From Gaylord Wilshire:
"Today, US and UK society has morphed into a very ragged, in-your-face rabble of people out of control."
With all due respect, CBD, I think this is a bit of an overstatement... the innate goodness of people? Since when? If L.A.'s noir era was all petunias and ice cream, what are we doing here on this thread? Nostalgia is a dangerous thing... the past was never what you think it is now, even if you were there, including manners. Old newspapers from the Spanish era forward are FULL of mayhem and a lack of civility. And I hope I'm never so unhappy with the present. It's all there is....
From E_R:
and to think this was once a vibrant streetscape. Architects from the 1970s and 80s should be reprimanded for building this type of foreboding shit
*I realize parking podiums are still being built. Hopefully with better transit solutions they will eventually become a thing of the past.
-wishful thinking I know. (especially in Los Angeles)
CBD said:
My friend Mr. Wilshire reminded me this is a noir thread. Sometimes I forget.
My only point was that I'm aware of the incivility of the past, as you correctly remind me. Today, in my opinion...its much worse overall. Forty years ago people in public seemed to be much more polite and good manned...today, not so much. If you fall on the sidewalk today, people merely step over you and walk on by. Today they ignore you. Of course there are exceptions but not many.
Hi Folks—
I may be a newbie to the thread, but I’ve been following it for a long time, and have seen this issue pop up several times before. Also, I worked on the western edge of downtown L.A. (Vermont and Pico) in the early 80’s, just as the crime rate was reaching its zenith, so I feel qualified to add my two cents worth.
I’d agree with CBD to the degree society was certainly more formal. If you look at the thread’s photos from the 1930’s through the 50’s, you see men wearing ties when they’re out and about, and women in dresses. I think those are indicators of a more structured (or uptight?) society, where public behavior was valued more highly than it is today. As for it being more civil, I’ll side with Gaylord Wilshire. A lot of it depends on where you look. From the Chinese Massacre in 1871, through the Zoot Suit Riots and the Rodney King melee, “civil” was never L.A.’s strong suit, especially if you weren’t part of “proper” society.
More to the point of this thread, and E_R’s observation about the hideous “skyscraper in a parking podium/plaza”, I think back to my second-favorite city, San Francisco. SFO toyed with the monolith in a plaza in the 70’s and 80’s, but quickly came to its senses. And our neighbors to the north have certainly done a better job preserving their downtown (the ill-fated Embarcadero Freeway notwithstanding). I think it was Gaylord, who, many pages ago, while lamenting the loss of the Bunker Hill Victorians, said it was inevitable they’d be pushed aside as the city’s demographics and economics changed. I agree with that. Of course, they, and other areas, didn’t have to be replaced with soulless bunkers like the Security Pacific Building. Maybe like San Francisco, L.A.’s planners should have thought more about adapting than demolishing. Most of SF’s downtown buildings no longer serve their original purpose, but they’re still being used by new businesses. And of course, SF has a real functioning public transportation system which keeps people near where they work, and the sidewalks a lot more lively. In the early 1990’s, I took a transportation/planning class at CSUF. The lecturer showed us a picture much like E_R’s Security Pacific building, except it included people walking on the sidewalk past the monolith. He asked a very simple, yet damning, question: “Where exactly are those people going? There is absolutely nothing at street level that would make you want to get out of your car.”
I think what saddens me most is to see an ornate old building stripped of the ornamentation that made it unique. Most of the time, this seems to take the form of turning the ground-level floor into a featureless series of rectangular-windowed stores, one after another. I think the difference is in the details and scale. The Bonaventure is an awesome site from the Harbor Freeway, but offers nothing when you’re next to it. It appeals to a distant audience. The old Atlantic Richfield building drew the individual in with detail that had to be seen up close. These buildings were constructed by people and companies who wanted to impress on the personal level, and wanted people to remember what they saw. The newer buildings look great from a helicopter as pieces of giant sculpture, but when you’re right up next to them, what’s there to touch, to run your fingers over and appreciate what a small team of craftsmen accomplished just so you could enjoy their work?
I looked at CBD’s picture and thought about the books and articles read about the Black Dahlia murder. Given today’s technology and professional investigative standards, the perpetrator probably would have been caught in a relatively short time. Id’ rather be living in a time when I don’t have to worry about my kid getting polio and living in an iron lung. When you get down to it, we’re left to make best of the here and now, and hopefully do a better job for the people who come after us.
Okay, rant over. I’m still trying to figure out how to post a decent picture!
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Noticed the children posed on the lawn. More relatives?
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