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  #7401  
Old Posted Apr 19, 2012, 4:45 AM
jg6544 jg6544 is offline
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I live in the same general neighborhood and have always wondered about those two buildings too. Most of the "old Brentwood" pictures focus on San Vicente Blvd. The few I've seen of the Brentwood Country Mart when it was new don't show those buildings on the Santa Monica side of 26th Street. I've often wondered if they weren't intended to be part of a larger complex.
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  #7402  
Old Posted Apr 19, 2012, 6:14 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jg6544 View Post
I live in the same general neighborhood and have always wondered about those two buildings too. Most of the "old Brentwood" pictures focus on San Vicente Blvd. The few I've seen of the Brentwood Country Mart when it was new don't show those buildings on the Santa Monica side of 26th Street. I've often wondered if they weren't intended to be part of a larger complex.
I know that the Brentwood Art Center used to house both a grocery store and a hair dresser. If you go in the building, you can see where the different businesses used to be, as the floor goes up and down according to what was once a separate business. Moreover, in one room, the wall is lined with electric outlets, as it was where the hairdresser used to be.
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  #7403  
Old Posted Apr 19, 2012, 7:46 AM
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Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire View Post
Well, I don't know why we've never run across this before, but forget "Bad Ems" (although I suppose the owner's origins could have been in that German town). I just found this:



It's a caption from Arcadia Publishing's Historic Hotels Of Los Angeles and Hollywood, in its Images of America series....
The builder was W A Stratton, the architect J C Newsom. While the authors of the Arcadia book mention that Griswold was the contractor for the Ems, from what I can glean, Griswold was only the plastering contractor, as reference to Griswold vis-a-vis the Ems exists only in relation to his plastering work on the also-1905 Astoria Apts (about kitty-corner across the intersection of Third and Olive).
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  #7404  
Old Posted Apr 19, 2012, 9:21 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ethereal_reality View Post



below: I've never noticed this building 'squeezed' between the Hall of Justice and the tunnel.


calisphere detail
Delighted to see more mention of the Alhambra(s)! Something from the personal binders --
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  #7405  
Old Posted Apr 19, 2012, 9:27 AM
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Originally Posted by rcarlton View Post

USC Digital Library

Photograph of an birdseye view of the Alhambra Hotel after it was moved, 1924. The six-story hotel can be seen in the background and rests on a series of metal girders. In the foreground, workers can be seen near where the hotel used to be. Utility wires can be seen at right. A sign on the bottom story of the hotel reads: "This 6-story re-enforced concrete building 60 x 123 feet, weighing 11,000 tons - was moved 130 feet sideways by the Kress House Moving Company of Los Angeles."
Just to be correct, this is an image of the structure before it was moved onto those (forgive the technical term) rolly-things and northward toward the tunnel (and photographer). That they affixed a sign already printed in the past tense illuminates the greatness (or, you know, hubris) of the times.
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  #7406  
Old Posted Apr 19, 2012, 2:22 PM
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Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire View Post





Marion Parker was abducted from Mount Vernon school at 4066 West 17th Street in 1927, around the time of the first black & white shot above. I'm not so naïve as to think that the building
inspired by George Washington's house, later painted white, wouldn't also be covered by graffiti if it were still standing, but who could blame even grown-ups for covering the current
incarnation with it? Apparently tags are a major problem for what is now the Johnnie Cochran Middle School at 4066 Johnny Cochran Vista. One site posits that the exterior of the
school was changed for maintenance reasons, but it looks like a whole new building to me. Anyway, while the new school is uninspiring architecturally (to put it mildly), at least the
entablature of the old school was saved and rests in the front yard.


cemeteryguide.com/; LAPL x 2; Google SV
when i was going to webster jrhs my bus would always drop kids off at this school for the kids who lived in this area.I always wondered why that sign was in the front of the building,i wonder when they tore it down,and how many schools were torn down because of the sylmar quake.My HS (University High..unihikid) got some damage to the auditorium ,gym,and cafeteria and all but the main building was torn down(the guys who tore down the aud went out of business because it took so long for them to knock it down).
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  #7407  
Old Posted Apr 19, 2012, 3:51 PM
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The New York Times

Among the newly published Gary Winogrand photos from the 1960 Democratic convention is the one above, taken in the Biltmore's Crystal
Ballroom. Below, the ballroom in a slightly colorized vintage shot.

