noirish Los Angeles

[Jeff Clark]

Regarding Lingle Brother's coffee it is true that their background was in better wholesale restaurant coffee. Subsequently Ted Lingle helped found the Specialty Coffee Association of America which made it possible for small coffee stores to get top quality Arabica coffee from around the world. He literally wrote the book on coffee brewing and coffee tasting. Here is an article about how SCAA was founded (in LA, not in Seattle or San Francisco). This is part of the history of LA Noir coffee. http://www.scaa.org/chronicle/2013/1...-first-decade/

[Beaudry]

Originally Posted by Flyingwedge

The home was old enough to appear in Thompson and West's History of Los Angeles County, California (1880):

Internet Archive -- https://archive.org/stream/historyof...ge/65/mode/1up

So perhaps in 1908 Dr. Young worked at or was a resident of the Hollenbeck Home?

Bingo! I knew I'd seen it somewhere before. Too bad that what I thought was a one-of-a-kind image purchased at the paper show is also at the Seaver Ctr. But thanks again!

[tovangar2]

As we're getting a new Federal Courthouse, I thought I'd put up pix of the three previous purpose-built ones. Each of the three also included space for the Post Office and other federal agencies, although lack of space caused the current one to completely strip those functions by 1965. (All pix courtesy of the Federal Judicial Center Moving backward in time:

The current Federal Courthouse (Gilbert Stanley Underwood) was finished in 1940 on the site of its predecessor:


LA's second Federal Courthouse (built 1910, demolished 1937) by James Knox Taylor was built on the site of the Downey Block (circa 1870s), which, in turn, had replaced John Temple's ca 1830s general store on the NW corner of Temple Square:


Our first separate, purpose-built Federal Courthouse was designed by Will A. Freret. It went up in 1892 and came down again in 1901. I have been unable to confirm the address JScott tells us it was at the southeast corner of Main and Winston:

[JScott]

Originally Posted by tovangar2

Our first separate, purpose-built Federal Courthouse was designed by Will A. Freret. It went up in 1892 and came down again in 1910. I have been unable to confirm the address:

I believe it was located at the southeast corner of Main and Winston.

I must say I am rather shocked to learn that the Underwood Federal Building is to come down. It is such an impressive and iconic structure, I can hardly imagine the Civic Center (or DTLA in general) without it. What are the reasons for razing it, and under whose specific authority was this decision made?

[tovangar2]

Thank you so much!

And here it is:

http://web.csulb.edu/~odinthor/socal2a.html

Or rather there it was. Parkinston and Bergstrom's 1909 Canadian Building is holding down that corner at present.

As to the 1940 Federal Courthouse, I think the decision to raze it must have been taken at the federal level. I recall it being declared "unsafe" and also too small. The Roybal Building is used as an annex.

There was talk, if I remember correctly, of moving the Superior (county) Court to the vacated Federal Courthouse and then demolishing Paul R Williams' Stanley Moske Courthouse (1960), the site of which would then be used to expand Grand Park, but that's apparently not happening.

The Federal Courthouse, on the National Register, is an icon of Modernism, the destruction of which will be on a par with that of the State of California Building, whose site remains an empty lot. I really enjoyed the one-time grouping of the federal, state, county and city buildings. Now, of the old buildings, only City Hall and the Hall of Justice will be left.

[HossC]

Originally Posted by tovangar2

Our first separate, purpose-built Federal Courthouse was designed by Will A. Freret. It went up in 1892 and came down again in 1910. I have been unable to confirm the address:

Originally Posted by JScott

I believe it was located at the southeast corner of Main and Winston.

Here's a drawing of the United States Courthouse and Post Office. The annotations at the bottom confirm the architect and location. The date is given as 1875, so was this drawing really made 17 years before the building was constructed? Is the 1875 date wrong, or was the courthouse built earlier than tovangar2's date of 1892?


USC Digital Library

[MichaelRyerson]

Originally Posted by Mark L

Hi All,
Been lurking and occasionally posting here fro a few years. What a great place.
I write music for a living and did a short piece to some stylized shots of Union Station I took a few years ago. iPhone camera with the Hipstomatic app.

http://youtu.be/yGUn0iB63_U?list=PLj...FjXXxm9vwBlUGg

Thanks to everyone posting here. Great stuff!

Mark

You should talk to Alvaro Legido.

[tovangar2]

Originally Posted by HossC

was this drawing really made 17 years before the building was constructed? Is the 1875 date wrong, or was the courthouse built earlier than tovangar2's date of 1892?

The penciled-in date is probably wrong. If I recall correctly, California wasn't divided into two federal court districts until ca 1888, so there would have been no reason for an LA building until after then. Plus Main and Winston was still seriously out in the boonies in 1875

I got the build date from Federal Judicial Center.

[Beaudry]

Originally Posted by HossC

Here's a drawing of the United States Courthouse and Post Office. The annotations at the bottom confirm the architect and location. The date is given as 1875, so was this drawing really made 17 years before the building was constructed? Is the 1875 date wrong, or was the courthouse built earlier than tovangar2's date of 1892?


USC Digital Library

Whoever penned "1875" on there was high, wrong, pulling our collective leg, or all three. Here's the drawing from an original source—the Architect & Building News of March, 1888:

[tovangar2]

Thx Beaudry. In addition, Will A. Freret headed the Office of the Supervising Architect from 1887 to 1888 (or 1890?), which oversaw the construction of federal buildings.

[HossC]

Thanks for the follow-ups on the courthouse, tovangar2 and Beaudry. I thought that 1875 seemed too early, but just wanted to check.

