Quote:
Originally Posted by Scott Charles
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I'm glad you mentioned th Atomic Cafe
Scott Charles. I know that we've touch on it in the past but there are a few things I didn't realize.
The small photograph in your post isn't the same building as the one shown in the GSV.
Here it is larger to see the detail of the building.
from
RAFU
This is the Atomic Cafe at it's original location. -
"soon to be displaced by the LAPD Parker Center." kcet
(the original address is missing in the kcet article) -I'll get to that later.
"The Matobas opened the Atomic Cafe in Little Tokyo in 1946, with memories of the bomb and nuclear fears fresh in people's minds."
Hoo Boy, I was waaay off the mark on this one. I thought the name 'Atomic Cafe' was from the punk era in the 1980s.
THAT SAID...
I don't understand why someone with Japanese heritage would name their cafe after the atomic bomb
ONE YEAR after it was dropped on Japan.
(& remember..there was also the Nisei girls club named the '
Atomettes'. [
HERE]
Minoru and Ito Matoba in the kitchen at Atomic Cafe. [late 1940s?]
Yosuke Kitazawa at
KCET
cute couple.
no doubt taken shortly after WWII and the Bronzeville era.
Yosuke Kitazawa at
KCET
Last look at the interior of the original 'Atomic Cafe'.
Yosuke Kitazawa at
KCET
"The cafe moved to the old brick building at First and Alameda in 1961." (I believe this is the famous juke-box that survived
into the 1980s' punk era)
"First and Alameda" is the building in Scott Charles' GSV view. (shown below in the 1980s)
Yosuke Kitazawa at
KCET
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also...
Scott Charles' GSV surprised the hell out of me because I thought the building was demolished (because of the photograph shown below)
(there is no explanation with this pic) it just came up when I googled 'Atomic Cafe'
Gabby O'Niell/anti-club places
Did someone stop the demolition at the last moment? Did they decide to move it
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re: The original address:
Unless I overlooked it, I didn't see the street address of the original Atomic Cafe in the kcet article.
The address I found (in two different city directories) is 177 S. San Pedro St.
LAPL
but that places the cafe a block south of the Parker Center (remember, the article said the cafe was displaced by the Parker Center)
GOOGLE EARTH
Did I mess up the location somehow?
Special thanks to
Yosuke Kitazawa
DISCOVER NISEI
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