Public Art in L.A.


Among the other newly published Winogrand shots from the convention is this one of another hotel:

The New York Times


The rest of the Winogrand shots are here: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...rand-look.html
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  #7408  
Old Posted Apr 19, 2012, 4:00 PM
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just great reminds me of the movie "The Best Man" starring Peter Fonda
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  #7409  
Old Posted Apr 19, 2012, 8:58 PM
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Originally Posted by MOliscous View Post
What I believe you are looking at is the SE corner of 1st Street and Hill. Under his butt is the intersection. This lot is currently empty and is waiting for the next Federal Courts building. The building (looks like a set of 3) just to the right of the end of the flag pole is where I am typing this from. The actor is hanging from whatever building used to be where the Stanley Mosk Courthouse currently stands.
There were a lot of characters who shot from above the Hill St tunnels, it would seem...we covered this a little bit in this post...
...those big funnel-looking things are emerging from the roof of the auditorium of the Mason Opera House, AKA Mason Theatre. Here's a later, similar shot by Hylen, before that whole block was demo'd for this.

You mention the tripartite building, AKA 205 S B'way, I'm sure plenty of people look at it and take it to be modern -- 207-11 S Bway is the Metropolitan Water Bldg, built 1905, and the structure facing Bway and Second, the three-part one, 201-205 S Bway/300 W 2nd is the California Bldg from 1911 (as is its neighbor to the northwest, 312 W 2nd)...sooooo is anything still inside still evident from its pre-WWI vintage?

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  #7410  
Old Posted Apr 19, 2012, 10:28 PM
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New Here.

I have been lurking for about a month...not in a weird way...I think. I am laid up with a back injury and unable to work so I have been surfing the web looking for images from the 1920s to do my own "then and now" comparisons. I stumbled upon this site and this thread in particular.

I'm not from LA or even California. I have visited LA when my mother lived there and have always been fascinated with it's history.

This thread is fantastic and I've probably gone through every page...more than once.

I was intrigued by a post by GaylordWilshire from well over a year ago...
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=2937
...so I did a little investigating. I found the wall at the top of the "mysterious stairs" is at the corner of Hope Plaza and Hope ST.

It's just my opinion, but it looks like it was at one time a modern open stairway and they decided to block it off because too many people thought it was an entrance to the parking garage.

I hope y'all don't mind me jumping in and you can tell me to get lost if I become too much of a bother.
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  #7411  
Old Posted Apr 19, 2012, 10:39 PM
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So we're all familiar with the Old Central No 1, as seen in the image above and below:

mine

It stands out in lots of images taken from the Hill near Court looking toward Broadway...largely because of its striking two-tone character:

americanfilmnoir

heavy rusticated stone at the bottom, and what appears to be stucco above. Which always kind of bugged me, so I did a little digging...

...and I was right, it was a solidly Romanesque building of all wrought stone. Here's an image from the Times in 1896, accompanying a blurb about the new jail.



Here's a shot from the Los Angeles Herald, September 1908 (folk are gathered at the station to hear word of Captain Auble) --



-- A bit about the jail: the front of the first floor was for the officers and detectives offices. The back of the first floor was all jail, a 10x30 corridor lined with 24 cells on either side. Attached was a receiving hospital, basically a white tiled room with a big skylight. The courts, judges chambers, witness and jury rooms, clerks offices and the like were on the second floor. There was a second floor jail area for the high-security inmates, a female ward (with special accommodations for insane female prisoners) and a juvie ward.

I was shocked that, in my investigations, I found that while I'd deduced the building to be Caukin & Haas (they famously of the City Hall and first Times building, etc.) it was in fact a Charles L. Strange. Strange was the City Superintendent of Buildings, and an architect, known for the red sandstone courthouse (not ours -- theirs), & much of Pasadena's Castle Green.

