Here’s the footprint of the demolished California State Building, as seen from space in 2011 via Google Earth.

Our crime buddy Nathan Marsak also took a tour of the remains, posted on SkyscraperPage.com.

Here’s a shot of the bank of elevators in the California State Building. Edward G. Robinson gets out of an elevator…

The camera pans to reveal Jan Merlin waiting near a column.

The camera pans to reveal more of the interior…

Merlin and Robinson play a scene with a column and a building directory in the background.

Another angle shows heavy wood doors and a plaque on the wall.

The camera follows them as they exit.

and out the revolving door.

To be continued.

Here’s another shot of the California State Building lobby and the bank of elevators as Hugh Marlowe exits.

Hugh is turning left, so we can see …

… the telephone booths.

Call for Hugh Marlowe!

Edward G. Robinson walks up the steps of the California State Office Building … is that the brand-new Parker Center in the background?

This appears to be shooting toward Spring Street with Parker Center in the background.

And a better view of the entrance …

And the revolving door.

And another shot of First Street, showing the Los Angeles Times Building, the Daily Journal and Bancroft Whitney Co. A bit farther to the right was the Redwood.

To be continued.

“California Today,” by Tim Arango and Charles McDermid, presents a strange bit of nonsense: The Mirror (the sister paper of the Los Angeles Times published in the afternoon) folded “partly because the old streetcars went away as the city embraced the automobile.”

Actually, no. The Mirror was killed off in 1962 on the same day that Hearst folded the morning Examiner into the evening Herald-Express to create the Herald Examiner. It was an arranged deal to carve up the city’s morning and afternoon newspaper circulation. The demise of the streetcars had nothing to do with it. Zero.

Look, @NYTimes, this isn’t that hard. The information is readily available online.

Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.

Architecture, murder and hardboiled writing. Do you suppose McCoy had the 1947 Project in mind when he knocked off this forgotten little tale? (Note the first-person narration, genre-lovers). He’s got a nice little formula: A good hook, the story and a stinger at the end.

I was standing by the bar when the lieutenant came over.

“How about a drink?” I said.

“Sure,” he said. “I’m turning down nothing today.” He ordered a beer. “This is the last day I’ll be drinking on salary. From now on any drinking I do will be on my own time.” He lifted his beer and toasted: “To guys who get pushed around by destiny—“

I drank with him, but I didn’t understand what he meant. “What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means,” he said, “that come eight o’clock tomorrow morning I put back on a monkey suit and start pounding a beat again. It means that come eight o’clock tomorrow morning I’m not a homicide lieutenant any more.”

“They busted you?” I asked, surprised.

“That’s right,” he said.

“So you’re the goat,” I said. “Well, now, that’s too bad. They should’ve given you a medal.”

He nodded gravely. “At least a captaincy. If I’d shot and killed the guy I’d’ve got a captaincy, too. He was a bad guy, a really bad guy.”

“He sure was,” I said. “With him out of your hair you’d think everybody’d be very happy.”

“Not the Commissioner,” he said.

“I still can’t figure out how that guy got in the bathtub,” I said.

“Neither can I. I searched the house three times. Under the house, inside the house, on top of the house. How he got into the bathtub I’ll never know.”
“It sure takes the cake,” I said. “I been a house mover for twenty years and I never heard of anything like this before.”

You can’t stay in any business for twenty years and not see some strange things happen, but I’d never heard of anything like this happening before. It started out to be a routine job, a push; a little four-room cottage that was a combination real estate office and home had to be moved off one of the main streets to a lot in the suburbs.

The fellow got all the furniture out and the day crew took off all the doors and nailed all the windows to minimize the risk of glass breakage, jacked it up, put it on rollers and slid it onto the big truck that afternoon, waiting for the night crew to haul it away at midnight. (We did most of our house-moving between midnight and seven in the morning so as to be as clear of traffic as possible). When we started for the truck about eleven-thirty we ran into the cops. They had the neighborhood surrounded for three square blocks; somewhere in there they had a killer trapped.

An old man and his wife who ran a liquor store around the corner had been murdered, evidently in an attempted holdup, and a prowl car had been practically on top of the killer when he ducked out of the front door.

This had been about ten o’clock, just as the old man and his wife were in the habit of closing up—and when we got there the cops had the area covered like a blanket. Very few people were getting inside the cordon and nobody was getting out. But we explained to the lieutenant that we had to move the house and he looked it over very carefully and told us to go ahead.

We hung the big red lights all over the back of the house and went ahead, and as far as we were concerned that was that. It was a routine job, a push. All Joe and Eddie had to do was sit in the cab, with Joe driving and Eddie combing the all-night radio stations for jive records; and all Boggess and I had to do was ride our bicycles ahead of the truck, pointing out the predetermined route and keeping drunk drivers away from the sides of the house that stuck out a few feet on both sides of the truck.

Then at Magnolia and 16th Streets it happened. I didn’t notice the wires, I was just following the route (when a house is to be moved from here to there one of the foremen inspects the streets and the power lines and trolley wires, picking the route that avoids the hazards most); it just never occurred to us that anything like this could possibly happen. But all of a sudden there was a flash of fire and a loud whish! So close together they almost overlapped, and I knew that this meant trouble. I yelled at Boggess and we wheeled and went back to the truck. It had stopped in the middle of the intersection and a few feet away on Joe’s side, the broken trolley wire was writhing like a living thing and exploding with a sputter every time it touched the steel track, ground its fifteen hundred volts.

“Are you all right?” I hollered at Joe.

We’re all right,” he said. “Better get to a phone.”

But getting to a phone wasn’t necessary. A police cruiser rolled up and two cops reported it by radio, and got out and took charge, keeping the few stragglers from moving too close to the trolley wire.

“Someone’s gonna catch it for this,” Eddie said.

“Don’t look at me,” I said. “I’m just following the chart.” I took it out of my pocked and showed it to him. “Look. You can see what it says. Up 16th Street across Magnolia to Carlisle—Don’t blame me. Blame Menefee. He made it out.”

One of the cops came up. He was a little sore.

“Seems to me like you birds’re pretty careless,” he said. “Look at that. You expect that to clear?” he was pointing to the vent pipe that stuck up from the roof of the house on the truck.

“Don’t blame us,” I said. “We just work here.”

“What about that pipe?” Joe said to me. “Wasn’t it measured?”

“Don’t ask me,” I said. “Ask Menefee.”

The cop took our names and the name of our company and we went back to transporting the house.

That was all I had to do with the job. We all made written reports and got bawled out and then forgot it—for a few hours. The day crew went to the new location that morning and unloaded the house and that same afternoon a couple of kids were wandering through it and found the guy dead in the bathtub. He had been electrocuted but good. He had in his pocket a pistol with some cartridges missing but with the shells that remained in the chamber ballistics was able to confirm that this was the gun that had killed the old man and his wife in the liquor store.

It was a good story, all right, and the papers played it up and because we at the warehouse had a personal interest in the case we read it all. But then one of the newspapers started asking a question: What kind of police department was it that could let a vicious criminal slip through its fingers by using an empty house? It seemed silly to worry about this now, but the paper did.

It kept hammering away.

“Well, now, that’s a bad break for you,” I said. “Have another beer.”

“Sure, sure” he said and ordered another beer. “I dunno—” he said. “You remember Fred Slater?”

“Public Enemy No. 1,” I said. “Sure.”

