noirish Los Angeles

[ethereal_reality]

While attempting to find images of Second City Los Angeles

I happened upon this snapshot labeled "Al's Bar"
It was included with photographs of Los Angeles so I surmise this is L.A. as well. (deductive reasoning skills, second to none )


ANTI-CLUB PLACES / PINTEREST

From the looks of the vehicles I'd say this is the late 1970s or early 80s .

Does anyone recognize this building? I like how it's painted. I like the airplane too.

_

[HossC]

From Wikipedia:

Al's Bar was a Los Angeles bar in the American Hotel that served as a gathering spot for that era's downtown art and music scenes. At the time of its closing [2001], it was primarily known as the West Coast's oldest punk club, but over the years it regularly hosted theater plays, art exhibitions, and "No Talent Nights".

The American Hotel still stands at 303 S Hewitt Street (sans airplane).


GSV

[ethereal_reality]

What happened to the nice paint job!?

I remember seeing this place in the early days of nla. If I remember correctly, we visited the building across Huitt street.
__________________





The person who posted the Al's Bar pic also posted this one.

"Club 88 one of L.A's first punk clubs"


ANTI-CLUB PLACES / LOS ANGELES

Do any former punk rockers visit nla? Maybe they can tell us about the place.

Are you a former punk rocker Hoss?
_

[ethereal_reality]

I just found another image with the hanging airplane.


ANGELFIRE

I wonder what the plane signified?

_

[HossC]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

What happened to the nice paint job!?

I remember seeing this place in the early days of nla. If I remember correctly, we visited the building across Hewitt Street.

There was this previous post on Al's Bar :

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

Al's Bar
lapl


305 South Hewitt today

GSV

Earlier, tovangar2 included the American Hotel/Al's Bar in a round-up of buildings in the area in post 13985. Various other posts have covered interesting buildings in the Hewitt Street/Traction Avenue area.

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

Are you a former punk rocker Hoss?

No, the original punks were just a few years too early for me, but I remember seeing them around from the late 70s onward.

[ethereal_reality]

I was scared of them. (the punks)


They seemed batshit-crazy in the 1980s.

..but I'm sure they were very nice people beneath the mohawks and safety pinned skin.

[ethereal_reality]

I was surprised to find the hanging airplane in the Los Angeles Library archives.

Da plane, da plane!


Gary Leonard LAPL

"Artist's project at Al's Bar, Tracton & Hewitt, downtown Los Angeles."

8-16-86. (Artist's name is illegible)

1986? that other pic said 1982.





Gary Leonard LAPL

I believe that's a real airplane.

_

[ethereal_reality]

Now let's venture back in time.



EBAY

"Original Circa 1902 Tin Type Photo Shoot the Chute Los Angeles Chutes Park ?"

This has to be pretty rare, right?



The date.






a closer look at the two gentlemen if you will.



Do you think the slide is a backdrop or are the two men actually outside in front of the chutes lagoon?

I believe it's a backdrop. THEN WHY DID I ASK THE QUESTION

[odinthor]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

I just found another image with the hanging airplane.


ANGELFIRE

I wonder what the plane signified?

_

"Marc Kreisel's handwritten notes and timelines concerning the origins of The American Hotel and Al's Bar Project. According to Marc, "The whole idea of Al's Bar, no matter what the Punks say, and as it turns out The American Hotel as well, was to support an art gallery." This folder includes writing by Rachel Kreisel concerning The American Hotel, Al's Bar, and the American Gallery. Rachel describes Barbara T. Smith's 1980 "Public Spirit" performance, Piercing the Corporate Veil at The American Hotel, the American Gallery's "biggest show" in which Dustin Shuler pinned a 700 pound aircraft to the side of The American Hotel with a twenty foot nail, and raucous parties at the hotel and the bar." http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark...c/entire_text/

e_r, as for the significance of it . . . Ummmm . . . ummm . . . because the artist liked doing things like that? [odinthor fails Art class exam]:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dustin_Shuler

[ethereal_reality]

Thanks for the information odinthor.

Dustin Shuler has additional photographs of his art project HERE

HERE'S AN EXAMPLE

DUSTIN SHULER

He named the project “Pinning the Butterfly". (note the pin)

[ethereal_reality]

Whoa Nellie

"1915 PANAMA CALIFORNIA EXPO SAN DIEGO LOS ANGELES FERRY BOAT NELLIE OLD PHOTO"


EBAY

It only makes sense there were special ferries running between Los Angeles and San Diego during the 1915 Panama-Pacific Expostion

but as you can see 'Nellie' is pretty small. I imagine there were numerous ferries running the L.A. to S.D. route.




This photograph is being sold separately.

"PIER SAILBOATS VINTAGE PHOTO 1915 PANAMA CALIFORNIA EXPO SAN DIEGO LOS ANGELES"


EBAY

This must be the pier where 'Nellie' docked in San Diego. (pic is by the same tourist)

_

[Scott Charles]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

Do any former punk rockers visit nla? Maybe they can tell us about the place.

Are you a former punk rocker Hoss?
_

I was not a punk (I was more of a Bowie/Lou Reed/Roxy Music/Iggy Pop fan), but my hair has been every color in the book - blond, brown, black, multicolored, white, yellow, orange, red, pink, green, etc. The only color I never had was blue.

I've never been to Club 88, but I went to Al's Bar a number of times (maybe 12-15 times in total?). I never saw the hanging airplane, which was apparently before my time - early to mid 80s, while I never went to Al's until maybe '91 or '92.

I didn't go often enough to become a "regular", so I didn't know any of the bartenders by name, or anything like that. The last time I was there, which must have been in 2001, I was on a date with a nice Jewish girl and my buddy was with his Italian girlfriend (later his wife, now his ex-wife). They had tricycles in the bar, the girls had a good time riding the tricycles around. Prior to Al's Bar, we had all gone for sushi here on Central and Second, although I believe it was a different restaurant at the time.