Love to know when it got modernized -- I would've assumed that the pointed parapet came down after the '49 ordinance but it was obviously gone when they shot Shockproof in '48. I'm guessing it's a late-30s remodel but more digging needs to be done...
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  #7412  
Old Posted Apr 20, 2012, 12:12 AM
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The Ems Apartments - 1940 Census

Who was living at the Ems Apartments in 1940?

The files are large to you can read the details.


1940 Census


1940 Census

Check out columns 28 & 29. They show the tenants occupation and where they worked. Very interesting.

Last edited by FredH; Apr 21, 2012 at 11:20 PM.
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  #7413  
Old Posted Apr 20, 2012, 1:01 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Beaudry View Post
So we're all familiar with the Old Central No 1....
Love to know when it got modernized -- I would've assumed that the pointed parapet came down after the '49 ordinance but it was obviously gone when they shot Shockproof in '48. I'm guessing it's a late-30s remodel but more digging needs to be done...

Los Angeles Times, April 13, 1931

Old Central Station still had its full Romanesque façade in 1931, but, after years of being called obsolete, varmint-infested,
and dangerous, it was condemned by the Health Commission in 1930 but not totally abandoned for another 25 years. There
are dozens & dozens of articles in the Times pertaining to the station over its lifetime (1896-1955), many about its
inadequacies. Here's one:


Los Angeles Times, May 24, 1939


And yet it remained in use for another 16 years...

I could find no specific references to the change in the building's façade, such as if it might have been due to the 1933 Long
Beach earthquake, but your estimate of it occurring in the late '30s could easily be right, Beaudry. In May 1938 the
city's police budget included $50,000 for "improvements" to Central Station.


In the latter days...
LAPL
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  #7414  
Old Posted Apr 20, 2012, 1:09 AM
3940dxer 3940dxer is offline
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Homeowners Review Fall/Winter 1976

Last week I purchased an old photo album that has a lot of interesting old photos of Hollywood and Laurel Canyon, most about 100 years old. I'll be posting many of these in the weeks to come but there were a number of other goodies in the album including 3 issues of this periodical, called Homeowners Review. It's 6 pages long and will use up a lot of screen space but I found the photos and stories quite interesting. Actually, it's sort of like a print version of our very favorite discussion thread.

If you check the credits on the bottom of Page 2 you'll see that the publishers thank (among others) Milt Larsen, Bruce Torrence, Rudy Vallee, and Frank Lloyd Wright Jr.

I have 2 more of these newsletters. If you would like to see them, let me know.












Last edited by 3940dxer; Apr 20, 2012 at 1:29 AM.
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  #7415  
Old Posted Apr 20, 2012, 2:49 AM
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The Ghost of Berkeley Square

Los Angeles Department of City Planning


My history of Berkeley Square, which you can read online here, has attracted much new information since its completion last fall. And I have just discovered something curious: On its maps, the Los Angeles Department of City Planning has retained to this day delineation of the Square's central roadway (in line with West 22nd Street coming from the east) as well as the delineations of the street's 15 south-side lots. The lines remain unexplained to the casual observer; I have added the red square rectangle above to outline the Square's borders of Gramercy Place on the west, Western Avenue on the east, the outer edge of the community's south private service alley, and where the outer edge of the corresponding north alley (and north Square border) now lie under the 10 freeway.
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  #7416  
Old Posted Apr 20, 2012, 5:24 PM
jg6544 jg6544 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Illithid Dude View Post
I know that the Brentwood Art Center used to house both a grocery store and a hair dresser. If you go in the building, you can see where the different businesses used to be, as the floor goes up and down according to what was once a separate business. Moreover, in one room, the wall is lined with electric outlets, as it was where the hairdresser used to be.
Must have been a while ago. I moved to the neighborhood in 1994 and it has been the Art Center for as far back as I can remember.
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  #7417  
Old Posted Apr 20, 2012, 5:32 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire View Post
Los Angeles Times, April 13, 1931

Old Central Station still had its full Romanesque façade in 1931, but, after years of being called obsolete, varmint-infested,
and dangerous, it was condemned by the Health Commission in 1930 but not totally abandoned for another 25 years. There
are dozens & dozens of articles in the Times pertaining to the station over its lifetime (1896-1955), many about its
inadequacies. Here's one:


Los Angeles Times, May 24, 1939


And yet it remained in use for another 16 years...