“That’s right. Everybody in the country was looking for him. I caught him. Up at the lake. Up there you can’t use live bait, only plugs and spinners. I saw this joker sitting in his boat across the lake and I thought he was up to something. I went over and sure enough he was using mudsuckers. I was only going to tell him off and let it go at that, but he got tough and the game warden and I ran him in. He turned out to be Fred Slater and I got promoted to lieutenant.
“Now I’ll give you the real topper. That will be exactly 15 years ago, come tomorrow. Right on the nose at eight o’clock on the morning of Aug. 5.” He lifted his beer. “To guys who get pushed around by destiny—“

This Week Magazine, Los Angeles Times, July 25, 1948

In this portion of “Illegal,” we have a long chase sequence. I’m not able to identify all the locations so any help would be appreciated.

I’m guessing this is Fourth Street, shooting toward Bunker Hill.

Fourth between Broadway and Spring, via Google Street View.

Again, it looks like we are on Fourth Street, shooting toward Bunker Hill.

The cars enter from San Julian.

This image is flopped.

It shows Gilman and Adler Produce, 1059 S. San Pedro.

1059 S. San Pedro via Google Street View.

Soffa Sewing Machine, 840 S. Main St.

In the last post on historic Los Angeles in “Illegal,” here are a few nighttime shots of Main Street. At the far right you can see the sign for the Hotel Cecil.

The 500 block of South Main Street via Google Street View.

Here’s Jack and Jerry’s Cafe at 512 S. Main and the Eagle Loan Office at 512 1/2 S. Main.

The Galway Theater at 514 S. Main St., G&U News Stand Arcade at 516 S. Main St. and the E.S. News Co. at 518 S. Main St.

The 522 Club at 522 S. Main St. and the Famous A&N store at 530 S. Main St.,

What appears to be the New Follies Theater at 548 S. Main St. and the Santa Fe Building at 560 S. Main St.

And finally the Hotel Cecil at 640 S. Main St.

Also the Hotel Rosslyn as seen from Fifth and Los Angeles streets.

The view from Fifth and Los Angeles streets via Google Street View.

Fred Thomson in an undated image.

In the early days of the Hollywood film industry, moguls and movie stars lived simply, residing in comfortable but elegant homes. As the business evolved from small companies into large-scale moviemaking factories in the 1920s, residences followed the same path. Romantic, grandiose mansions fit for filmmaking royalty soon became the norm, designed by such top-notch Los Angeles architects as Gordon Kaufmann, Roland Coate, and Wallace Neff.

In 1926, Neff designed the Hollywood “house” to top them all: Frances Marion and Fred Thomson’s The Enchanted Hill in Beverly Hills, sitting at the apex of one of the city’s highest hills. The ultimate model for romantic Spanish Colonial Revival architecture, The Enchanted Hill reigned as moviedom’s ultimate showplace, a fairy-tale residence come to life.

Mary Mallory’s “Living With Grace” is now on sale.
She will give a presentation at Larry Edmunds Bookshop on Sunday, July 22, at 2 p.m.

Frances Marion, courtesy of Mary Mallory.

Frances Marion reigned as Hollywood’s top screenwriter, male or female, for most of the 1920s. Born in San Francisco as Marion Benson Owens, the young woman began her working life modeling and serving as a commercial artist before entering the motion picture field. Marion joined the filmmaking industry in 1915, writing and acting in films, soon finding legendary director/producer Lois Weber as a mentor, with whom she worked in virtually every area of production.

Over the next 30 years, Marion worked with the major power brokers of the film industry: Mary Pickford, Irving Thalberg, and William Randolph Hearst, winning two Academy Awards for screenwriting in the process. She gained fame as Hollywood’s top screenwriter in the 1920s and directed three films during the same period. While visiting Camp Kearney in San Diego with her friend Mary Pickford near the end of World War I,the twice-married Marion met the injured Fred Thomson, a world-class athlete and minister. The couple felt an immediate spiritual and physical attraction, marrying in 1919.

The exterior of The Enchanted Hill, with the swimming pool.

Thomson, the son of a minister born in Pasadena, excelled in sports at Occidental College and Princeton Theological Seminary before becoming a minister. After losing his first wife, Gail, in 1916 to tuberculosis, he enlisted in the military. After coming to Hollywood, Thomson quickly became an actor and one of the industry’s top cowboy action stars, providing heroics in serials and oaters with his talented horse Silver King.

For several years, Thomson and Marion lived comfortably in a house in Los Angeles’ Hancock Park. By 1925, the couple looked for a large piece of property on which to construct a home to raise a family and to acknowledge their place in the Hollywood firmament. They first examined Bel-Air for just the right piece of property, but were informed by real estate developer Alphonzo Bell, creator of Bel-Air, that his tract forbid Jews or actors living there.

Moving on to Beverly Hills, Marion and Thomson discovered a secluded but gorgeous piece of property above Benedict Canyon, the perfect place to keep and ride a stable of horses. Thomson originally bought a small piece of property at $400 an acre, then $1,500 an acre, and finally buying 20 additional acres a few years later at $4,500 an acre for a mansion they later called the Enchanted Hill, the same nickname as William Randolph Hearst’s extravagant Central California estate. Eventually the couple owned 120 acres atop their magical hill. Sam Watters in volume 2 of his “House of Los Angeles” book claims that the two native Californians, “…steeped in its romantic traditions, planned to copy one of those old adobes,” to construct their own elaborate Spanish Colonial Revival Andalusian abode.

The interior had a beamed ceiling and Spanish colonial touches. 

After falling out with their original architect, the young couple signed Pasadena architect Wallace Neff to design their masterpiece, but one with its tongue firmly planted in cheek. Neff, born in La Mirada, Calif., to an aristocratic family, studied in Massachusetts before getting his start as a draftsman and quickly moving up the ranks as one of Southern California’s top architects. By 1923, he helped invent what became known as California Revival, a romantic salute to the Golden State’s Mexican and Spanish past. Neff designed luxurious Spanish estates costing an average of $15,000 to $30,000 and for such celebrity clients as Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, director Fred Niblo, director King Vidor, producer Darryl F. Zanuck, and later actors Fredric March, Joan Bennett, and Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard.

While Thomson and Marion desired a large estate, they also yearned for something playful and full of whimsical touches. As the book “Wallace Neff: The Romance of Regional Architecture” describes it, they devised an “impressive yet whimsical” coat of arms…”modeled in low relief over the entrance in the spirit of the place; it consists of a roll of film rampant over a horse’s head and is emblazoned with a horseshoe for the good luck needed in Hollywood.”

Full of Neff’s signature touches such as a courtyard driveway entrance, balconies, patios, buttresses, and arches, the Enchanted Hill at 1441 Angelo Drive featured a lighthearted touch with Oriental finials atop columns on the main portion of the mansion, as regal as any potentate’s.

An archway frames the exterior of the home.

Forty workers toiled to construct the 10,000 square-foot home and its outer buildings atop the massive hill. Terraced levels led upwards from the entrance along the gigantic driveway. Marion herself joked that the hill “resembled a giant wedding cake,” rising on multiple levels to the ultimate prize. The hillside property included tennis courts, 100-foot swimming pool, two riding rings, stables for 12 horses, dairy, chicken houses, an aviary, two guest houses, and a ranch hands house before one even approached the gigantic main house with five-acre yard. Horticulturalist Paul Joseph Howard landscaped the hillside. One guest house possessed 13 rooms, while the mansion itself featured 21. Silver King and his fellow four-footed friends lived in style as well, with the stable featuring mahogany floors.