BTW. Did anyone else notice that the chimney to right of the flag changes orientation between the USC/Architect & Building News drawing and the Federal Judicial Center picture?

[oldstuff]

Originally Posted by Beaudry

Bingo! I knew I'd seen it somewhere before. Too bad that what I thought was a one-of-a-kind image purchased at the paper show is also at the Seaver Ctr. But thanks again!

According to the 1910 Census, William S. Young was a clergyman and he is listed as being the "superintendent of H. Home" He lived at 645 Boyle Avenue in 1910 with his wife, four sons and daughter Sarah, who was 13 at that time, making her 11 years old when she noted the picture. Elizabeth Hollenbeck lived next door

Sarah's father would have been the superintendent of the Hollenbeck Home for the Aged, founded by Elizabeth Hollenbeck in 1896. She died in September, 1918. The Home for the Aged was on land which was part of the property where her house stood. There are pictures of the original "Home" online. It was torn down in 1985 and a new facility, "Hollenbeck Palms" was built to Code.

[tovangar2]

Originally Posted by HossC

Thanks for the follow-ups on the courthouse, tovangar2 and Beaudry. I thought that 1875 seemed too early, but just wanted to check.

BTW. Did anyone else notice that the chimney to right of the flag changes orientation between the USC/Architect & Building News drawing and the Federal Judicial Center picture?

The Architect & Building News drawing pictures the 1888 design. The Federal Judicial Center representation is a photo, as built, in 1892.

[CityBoyDoug]

Originally Posted by tovangar2

The Architect & Building News drawing pictures the 1888 design. The Federal Judicial Center representation is a photo, as built, in 1892.

Here is a screen picture of the citation from the Federal webpage.


Federal Judiciary

http://www.fjc.gov/history/courthous...25718B00554113

[tovangar2]

Thx, I probably should have put that up instead of just using a link. It sure didn't last long. I think it may have actually been gone by early 1909, b/c the Canadian Building, on the site now, has a given build date of 1909, although I've also read it was built in 1912.

[Flyingwedge]

Originally Posted by Beaudry

Whoever penned "1875" on there was high, wrong, pulling our collective leg, or all three. Here's the drawing from an original source—the Architect & Building News of March, 1888:

Thanks, Beaudry, this is a great image!

The Post Office at Main and Winston opened in June 1892 and was felt to be too small. Los Angeles officials finally obtained an appropriation from Congress to build a larger structure on the same site. In March 1901 the Post Office closed. It was moved first to the Armory at 8th and Spring, then on June 17, 1904, the Post Office moved to a remodeled cable powerhouse at 7th and Grand.

The Post Office was supposed to be rebuilt on the same Main and Winston site; by December 1901 the roof was gone and the interior was being removed. But by the time the building was almost entirely demolished, officials came to the realization that the property owners surrounding the Post Office property would not sell their properties for the amount Congress had appropriated.

So Los Angeles had an embarrassing, unusable, mostly wrecked Post Office building at Main and Winston for several years. As T2 mentioned the Canadian Building was built there in 1909.

My earlier post on the Main and Winston Post Office, which lacks a bit of the detail above, is here: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=16109

[tovangar2]

Originally Posted by Flyingwedge

Thanks, Beaudry,
My earlier post on the Main and Winston Post Office, which lacks a bit of the detail above, is here: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=16109

Thank you Flyingwedge. I only searched "courthouse", not "post office", so I missed your wonderful post with its incredibly clear photos and really good information. I never thought about our first federal courthouse before or where it was. I'll never forget it now. What a neat story.

Originally Posted by Flyingwedge

This is looking SE at the United States Government Building at the SE corner of Main and Winston, between 4th and 5th. It housed Federal courtrooms upstairs and the Post Office downstairs. Some sources, including the caption to this photo, say it opened in June 1893, but other sources say 1890:

LAPL -- http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics18/00018592.jpg


1894 Sanborn @ LAPL showing intersection of Main (at the top) and Winston (angled)

Looking north up Main Street with the Post Office on the right:

LAPL -- http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics18/00018797.jpg

The Post Office abandoned that handsome building in March 1901, which by c. 1903 looked like this (across the street, behind the high fence):

USC Digital Library -- http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/si...id/2245/rec/14

What happened?

Here's a fairly short version:

James Miller Guinn, A History of California and an Extended History of Los Angeles and Environs, Volume 1, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1915
http://books.google.com/books?id=A2g...office&f=false

You can read the long version -- with photos -- here:
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lc...arRange&page=3
Jan 2 1905 LA Herald @ Library of Congress

P.S. Here's another telling of the story, also from A History of California:

[ethereal_reality]

Here's an amazing view I found earlier this evening on eBay.

It was taken from atop the Hotel Raymond in Pasadena.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/LOS-ANGELES-...item35e58be16d

So are we looking northeast here? Notice the white house with the cupola in the distance at upper left. (it resembles the Hollenbeck house that was just discussed)
I am also intrigued by the raised area with the drive. It looks like there should be a mansion atop that gentle slope.



-here is the complete stereoscope


reverse



If you need a refresher on how the Hotel Raymond looked go here:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=16222
__

[ethereal_reality]

The description of this stereoview is more vague.

"Los Angeles from the Hills, California"


http://www.ebay.com/itm/LOS-ANGELES-...item35e58be0b9

I believe I might have posted a smaller image of this view earlier on the thread, and if I remember correctly,
we never decided on it's exact location.




__

[ethereal_reality]

...now something a little more recent.

The seller labeled this slide "Ramona Freeway, 1957"


eBay

We're looking east on the 101 near N. Main Street.