Speaking of some roughly similar downtown joints, anybody else here used to go to...

Gorky's, on the corner of San Julian and 8th? The place is long gone, but the sign is still there:

you-are-here

GSV

... or how about the Atomic Cafe, on the southwest corner of First and Alameda?

avanishingworld

GSV

[ScottyB]

Originally Posted by Scott Charles

Speaking of some roughly similar downtown joints, anybody else here used to go to...

Gorky's, on the corner of San Julian and 8th? The place is long gone, but the sign is still there:

you-are-here

GSV

Gorky's yes! Late nights for beer. Amazing the sign is still up.

[Otis Criblecoblis]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

"Club 88 one of L.A's first punk clubs"


ANTI-CLUB PLACES / LOS ANGELES

Do any former punk rockers visit nla? Maybe they can tell us about the place.

_

Our band actually played Club 88, but this was some time after the punk and new-wave phases of the club. We were an R&B band, complete with a horn section. I remember that the place smelled like there were several litter boxes in there that desperately needed cleaning.

I also remember getting onto the stage to set up and seeing up above the proscenium the sign "NO COVERS." This meant "don't play any songs that you don't own performance rights for."

Well, this was a fine kettle of fish. We played a mix of covers and originals, but we certainly didn't have enough originals to fill a set! So we just went ahead anyway, hoping they wouldn't be familiar with our covers.

Fortunately, they weren't, and the show came off just fine.

[HossC]

Originally Posted by Scott Charles

Speaking of some roughly similar downtown joints, anybody else here used to go to...

Gorky's, on the corner of San Julian and 8th? The place is long gone, but the sign is still there:

you-are-here

I posted this interior shot of Gorky's a couple of years ago. The full post has a Julius Shulman photo showing how the Stiles Oliver Clements designed Ross Building looked in 1948.

Originally Posted by HossC

Here's an undated photo of Gorky's I found at LA Magazine.


www.lamag.com

[Handsome Stranger]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

I was scared of them. (the punks)

They seemed batshit-crazy in the 1980s.

..but I'm sure they were very nice people beneath the mohawks and safety pinned skin.

The first punks in Los Angeles, in the late seventies and very early eighties, were an interesting crowd. And yes, they were nice people in general. If you got knocked down slam dancing, they were quick to help you up again.

Unfortunately the news media latched onto a depiction of punks as violent, angry, and virulently antisocial. Of course what happened next is that a lot of violent, angry and virulently antisocial young people (mostly male) thought that's what being punk was all about and they invaded in droves. It was kind of a shocking lesson in the power of indolent distortion in news reporting to change the world.

The other thing I remember about the early punks is that the girls had a distinct dress code - lots of lace, lots of crucifixes. When Madonna first started getting famous, she "borrowed" heavily from that look (without ever acknowledging where she got the idea). The punk girls were mortified and changed their look overnight.

I really don't recall seeing a lot of safety pins among the LA punks. That may have been more a British punk thing.

[Handsome Stranger]

Probably of interest to no one but myself...but what the heck. I just discovered today that there's some major changes going on at the southeast corner of the Sunset Las Palmas Studios lot (formerly Hollywood Studios, Inc., Jasper Hollywood Studios, Metropolitan Sound Studio, General Service Studios Hollywood, Hollywood General Studios, Zoetrope Studio, Hollywood Center Studios).







Probably a good thing, as it looks like the former buildings were not exactly earthquake-safe. I wonder if those adjacent stages are plastic-wrapped to protect from dust, or are they MFD?

(I love this lot mostly because Green Acres and The Addams Family were filmed here.)

[BDiH]

Originally Posted by HossC

I posted this interior shot of Gorky's a couple of years ago. The full post has a Julius Shulman photo showing how the Stiles Oliver Clements designed Ross Building looked in 1948.

Lots of great 1980s memories of Al's Bar, Atomic Cafe and Gorky's. We used to go to the second Gorky's, which was opened in the old Tick Tock restaurant on Cahuenga. Now, it's a Sharkey's.

[BDJ100]

Originally Posted by Handsome Stranger

Probably of interest to no one but myself...but what the heck. I just discovered today that there's some major changes going on at the southeast corner of the Sunset Las Palmas Studios lot (formerly Hollywood Studios, Inc., Jasper Hollywood Studios, Metropolitan Sound Studio, General Service Studios Hollywood, Hollywood General Studios, Zoetrope Studio, Hollywood Center Studios).




(I love this lot mostly because Green Acres and The Addams Family were filmed here.)

The Addams Family was filmed on the stage that is wrapped in plastic. That stage housed the main Addams Family House set. The interior/exterior set filled the entire stage. It was enormous. Our production offices were in the buildings that are torn down. Lot of fond memories working that lot.

[ethereal_reality]

Originally Posted by Otis Criblecoblis

Our band actually played Club 88, but this was some time after the punk and new-wave phases of the club.
We were an R&B band, complete with a horn section. I remember that the place smelled like there were several litter boxes
in there that desperately needed cleaning.

I also remember getting onto the stage to set up and seeing up above the proscenium the sign "NO COVERS."
This meant "don't play any songs that you don't own performance rights for."

Well, this was a fine kettle of fish. We played a mix of covers and originals, but we certainly didn't have enough originals to fill a set!
So we just went ahead anyway, hoping they wouldn't be familiar with our covers.

Fortunately, they weren't, and the show came off just fine.

That's a great story Otis. What was the name of your band? -if you don't mind me asking)




Could this be your band?

SWS/flickr

were you ever that skinny?
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