The Enchanted Hill’s interior dazzled as well, thanks to the work of the George Cheesewright Studios. The home featured Gladding McBean tiling, a two-story entry, a drawing room two and a half stories tall, an Aeolian pipe organ, screening room, ballroom, work room for Thomson, and office for Marion. Thomson’s personal shower featured a dozen spigots, with one 10 feet high.

The stables at The Enchanted Hill.

Thomson enjoyed spending time riding his horses with friends over the many hillside paths and also tinkering on engines in his special work room. Marion churned out thoughtful and articulate screenplays in her little office. In 1926, their son, Frederick Jr. was born, followed by the adoption of baby Richard in 1927. The couple entertained the Hollywood glitterati in warm get-togethers at their home, such as teas, rides, or dinners, as well as hosting intellectuals, scientists, and artists for salons.

In 1928, the two appeared to have it all, with Marion one of filmdom’s top screenwriters and Thomson one of the country’s most popular cowboy stars. They happily raised their family and dreamed of a long life together. That idea was cut short at the end of the year. Working in his stable, Thomson stepped on a rusty nail, contracting tetanus, initially misdiagnosed as kidney stones, before dying Christmas Day 1928.

Frances Marion called the home “the house that bunk built” after her husband’s death.

Gravely despondent over her husband’s death, Marion decided to abandon the home, calling it “the house that bunk built,” one too large for her and the children. By the end of January, she listed it and 15 acres for sale at $750,000. Oilman Legene S. Barnes of the Elbe Oil Land Development company purchased the luxurious manse April 28, 1929, paying $540,000 cash for both it and the grounds.

He owned it until 1945, selling to inventor and industrialist Paul Kollsman, who restored much of the property. After Kollsman’s death, his wife owned it for several years before selling it to Microsoft founder Paul Allen in 1997 for $20 million.

Three years after purchasing it and additional acres, the eccentric billionaire demolished the main house and all its elegant outer buildings, letting the hillside remain barren for more than 17 years. On July 11, journalists reported that Allen had put 120 acres up for sale, including the site of the former Enchanted Hill. What was originally a thoughtful, elegant vision now stands to possibly become a small tract of super-sized, hodgepodge mega-mansions.

This is an encore post from 2006.

Note: $90 a month is $1,847.12 USD 2005.

Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.

First-prize winner at the inventors exposition was Stanley Hiller Jr., who developed a helicopter in which two blades on a single shaft rotated in opposite directions, eliminating the need for a tail rotor.

Second-prize winner was Horace Pentecost, another helicopter developer who invented an engine and propeller that could be worn as a backpack.
Fourth prize went to John Pruner and Henry Krohn for a “color symphony machine.”

Third prize? It was awarded to a man named Joe Milan, who dreamed up an automotive accessory. Something he calls disk brakes.

The long-neglected Pan-Pacific burned to the ground in 1989.

Hattie McDaniel’s home at 2203 S. Harvard. Ethel Waters lived almost across the street, the Sentinel said. Via Google Street View.

 
The home of composer William Grant Still, 3670 Cimarron St., via Google Street View.

Aug. 21, 1947: Sentinel columnist Harry Levette provides the addresses of many African American celebrities and notes that not everybody famous lives on Sugar Hill. Most of the homes are gone now as the 10 Freeway went through the neighborhood. The modest home of composer William Grant Still, 3670 Cimarron St., is still standing.

According to the Sentinel, Dorothy Dandridge and Harold Nicholas lived at 2272 W. 27th St., via Google Street View.

Here’s the sequence of shots in “The Unfaithful” showing Angels Flight, photographed by Ernest Haller, edited by Alan Crosland Jr.

In image No. 1, we have a news vendor and the upper entrance to the funicular.

Image No. 2, Marta Mitrovich enters and buys a paper.

Image No. 3, she kinda sorta buys a ticket.

Image No. 4, the car leaves.

Image No. 5, the car farther down the hill.

Image No. 6 is a process shot.

Image No. 7, is a process shot.

Image No. 8 is an insert of a fake newspaper page.

Image No. 9 is a reaction shot.

Image No. 10 is an insert of the newspaper story on the death of Michael Tanner.

Zoom lens!

Image No. 11 is a reaction shot.

Image No. 12 is a process shot of the interior of the car.

Image No. 13 is Mitrovich hurrying to get off the car.

Image No. 14, Mitrovich at Hill Street entrance.

Image No. 15, the camera pans as she exits.

Image No. 16, she walks up Hill Street.

Image No. 17, looking up Hill Street to Royal Liquor, 259 S. Hill St., and the Hotel Belmont, 251 S. Hill St. Dissolve.

Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.

The ram’s horn, once a trumpet of war but now a symbol of faith, sounded at sundown yesterday in Los Angeles synagogues to mark the dawn of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana.

In Temple Emanuel, Beverly Hills, Rabbi Ernest Trattner told the congregation that “New beginnings come, not in new seasons, but in new attitudes. Solutions of life’s problems come, not in the passing of time, but in self-discipline and self-dedication. Let us start the year with God and keep step with Him all the year and peace and power and gladness shall be ours.”

Speaking in Temple Beth Aaron, Rabbi Alfred Wolf, western regional director of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations said: “Long before the ram’s horn became a religious symbol it was the trumpet of war. Today the shophar calls us to mobilize for peace; peace between each man and his neighbor and peace among the nations.”

::

The Times’ first mention of Rosh Hashanah (often spelled Rosh Hashana) appears in 1886. Two years later, the paper carried a long account of services at the synagogue on Fort Street (renamed Broadway in 1889) south of 2nd Street. A portion of the synagogue was discovered during excavation for The Times parking structure on Broadway and a plaque marks the site.

“Some pepper trees, which have so far escaped the ax of modern vandals, throw their pleasant shade upon the walk. It was built some 15 years ago and belongs to the B’nai B’rith, children of the covenant of the reformed branch of the Hebrew Church,” The Times said in 1888.

By 1899, in addition to the synagogue on Broadway, there were services for conservative Jews at Kramer Hall on 5th Street and Orthodox services at Turnverein Hall on Spring Street between 2nd and 3rd Streets. At least one year, services were held at a Unitarian Church and another year they were celebrated at the American Legion Hall in Hollywood. Services were also held at the Los Angeles County Jail beginning in the 1920s. By the 1930s, congregations met at the Wilshire-Ebell Theatre and the Ambassador Hotel.

One of the more dramatic locations for services was the Hebrew Sheltering Home for the Aged at 325 S. Boyle Ave., where residents ranged in age from 65 to 103 in 1939.

Times stories about Rosh Hashanah were quite detailed around the turn of the 20th century, with reporters attending services and quoting sermons at length. Coverage dwindled over the next few years but in the early 1920s, The Times devoted long stories to broadcasts of services on its radio station, KHJ.

A sample of sermon titles given in Los Angeles for Rosh Hashanah:

1886: “Three Messages of the New Year.”

1899: “What Judaism Is” and “What Judaism Is Not” and “The Jewish Pulpit in America.

1900: “How Old Art Thou” and “The Significance of the Cornet Sound.”

1901: “I Am a Hebrew.”

1914: “Jewish War Against War.”

1921: “What Is Changeable and What Is Permanent.”

1924: “Book of Life and Death.”

1926: “Taps for the Old Year.”

1929: “The Problem of the Jew in This Modern World.”