I could find no specific references to the change in the building's façade, such as if it might have been due to the 1933 Long
Beach earthquake, but your estimate of it occurring in the late '30s could easily be right, Beaudry. In May 1938 the
city's police budget included $50,000 for "improvements" to Central Station.


In the latter days...
LAPL
Damn, that's good research. I was on the same track till I saw you beat me to it, and bless you for that. I still like playing the first several "beats" of LA Noire because they commence at Central No 1.

The story of Lincoln Heights jail...hell, that deserves its own Arcadia book, or website, or something.
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  #7418  
Old Posted Apr 20, 2012, 5:43 PM
jg6544 jg6544 is offline
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It looks like Berkeley Square and St. James' Square lasted 20-25 years before they began to become less fashionable. Any idea why they lasted such a brief time and why Windsor Square/Hancock Park developed so quickly?

I think Brentwood was pretty much ranch land until the 30s. I've heard Beverly Hills was developed because so many of the lots in San Marino, Pasadena, Hancock Park, and Windsor Square had anti-Jewish covenants and even discouraged people in the film industry in general.
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  #7419  
Old Posted Apr 20, 2012, 7:28 PM
Notinkeys Notinkeys is offline
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Having been away moving to Dallas, I've been offline for a while. I'm sitting here watching "The Turning Point" from 1952 when I recognize a favorite locale from this thread...




(From www.electricearl.com)

The page http://www.electricearl.com/af/index.html has a lot of similar stuff. And if this is already in the thread, let me know and I'll delete this. After 372 pages, it's hard to keep track.
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  #7420  
Old Posted Apr 20, 2012, 10:16 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jg6544 View Post
It looks like Berkeley Square and St. James' Square lasted 20-25 years before they began to become less fashionable. Any idea why they lasted such a brief time and why Windsor Square/Hancock Park developed so quickly?

I think Brentwood was pretty much ranch land until the 30s. I've heard Beverly Hills was developed because so many of the lots in San Marino, Pasadena, Hancock Park, and Windsor Square had anti-Jewish covenants and even discouraged people in the film industry in general.

Well, I'm not a sociologist, but from what I've read, there are many reasons for the decline of West Adams; as for Berkeley Square and St. James Park in particular, I'd say the main ones are more widespread affluence in the '20s, meaning the car (which allowed servants to live beyond the radius of the old Yellow Car system) and the desire for the affluent to have more space around their houses. Both Berkeley Square and St. James Park were very small individual enclaves of large houses surrounded by less glamorous neighborhoods, unlike many of the newer, more expansive districts of larger lots and houses. The population of Los Angeles more than doubled between 1920 and 1930, driving up property values and causing saavy property owners to sell at a profit and decamp to newer, roomier parts of town to the north and west (or to consistently fashionable Pasadena). The new owners often divided houses into apartments or replaced them with larger multi-unit buildings. The Depression held back maintenance on the aging housing stock, causing demolitions and replacements with higher-density units; the war years repeated the housing pressures of the '20s. When the Supreme Court struck down deed restrictions in 1948, white flight from West Adams really took off. The sociological history of West Adams is fascinating; there's even the story that the routing of the Santa Monica Freeway was moved south away from Windsor Square and Hancock Park (through declining neighborhoods including Berkeley Square) and deliberately designed with limited south-north access.

Google SV

The trend of large houses in once-affluent areas of central L.A. being subdivided into apartments or replaced with newer multi-unit
buildings continued into the '50s and beyond. This example is in the 1400 block of S. Gramercy Place.

Last edited by GaylordWilshire; Sep 11, 2012 at 8:33 PM.
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