I can find has a caption that says "downtown," and a date of 1955, so I don't think this is the original location.


http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/pale...the-space-age/

Couldn't find anything using the thread search.

Looks like there's no apostrophe in the logo "Googies."

[GaylordWilshire]

Getty Images

Next to Schwab's... Your picture is of a Googies that was at 501 West 5th St.

[DouglasUrantia]

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

Next to Schwab's... Your picture is of a Googies that was at 501 West 5th St.

Hello Mr. Wilshire:

Is "googie" architecture 'noirish' and does it really belong in this thread? Just wondering. BTW, I do like googie buildings and have nothing against them.
Cheers, Douglas

[GaylordWilshire]

Well, I would say that Googies definitely has a place here. In matters of what's appropriately noirish I will always defer to Our Esteemed Founder ethereal_reality--I believe that at some point over the years there was a discussion of appropriateness here and that ER himself agreed that for purposes of the thread, noirish L.A. is more than just cinematic stories of L.A. crime. (ER?) I've always liked the architectural angle myself...urban forensics and trivia...so bring on the Googies. Anyway, you know that more than a few noirish events took place in the various Googies....

PS Try my I-ON-A-CO belt

[malumot]

I agree the "Under God" addition in '54 was wholly unnecessary.

As to "loyalty oaths".......the original post was from an LA Times story from 1948.......

Easy to summarily deride, sitting as we do in the contented safety of 2012.

But the next time any of us lives through a world war (and I daresay NO ONE here fits that description), we'd all have a better leg to stand on.

Originally Posted by tovangar2

LOL. Brilliant FredH :-)

The Supremes do occasionally (and eventually) get it right:

"In 1943 the Supreme Court reversed its previous decision,
ruling in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette
that public school students are not required to say the Pledge,
concluding that "compulsory unification of opinion" violates the
First Amendment.
In a later opinion, the Court held that students are also not
required to stand for the Pledge."
- quoted from Wikipedia

Although trying to explain the law to my children's recalcitrant teachers fifty years later was nothing less than exhausting.

(Sorry, seriously off topic again)

[rcarlton]

Thomas Ince's home:
LAPL
An exterior view of the Beverly Hills home of producer/director/writer Thomas H. Ince. It was as known as "Dias Doradas" (Golden Days). Note the pond in the yard. 1923

LAPL
An interior view of the Beverly Hills home of producer/director/writer Thomas H. Ince. 1923

[DouglasUrantia]

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

Well, I would say that Googies definitely has a place here. In matters of what's appropriately noirish I will always defer to Our Esteemed Founder ethereal_reality--I believe that at some point over the years there was a discussion of appropriateness here and that ER himself agreed that for purposes of the thread, noirish L.A. is more than just cinematic stories of L.A. crime. (ER?) I've always liked the architectural angle myself...urban forensics and trivia...so bring on the Googies. Anyway, you know that more than a few noirish events took place in the various Googies....

PS Try my I-ON-A-CO belt

So googie is good for noir. OK. Fine with me....I'm just new here.

The I-ON-A-CO belt? Wow, they are really amazing. I wear one under my PJs. I didn't know you were the inventor. Anyway, when that vortex coil hits the right spot.....oh, oh. I'll spare our dear readers the details.

[GaylordWilshire]

Originally Posted by rcarlton

Thomas Ince's home:
LAPL

The fragment of sign in the red circle--is it part of a real estate sign in the hills? Anyone know?





The American Architect and The Architectural Review, June 18, 1924


Ince didn't get to live at Dias Doradas very long... it was still in the planning stages in mid-1922; he was gone by November 19, 1924. Carl Laemmle, founder of Universal Pictures, was the next owner.


Los Angeles Times, March 19, 1922

[ethereal_reality]

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

Well, I would say that Googies definitely has a place here. In matters of what's appropriately noirish I will always defer to Our Esteemed Founder ethereal_reality--I believe that at some point over the years there was a discussion of appropriateness here and that ER himself agreed that for purposes of the thread, noirish L.A. is more than just cinematic stories of L.A. crime. (ER?) I've always liked the architectural angle myself...urban forensics and trivia...so bring on the Googies. Anyway, you know that more than a few noirish events took place in the various Googies....

GW is absolutely correct!

I named the thread 'noirish Los Angeles' simply because many of the black and white photographs I initially posted had a noir feel to them.
Since then (Summer of 2009) the thread has evolved, seemingly taking on a life of it's own.
__

[fhammon]

Originally Posted by FredH

O'Keefe visits a couple of herbal medicine shops in Old Chinatown:


T-Men (1947), Eagle-Lion Films

This place looks like it is next to the Plaza:


T-Men (1947), Eagle-Lion Films

That is in fact the old Plaza Firehouse being used as a curio shop back when there was a door at the corner.

http://waterandpower.org/museum/Early_Plaza_of_LA.html

Thanks for posting those photos from T-Men. I had meant to do that a long time ago. Your screencaps turned out much better than mine would have.

BTW. Just as O'Keefe leaves the shop you can just for a brief instant see in a mirror or window a reflection of the signs on the Chinese shop across the street just south of Ferguson Alley bordering the Calle de los Negros.

[ethereal_reality]

Los Angeles, in that infamous year 1947.


ebay

Can anyone tell me where this photograph was taken? (I just noticed the slight 'jog' in the street)



below: I am especially interested in this building (circled in red).


detail


It resembles the market in my recent post (see below)...so perhaps it's a market as well (just a guess).

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

Market fire at 9th and Los Angeles Street. (notice the Lunch Room sign)


ebay

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