1931: “Is It Hard to Be a Jew?”

1932: “Old Memories and New Hopes.”

1933: “What Is the Cure for This Sick World?” “If Hitler Could Understand the Significance of the Word ‘Truoh’ Would He Prefer the Program of Mephistopheles to That of Roosevelt?”

1934: “The Dignity and Depravity of Man.”

1936: “Polish Jews as I Met Them.” Money collected at Rosh Hashanah services by the Federation of Polish Jews of California was used to help Jews in Poland.

1938: “What Has the Jew to Hope for?” and “A Year of Sorrow.” A new work by Arnold Schoenberg and Ernst Toch was performed for the congregation of Fairfax Temple at the Ambassador.

1939: “The Challenge to Society in These Terrible Days” and “On the Brink of the Abyss.”
“As far as the Jewish situation is concerned, the last 12 months portray one of the blackest chapters in history. Today we appear as humble beggars at the portals of the universe, uttering fervent prayers for life and liberty,” said Rabbi Mayer Winkler of the Community Synagogue.

1940: “The Powers of Darkness.”

1942: “Is the Jew Necessarily Destined to Live Forever?”

1943: “Begin All Over Again in a New World.” This year was one of the few times Rosh Hashanah was mentioned on the paper’s editorial page.

1945: “The Power of the Atom, Physical and Spiritual” and “Universal Peace.”

1946: “Fashioning a New World.”

1947: “Dreams of Empire Builders.”
Bonus factoid: Congregation B’nai B’rith congregation became Wilshire Boulevard Temple.

A postcard of Hamburger’s Department Store is listed on EBay as Buy It Now for $2.99.

Note: This is an encore post from 2013.

The classy, oversize May Co. Department Store located at 801 S. Broadway in downtown Los Angeles is up for sale. Today, the mostly empty Broadway Trade Center hosts makeshift swap meet stalls on the first floor in this once celebrated building, the largest department store west of the Mississippi River. Once known as Hamburger’s Department Store, the facility later operated as the May Co. Original owner Hamburger’s was a more elegant and upscale Wal-Mart, hosting every type of business under its roof, even a movie theater.

Hamburger’s Department Store ranked as one of Los Angeles’ premier shopping centers in the early 1900s. Asher Hamburger and his son David immigrated to Los Angeles from Sacramento in 1881, establishing the 20 x 100 foot People’s Store at Main Street and Requena. This department store featured mass but quality goods at fair prices, popular with penny-pinching consumers.

Also by Mary Mallory
Keye Luke
Auction of Souls
Busch Gardens and Hogan’s Aristocratic Dreams

Also on the Daily Mirror
On Location, the May Co.
Movieland Mystery Photo – Architecture Edition

The downtown May Co. is used as a filming location for “The Public Enemy.”

By the early 1900s, customers overflowed the small store. The family decided to construct a bigger and better store, one at a more central location, to attract even more business. Buying land at Broadway and Hill Street between 8th and 9th Streets, the Hamburgers hired architect Alfred Rosenheim to design an elegant, six-story structure in the Beaux Arts Classical style, featuring a white-glazed terra cotta exterior.

Following the Oct. 17, 1905, groundbreaking and almost three-year construction, the beautiful, $4-million Hamburger’s Department Store opened with grand fanfare on Aug. 9, 1908, hosting more than 75,000 people who walked through its almost 13 acres and 400,000 square feet of retail space that day. With a staff of more than 2,300 people, Hamburger’s featured 800 square feet of window frontage, with a 128-foot arch spanning the main doorway on Broadway. Its cross aisle stretched almost a block, 32 feet wide between columns.

Like today’s Wal-Mart and Target department stores, Hamburger’s operated as a giant shopping hub catering to the public’s needs. The store contained its own post office, Wells Fargo office, own fire department, emergency hospital with doctor and nurse, steamship and train ticket booth, express and telegraph offices, bookstore, candy department, drugstore, barber shop, hairdresser and beauty shop, notary public, conservatory, dentist, opticon, cafe, cafeteria, roof garden, photography department, furniture department, piano department, playground, nursery, grocery store, bakery, meat market, fruit market, 80-foot soda water fountain, wheelchair rental service, interpreters, and its own legitimate/moving picture theater, named the Arrow Theater. It also housed the downtown Los Angeles Public Library on its third floor.

As the Oct. 4, 1907, Los Angeles Times reported, a 100 x 80-foot “wee playhouse” would be installed on its fifth floor. “The principal feature of amusement will doubtless be the adventurous form of the moving picture entertainment.” The small theater seating 500 people would feature a small orchestra and stage, and be dark Sundays and nights. Somewhere along the way, the theater acquired the name Arrow Theater, and besides motion pictures, hosted vaudeville acts, meetings, convention presentations, lectures and the like. The department store also provided occasional free children’s programs “with clean entertainment.”

The Arrow Theater featured an hour program of five reels, costing the regular rate of 5 cents, 10 cents for reserved seats. Early ads mentioned it as a “good place to rest when you are tired of shopping,” as it was “comfortable and well-ventilated.” By Aug. 29, 1909, store ads in the Los Angeles Herald mentioned that the theater was open nights and offering “a large and varied program, consisting of motography, art pictures and vaudeville numbers….”

Mostly educational and newsworthy items were shown in the first years, with footage of President Taft presented in October, 1909, 2,000 feet of motion pictures showing the Rheims Aviation Contest in December 1909, film of Theodore Roosevelt returning to the United States from an African Safari in 1909, along with singing of “The Stars and Stripes and You,” and footage of England’s King Edward’s funeral in June 1910.

The May Co. appears in “Employees’ Entrance.”

By 1912, Hamburger’s prominently mentioned in ads that programs changed Mondays and Thursdays, with the Arrow featuring “first run, never shown in Los Angeles” films. The March 8, 1912, program consisted of a couple of songs from a singer, followed by Edison’s “The Nurse,” American Film Manufacturing Co.’s “The Best Man Wins,” starring J. Warren Kerrigan and Marshall Neilan, and IMP’s “The Power of Conscience,” starring King Baggot.

Ads over the next several years prominently mentioned the films of prominent production companies like Thanhouser, Gaumont, Reliance, Keystone, Solax, Kalem, Edison, Essanay, and Selig, and stars like John Bunny, Ford Sterling, Mary Pickford, Kathlyn Williams, Mary Fuller, Irving Cummings, and Alice Joyce.

In April 1912, the Arrow moved beyond just showing programs to the public. The April 23, 1912, Los Angeles Times, reported that the City Council approved leasing the Arrow Theatre for $75 a month for the work of the city’s Board of Censors.

The Arrow also presented other types of programming like lectures, meetings and children’s shows, besides its regular screenings of movies. Music groups like the Bachmann Orchestra performed popular music of the time, Herman the Magician appeared on May 23, 1914, Jewish groups presented talks about the situation in Palestine, and various doctor and dentist conventions featured keynote speeches in the theater.

On Feb. 22, 1909, Professor Edward Bull Clapp gave an illustrated lecture on painting, employing lantern slides. Professor Edgar L. Hewitt, director of the School of American Archeology, spoke Sept. 21, 1909, about the cliff dwellings of Paye Mesa, also using lantern slides. George Washington James lectured on “The Romance of California,” the week of May 18, 1913, accompanied by “a collection of several hundred stereopticon views and photographs.”

The Los Angeles Times catered to zealous baseball fans in fall 1913, hiring the Arrow Theater and other venues around the city to host Free Bulletins of the World Series, where play-by-play descriptions of each game were read aloud to eager attendees.

By 1914, the Arrow shifted its focus to special programming for a more discerning crowd. On Jan. 4, 1915, the theater presented the five-reel All-Star and Alco Films motion picture, “The Old Curiosity Shop.” A few weeks later, it presented the Italian film, “Manon Lescaut,” starring Lina Cavalieri. “Dorothy and the Scarecrow” played the week of Feb. 20. In April, D. W. Griffith’s “Judith of Bethulia” was such a hit that the theater extended its run.

By December 1915, the Arrow seemed to turn its focus back to lectures, with a telephone demonstration Dec. 22 through 24. Pacific Telephone and Telegraph moved the transcontinental phone line from the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco to Los Angeles for three days, with Supt. George Peck giving a lecture about its use. Thomas A. Watson, Alexander Graham Bell’s assistant, then appeared in a new Edison “talking motion picture” on the development of the telephone, showing the construction of the line between the coasts. Attendees employed receivers placed on each seat to hear American Telephone and Telegraph executive C. E. Willner “read out of the New York evening papers, play operatic selections on a phonograph, and wish everybody in Los Angeles a merry Christmas.”

Soon after, Hamburger’s drastically decreased mentions of the theater in its ads, seeming to focus more on lectures and meetings than screenings of films or live performances. By 1919, the Arrow Theater ended operations.

In 1923, the Hamburgers sold the department store to the May Co., and for the next seven decades, the building operated as the Los Angeles’ flagship for the May Co. After the company abandoned the building around 1990, it sat empty for years before becoming the Broadway Trade Center.

Hopefully, new owners will recognize the unique elements and history of the elegant building, freshening and restoring its hidden glories, and open the theater and other special departments to new legions of consumers.

Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

Sept. 20, 1907
Los Angeles

For weeks, Colorado mining investor John Geisel, 57, had confided in his diary as he felt his mind and his life coming unraveled “Good God,” he wrote, “for the first time today I began to fear that I could not control my thoughts.”

At last, he took a walk from the Natick Hotel, 108 W. 1st St. Crossing the Los Angeles River, Geisel found a large pepper tree on Pecan Street, and sat down. That’s where some neighborhood boys found him, sprawled next to a bottle of poison mixed with whisky. A note in his pocket said: “I wish my son Charles was here to comfort me, but he cannot know that I wish it. I hope everyone will forgive me. I would not tell what I was about to do for I knew they would interfere with me. I knew that I would never be right again and I could not stand that.”

Investigation showed that Geisel had lived a forthright life, but had recently become obsessed with the idea that he was dishonest and he brooded on it night and day. His diary, found in his room at the Natick, revealed his chronicle of mental collapse. “It seems a man can be off in the head and very few people know it,” he wrote.

Elsewhere, he wrote: “Everything is boiling and bubbling and I can’t think straight.”

He hid his troubles from everyone. “At times he would be unnaturally cheerful and again he would silently spend hours at a time in his room, scribbling away on scraps of paper,” The Times said.

“His failing mind began to force upon him the idea that he was dishonest. At points in his diary his sentences were pathetic. It was the fight of a man who had been honest all his life against what he considered a dishonest thing. He seemed to be horrified at the idea of being dishonest,” The Times said.

Less than a week before his suicide, Geisel came to Los Angeles from Denver with his son Charles to discuss some mining property and while they were in the desert, Geisel suffered from sunstroke, The Times said.

“If I made a mistake about those claims, I don’t want to live any more,” he wrote. “Why should a man bring his friends and even his son into the God-forsaken desert for nothing.”

His last entry: “I am sure I am going wrong and I will not stand for it.”

Contents of the Natick Hotel, built in 1883, were auctioned off in 1950, with marble-topped washstands and dressers selling for $15-$20. The building where Teddy Roosevelt and Enrico Caruso once stayed was demolished to make way for—a parking lot.

In the early 1920s, Hollywood was booming. The adolescent film business had blossomed from a small by-the-seat-of-the pants mom and pop operation into a major industry backed by Wall Street, which was turning the large companies into international conglomerates. At the same time, major stars saw their compensation explode, especially if they owned their own production companies and received profit participation. Superstars like Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Harold Lloyd, and Charlie Chaplin and executives like Joseph Schenck and Thomas Ince earned more in yearly salaries than important financial, professional, and business leaders.

To acknowledge their place in the Hollywood pantheon, many of the industry’s leaders constructed elaborate mansions and showplaces outshining even that of actual royalty. Pickford and Fairbanks reigned at Pickfair, Lloyd built the magnificent Greenacres, and Frances Marion and Fred Thomson established their Enchanted Hill. Producer Thomas Ince followed along, constructing his own impressive hacienda, one that hearkened back to the glorious early days of California called “Dias Dorados.”….

Mary Mallory’s “Living With Grace” is now on sale.

Born Nov. 16, 1880, to actor parents, young Tom Ince was virtually born in a trunk, traveling on the road with his parents and brothers across the country when not left with friends of their parents. At a young age, Ince joined his parents in vaudeville and gradually worked his way up to starring in stock companies. He first played on Broadway at the age of 22 in “At the Old Crossroads.” Like any other actor when the season closed, Ince performed a variety of odd jobs while hoping to get his big break.

Looking for work in 1910, Ince stumbled upon old friend Joseph Smiley, who informed him that he was working as an assistant director for a small film company known as the Independent Motion Picture Company (IMP). Ince landed a job as a stock actor before performing in one Biograph film, “His New Lid,” which helped him land not only a raise with IMP when he returned, but also the opportunity to direct.

Ince never looked back, quickly climbing the ladder of success. He established what became known as Inceville in 1912 to shoot westerns with the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Wild West Show (later known as the 101 Bison), moving into social issue films and other realistic stories. As the company churned out more and more films, it required a system to facilitate production, leading Ince to revolutionize the industry through the creation of the continuity script and segmenting of production, per Brian Taves in his biography, “Thomas Ince: Hollywood’s Independent Pioneer.”

The innovative executive would help create the assembly line creation of film product and establish the name “Thomas Ince” as a brand signifying quality in film production during his time with Triangle. An industry leader after only eight years in the business, Ince soon established a state-of-the-art studio in Culver City in 1918.

By 1921, the overworked but ambitious Ince finally took action on creating the home of his dreams, one highlighting the romantic Spanish history of California with the name “Dias Dorados” or “Golden Days.” Taves describes how in 1921 the successful producer purchased an over thirty acre site off Benedict Canyon in Beverly Hills at $2,500 an acre to build his palatial mansion, one of the first, along with Harold Lloyd and James Kirkwood’s homes, to go up in the Beverly Park development. It would cost $250,000 to construct, and be located at 1051 Benedict Canyon Road, off of Angelo Drive.

As described in the August 1924 issue of Sunset magazine, “Situated on a height in Benedict Canon the residence was planned to view an inspiring panorama of the hills on one side and the gleaming Pacific on the other.” Architect Roy Selden Price designed a stunning hacienda out of early Mission Days, filled with elegant tile, wood carvings, fixtures, balconies, romantic arches, and other picturesque designs, one which took almost two years to build. As Universal Weekly stated in its June 4, 1927 issue, “The entire interior decorations reflect the serene tastes of a Spanish grandee and the overlord of thousands of acres under cultivation, the grandeur and glory that once was Spain.”

Entering the 35-room dwelling through an arcade and large wooden door, guests entered a huge hall, with a floor plan resembling a letter H with wings at each end and a generous exterior patio. Filled with authentic period furnishings, oak floors, timbered ceilings, and eleven fireplaces, the home featured library, 19 feet by 28 feet dining room, 20 feet by 45 feet living room with pipe organ, billiard room, play room, breakfast room, multiple bedrooms, servants’ quarters, kitchen, and elaborate projection room. Staircases inside and out led to hidden rooms. The master bedroom wing included sunken bath, steam and electric Turkish bathroom.

Visitors descended a dark narrow passageway illuminated by pressing a button at the entrance, leading to an elaborate projection room resembling a pirate ship galleon. Red and green lanterns suspended from the ceiling provided illumination as one entered with a giant stained glass figure of a ferocious pirate with a knife in his mouth in the background. Ladders, rigging, wheel, sails, and caulked floors all mimicked that of a ship 30 feet long by 8 feet wide. Pulling a cord near the pirate unrolled a white canvas screen in front of it.

One entered the billiard room through a “secret staircase” hidden behind a tapestry that opened by pressing a button, with a winding staircase leading down to the oval billiard room, all composed of native rock. Another room contained framed autographs of famous people like Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, Benjamin Franklin, Edgar Allan Poe, Marie Antoinette, and Mark Twain on the walls.

Price had hired 40-50 Mexican laborers to create authentic tile, sculpture, carvings, paintings, and furniture demonstrating Spanish craftsmanship. Tiles were painted by hand in colorful Spanish design and employed as flower boxes, facing of the risers of the hall stairs, baseboards, kitchen sink, and in bathrooms. Wrought iron torcheres, wall sconces, and plaques added period touches, as did antique rugs and stained glass windows representing California history lined the library.

Sunset stated, “While grilled balconies, tiled roofs and the patio are characteristic of Old Spain, the modifications practised by necessity in colonial Mexico and “Alta California” make the architecture of the New World even more picturesque. Blending the subtle influences of centuries of art with the force of the pioneer, the architect has here emphasized age in finish, simplicity of line and decorative details… .

In numerous other details “Dias Dorados” is a delightful mirror of an earlier century. The ollas made by potter’s wheel on the domain, primitive lamps that are moved up and down by chains, niches over the doors, rafters tied with skins, hand-woven rugs and tiles splashing their gay colors here and there, are as atmospheric as the “Rose of the Rancho.”

The exterior and grounds designed by Edward Huntsman-Trout were just as elaborate, containing fountains, bowling green, tennis courts, garage, stables, barn, working smithy, caretaker’s house, kennels, duck pond, pigeon tower, chicken ranch, orange grove, avocado orchard, walnut trees, and rose garden. What appeared to be a swimming pool was in reality a pond with actual sandy ocean beach. At one end were private dressing rooms while the other featured the beach with shaded chairs, palms, and gym equipment.

Unfortunately the mighty producer had little time to enjoy the house himself, passing away from heart and intestinal problems on November 19, 1924. His widow Elinor and children continued living in the house through 1926, after probate was settled on the almost $850,000 Ince estate, with the home valued at almost $250,000.

Missing her husband and feeling lost in the massive estate, Mrs. Ince put it up for sale after purchasing the smaller Corinne Griffith estate nearby. Universal chief Carl Laemmle purchased the house and land for $650,000, with $250,000 in cash and the rest notes, taking possession of the home and the entire furnishings February 22, 1927. Moving from his long time home in New York, Laemmle renamed the estate “Casa Grand Del Monte” and moved in with his adult children Carl Jr. and Rosabelle. Rosabelle married business Stanley Bergeron in the gardens February 2, 1929.

In July 1942, attorneys for the Laemmle estate and next door neighbor Harold Lloyd attempted to reduce taxes on the properties, with the July 30, 1942 Los Angeles Times stating they claimed “Hollywood mansions have no market because of increased income taxes, making it impossible for owners to earn enough to maintain them.”

The April 23, 1943 Jewish Post reported that the family allowed the home to serve as a rest home for wounded soldiers after they moved out. Closed for several years after the war, the family reopened it in September 1949 for a fundraiser for the Organization of Rehabilitation Through Training.

It took years for the estate to sell off the property. The city of Beverly Hills purchased 9.5 acres in 1951 to establish a school, and finally in 1955 the remaining land was sold to investor Sadie Gildred. Eventually the home and outbuildings were demolished and the land subdivided for new mansions.

While the resplendent hacienda is no more, it served as a glorious example of the rise of Alta California and the glory of early Hollywood.

The Richfield Building in an undated postcard.

Note: This is an encore post from 2013.

After years of deprivation, darkness and worry during World War I and its aftermath, America was ready to look toward a shining future of prosperity and sunshine in the 1920s. Overnight, fashion, music and the arts embraced change, style and risk-taking. Much was modeled after the 1925 Exposition International des Arts Decoratifs et Industriel Modernes in Paris, which displayed bold conceptions of applied arts, reveling in eclectic, glorious design. The new style embraced technology and the machine age, reflecting a belief in a dynamic, energetic future.

Architecture celebrated the Moderne style as well. Color, geometric shapes and lavish ornamentation replaced monochromatic massing in buildings. Triangles, sunbursts and zigzags screamed progress in modern buildings as they stretched toward the sky. New York’s Chrysler Building exemplified the new look, bold, sleek and gorgeous. The American Radiator Building also embraced the modern by daring to wreath itself in gold and black colors, a glamorous and contemporary design.

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The Richfield Building in the 1960s, courtesy of Mary Mallory

Los Angeles’ Richfield Co. looked to shake things up in Los Angeles too, by grabbing the spotlight as a leading player in the oil industry. Their new headquarters at 555 S. Flower St. would be the siren announcing their explosive future in reshaping the petroleum industry.

In late 1928, Richfield hired Morgan, Walls and Clements, one of Los Angeles’ premier architectural firms, to conceive a bold, forceful building as their headquarters. Founded by Ezra F. Kysor in 1868, Morgan, Walls and Clements evolved over the years into a leading designer of important office structures. Stiles O. Clements, their chief designer, had studied at Drexel Institute of Technology, MIT and the Beaux Arts Academy in Paris before joining the firm in 1913.

Clements embraced the Radiator Building as a model, copying its gold and black colors and vertical design of windows and lines in the downtown Richfield Building. The colors saluted Richfield’s moneymaker, its Texas tea. Turning the inside out, luxurious color and glamorous detail would jazz up the building’s exterior and dominate the bland Los Angeles’ skyline.

As David Gebhard explains in the monograph, “The Richfield Building 1928-1968, the bold and visionary sheathing was beautiful as well as functional, and an excellent match for its gold ornamentation. The Architectural Record noted that, “The walls are black to prevent undue contrast with the countless windows which might destroy the silhouette.” The gold drew out the black, giving it a sophisticated glamour that other buildings lacked. Gold highlighted the vertical nature of the windows, which the architectural firm called, “An expression of modern art and thought” in an unpublished press release.

Contractor P. J. Walker hired Consolidated Steel Co. to fabricate the steel frame on which the $1.75-million building would sit, designed by Erick and Deline, engineers. 2,300 tons of steel composed the framework, erected in a record 31 days in early 1929. Tile designed by Gladding, McBean, and Co. lined the building’s exterior. Fred Ortman of the company described the makeup of the tile in the July 14, 1929, Los Angeles Times. “On a body composed of imported English clay, local ball clay, feldspar and flint, the glazes, colored with exact percentages of iron peroxide and manganese oxide, were sprayed on in a green state and burned with bodies to form a homogeneous mass. A yellow glaze was produced as a base color for the gold, which is the genuine California article, the precious metal was then applied to this and burned twice, producing a dull, lustrous effect, which will gleam in the rays of the California sun as long as the building stands.”

A Richfield Building elevator, courtesy of Mary Mallory.

The Richfield Building’s exterior dark green tile only appeared black from the sun’s reflection off the mirrored surface. Real 14-carat gold leaf was contained in the gold surfaces lining the windows and sculptures. “The gold ornamentation is of terra cotta coated with a layer of finely pulverized gold, held in suspension in a transparent glazing solution,” per the Architectural Record.

The entrance featured Belgian black marble, Cardiff green stone trimmings, Russian bronze metalworks, Benedict nickel hardware, rubber tile on the floor, and black lacquer-coated woodwork. Six high-speed, etched metal elevator doors and two freight elevators were installed beginning April 20, 1929, the first on the West Coast. The building’s two-story underground parking garage was also one of the first ever installed in an office complex. The building itself was a giant U-shape, actually two wings united by the façade on Flower Street.

Sculptor Haig Patigian was hired to design massive, dominating gold figures lining the top of the structure, and four terra-cotta figures above the entrance. Patigian described his work in a Morgan, Walls and Clements press release. “I designed all the sculpture in question with two principles in mind – to keep in harmony with the architecture of the building and to have my ideas conform in a measure to the business and business connections of the Richfield Co. The figures around the top with their…powerful torsos and decorative design of wings…symbolized motive power.” The statues embraced the future while saluting the past, an updated copy of monumental art that had decorated structures for hundreds of years. The four figures above the entrance represented the fields of Aviation, Postal Service, Industry and Navigation, all vital to Richfield’s success.

The air-conditioned structure contained 11 floors of offices, with the 12^th the social hub of the building. Here could be found the main lobby, cafeteria, executive dining rooms, barbershop, showers, massage room, ladies’ lounge, assembly room with a stage, and rooftop garden.

Topping the luxurious wedding cake was a 125-foot-tall beacon tower, a visual play on an oil derrick, providing a searchlight for airplanes, a possible decking location for zeppelins, and a floodlight to illuminate the building. The Richfield name lined the tower’s sides in eight-foot-tall neon letters, which The Times called “a brilliant red candle in the sky.” It weighed 70,000 pounds itself. The colorful building and its flashy billboard soon dominated the downtown skyline.

The Richfield Building’s 12th floor soon became a social gathering spot for clubs, universities and other business organizations, which rented the assembly room and dining rooms for meetings, parties and conferences.

Tragedy struck on Aug. 29, 1950, when 40-year-old land and lease office attorney Dudley Eugene Brown committed suicide by jumping from a 12th floor office, climbing over a glass windbreak to jump. During the fall, Brown struck a 10^th-floor ornamental promontory, which pushed his body beyond the sidewalk and into the street.

Two painters suffered critical injuries on Aug. 12, 1953, when they fell 50 feet from scaffolding that collapsed while they painted the tower, throwing them to the 12th floor of the building. Injuries included fractured arms, legs, hip, ribs, skull, and internal injuries.

The Richfield Building, courtesy of Mary Mallory.

Unfortunately, “progress” caught up with the gorgeous building. Some people now considered the structure garish, gaudy, and a monstrosity, and new skyscrapers dwarfed its size. The Richfield Co. merged with Atlantic Refining Co. in 1966, and decided that the building was not producing enough revenue. They purchased surrounding buildings, creating a property flagged by Flower, Figueroa, 5th, and 6th Streets, and decided to turn it into a mini Rockefeller Center in 1967, called the Atlantic Richfield Plaza. The site would be composed of two 52-story towers, open space, promenades and other buildings. Louis Ream informed The Times on March 9, 1967, that “We’d like to think as big as possible – the economics of a site like this dictates that we do.” He claimed, “The building is beautiful, but it is only 54% usable. We’re planning on tearing it down, with tears in our eyes.”

Groups immediately opposed the planned destruction, arguing for preservation and inclusion of the building in the new project. Denise Scott Brown, a UCLA professor of urban design, attempted to rally supporters to fight for the building, decrying both Atlantic Richfield’s aim and the city’s destruction of Bunker Hill, “simply because we tend to despise our immediate past.” Instead of the raw and dead land left by urban renewal’s wiping away all traces of the historic past, she suggested renovating and integrating the building into the project, saying its bold design could stand up to the modern, glass structures. Unfortunately, the fledgling historic preservation movement was not strong enough to withstand the powerful forces opposing it.

Wrecking crews entered the building’s interior on Nov. 12, 1968, and began dismantling the building. The elevator doors were saved, but not much was salvaged or preserved. The Cleveland Wrecking Co. was hired to remove the 40 towering figures from the top of the structure. In two weeks, they removed them by tying chokes around their necks and waists before cutting away the concrete, leaving only the top torso of the figures. Two were decapitated, and others suffered broken noses or wing tips in the process. The company removed the figures to their yard, where they were sold for $100 each, the cost it took to remove them from the building.

Ironically, in September 1969 an exhibit at the Building Exhibition Center celebrated the centennial of Robert Clements and Associates, the heir to Morgan, Walls and Clements, with drawings of the former Richfield Building.

While the beautiful Richfield Building was lost, it helped galvanize growing support for historic preservation and reuse and adaptation of historic structures, leading to the formation of such groups as Los Angeles Conservancy and Hollywood Heritage. Today, developers and builders are rapidly renovating and rehabbing glorious apartment buildings, hotels, and theatres in downtown Los Angeles, allowing historic structures to once again shine as the lovely monuments they were intended to be.

The Los Angeles Central Library, courtesy of the library.

Los Angeles is celebrating one of its great treasures – the Central Library – this weekend on the 25th anniversary of its reopening in October 1993, seven years after a devastating fire. Among the events is an appearance by author Susan Orlean, whose “The Library Book” treats the fire as another of the city’s irresistible unsolved mysteries. (Note: A man identified as a “prime suspect” was never charged). In another author appearance, Stephen Gee will sign his book “Los Angeles City Hall: An American Icon.”

The blaze began about 11 a.m., April 29, 1986, in the periodicals stacks on the second floor and spread because of the large amount of paper and the library’s structure, which served as “four chimneys,” according to a story in the Los Angeles Times by the late Eric Malnic and Bob Baker. Firefighters first tried to access the heart of the blaze, knowing that a large amount of water would damage the collection, but as the flames spread, crews broke out upper windows and began pouring in water with fire derricks.

At 8 p.m., three hours after the fire was under control, library employees and other city workers began an all-night effort to salvage books.

The Times said:

Firefighters escorted the volunteers into the darkened, water-soaked library, breaking them into groups of five and handing each individual plastic sheeting to cover exposed books and other documents. Volunteers sloshed through wet, sawdust-filled floors lined with fire hoses and whirring machinery used in pumping water out of the building.

The toll was devastating. The Times said in 1993:

More than 400,000 books were lost. Thousands more were saved–thanks to a round-the-clock campaign by 1,700 volunteers and staff members who evacuated water-damaged books from the sooty building and placed them in freezers to prevent the growth of mold. The 1987 Whittier earthquake shook the library again, popping some of the colorful tiles off its crowning pyramid. Oil contamination was discovered on the site, as was methane gas. Asbestos had to be removed.

Taking a look at the renovated and expanded library in 1993, then-Times writer Amy Wallace called it “an expanded, ornamented, computerized treasury that is a remarkable blending of old and new.”

The appearance by Susan Orlean, with David Ulin, at 2 p.m. is sold out.

Other events include a  lecture hosted by the Culinary Historians of Southern California,  Firefighter Storytime, a Break-In Box and tours of Special Collections.

The Tam O’Shanter, as seen in the 1920s, when Los Feliz Boulevard was a dirt road. Courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library.

Opened 96 years ago, the storybook-style Tam O’Shanter Inn has always provided homey dining with stylish flair. A bit of whimsy in the middle of Atwater Village, the restaurant has evolved from simple country inn to unpretentious but romantic dining establishment.

In 1922 brother-in-laws Lawrence Frank and Walter Van de Kamp of bakery fame took over the Montgomery’s Country Inn, a box lunch stop along dusty Los Feliz Boulevard catering to drivers. The September 1938 Pacific Coast Record called establishment the United States’ first drive-in, serving some of the finest hamburgers with outstanding curb service. The magazine’s statements must be taken with a grain of salt however, as there are many errors, including claiming that MGM studio carpenters were involved in construction of the building, though the studio itself did not exist until 1924.

Mary Mallory’s latest book, “Living With Grace: Life Lessons from America’s Princess,”  is now on sale.

A 1923 ad for Montgomery’s Chanticleer Inn, later renamed the Tam O’Shanter.

Setting the stage for its transition into a wee slice of Brigadoon, the men hired famed art director Harry G. Oliver, art director for such studios as Selig, Ince, Famous Players-Lasky, and Fox, who had designed a fantasy witch-like administration building for director/producer Irvin Willat in Culver City in 1920. Oliver also devised the Dutch-inspired windmill for the Van de Kamp bakeries. His fanciful, storybook-style architecture appealed to the two men, looking to create a quaint structure reminding patrons of home.

Oliver pulled a remodeling permit October 30, 1922, to expand the modest business into a coffee shop and diner. Employing studio workers and laborers, construction finished in early 1923. Stretching hither and yon, filled with odd nooks and crannies, wavy roofs, and charming design, the hamburger stand blossomed into a romantic-themed restaurant.

On Sunday, February 4, 1923, the renamed Montgomery’s Chanticleer Inn debuted, tripling the size of the previous restaurant. The diner featured popular $2 Virginia-baked ham and Southern fried chicken dinners, along with afternoon teas.

As the February 3, 1923, ad in the Los Angeles Times described it:

“A picturesque highway Inn, remindful of old Normandy. Catering to persons of refinement. No music or entertainment. A place where you may take your family and friends for the enjoyment of fresh farm food served in the old-fashioned country style.” By March, the owners called it “California’s Quaintest Eating Place” in newspaper ads.

By 1925, the name was changed to the more romantic “Tam O-Shanter,” the name of Robert Burns’ epic poem about the drinking classes in the old Scottish town of Ayr in the late 1700s. Following this theme, the cafe, still managed by Montgomery, evolved ever more into the Scottish highlands and tales of knights and their lady faires, with flags, plaids, swords, and other decorative items, growing and expanding several times over the years.

The Pacific Coast Record claims that the restaurant’s reputation was built upon its world-famous hamburgers, all top sirloin and ground daily in the kitchen, including Los Angeles’ first “Cannibal” hamburger, this one raw. By 1938, Ralph Frank managed it for Van de Kamp and Lawrence Frank.

Walt Disney, left, Tam O’Shanter co-owner L.L. Frank and building designer Harry Oliver in 1957, celebrating the restaurant’s 35th anniversary.

A Hollywood fantasy version of the moors, Tam O’Shanter featured walls decorated with mottos and framed tartans of Scottish Highlanders, under which girls dressed in plaid skirts provided meal service. For equestrian friends riding in from the Griffith Park trails nearby, the restaurant featured the “Horsepitality Room,” decorated with bridles and saddles and featuring prints of riding academies on the walls.

Thanks to its location near Hyperion Avenue, animators from the fledgling Disney Studios often visited, with studio head Walt Disney quickly becoming enamored of the restaurant. The Record also clamed that the restaurant had been featured in several early films, though I can find no titles to back that up. Some books claim that such celebrities as Mary Pickford and Cecil B. DeMille supposedly enjoyed the romantic atmosphere over the years, though I find no record of that in the Media History Digital Library.

In 1930, the Montgomery Food Co. applied for a permit to remove the exterior and move the building back twenty feet, due to widening of streets and sidewalks. Over the next few years, they continued enlarging and decorating the building.

After an explosion in 1947, they once again expanded and romanticized the structure. Renowned architect Wayne McAlister devised plans for new waiting and cocktail rooms in 1951. By 1967, the restaurant, now part of the Lawry (variation of the word “Lawrence) chain, was rechristened the Great Scot. Owners came to their senses and returned the name to Tam O’Shanter in 1982.

Still a romantic salute to the past, the whimsical Tam O’Shanter hearkens back to a more graceful, slower time, one celebrating a rural and elegant past.

Update: This is a post from 2006. The location was identified by Crime Buddy Nathan Marsak as Olive Street, with Philharmonic Auditorium and Pershing Square in the background.

Here’s a frame grab from the opening shots of “Double Indemnity.” According to the script, the car driven by Walter Neff speeds through an intersection, narrowly avoiding a delivery truck bearing the sign: “READ THE LOS ANGELES TIMES.”

But tinkering with the photo (the original is very dark, after all we are talking about film noir) shows that the truck apparently reads “Los Angeles Examiner.” Although it’s difficult to be positive, the elaborate “E” on the second line almost surely gives it away as the Examiner. It certainly isn’t the Los Angeles Times. Either way, it’s definitely a newspaper truck as bundles of papers tumble from the back when the driver slams on the brakes.

Here’s one of my favorite passages from the script, describing the Dietrichson house:

“Spanish craperoo in style, as is the house throughout. A wrought-iron staircase curves down from the second floor. A fringed Mexican shawl hangs down over the landing. A large tapestry hangs on the wall. Downstairs, the dining room to one side, living room on the other side visible through a wide archway. All of this, architecture, furniture, decorations, etc., is genuine early Leo Carrillo period. Neff has edged his way in past maid who still holds the door open.”

As for the location, my guess is Hill and 3rd Streets, across from Grand Central Market. Any other ideas?

Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

Nov. 3, 1907
Los Angeles

Mrs. E.N. Eskey is building this 10-room house in Pico Heights, on Van Ness just south of Pico.

According to The Times, the two-story house (with basement) has a first floor divided into a reception hall with an oak staircase leading upstairs. The living room features built-in bookcases and a massive brick mantel. The dining room has a built-in buffet and china closet, with a pantry and kitchen.

The floors are quarter-sawn oak on the first floor and maple flooring in the rest of the house. The Times says there are four chambers, presumably bedrooms, a sewing room and a bathroom upstairs, as well as an alcove.

In the basement, a coal bin and a Rudd heater.

The cost? $5,000 ($102,617.85 USD 2005) a bargain by today’s standards. Note that in March 2004, 1244 S. Van Ness sold for $1,037,500.

Check out Zillow.com

Update: This house is still standing and has been painted blue. I’ll post some photos once I get the film developed (yes, I’m old-school).