Pasadena Mosaic

I've passed this beautiful mosaic a few times, on Raymond Ave.and Holly Street, right across Raymond from the Pasadena Memorial Park buildings. There are actually two mosaics, which explains the title of the artwork: TWO URNS.

The artist is Anne Marie Karlsen, and the mosaics were installed in 2009. They are about 15 feet tall by 5 feet wide, and made of stone and glass.

Exactly what type of stone and glass is listed in detail on the City of Pasadena's Art Search page.  The mosaic is designed to change as the sun moves across it during the day.

The address is 125 N. Raymond, and the building next door is a theater, restored but originally built in 1921 as Jensen's Raymond Theater. The mosaic art was designed to reflect the appearance, inside and out, of the Raymond Theater--now combined with the building next door to form the Raymond Renaissance, a retail and living space.

From an undated Atlas Obscura article, I learn that the theater was owned by David Lee Roth's father in the 1970s, which is a nice bit of trivia. Then, sold to a new owner named Mark Perkins, it became Perkins Palace, a rock venue. Guns N Roses, R.E.M. and other bands played there, and the performance scenes in This is Spinal Tap were filmed on its stage. The exterior was used in Pulp Fiction.

Much more is related at Cinema Treasures, which adds The Rose and The Bodyguard to its film credits, as well as several music videos.  A detailed history focused on the Perkins Palace years can be found at Hometown Pasadena.

It was the manager of the theater during this period, a lady named Gina Zamperelli, who waged a 20-year fight to save the theater from developers - actually, from one particular developer who even drove a bulldozer into the side of the theater out of spite.

So ... that's the building next door. The mosaics are inspired by that place, but sit on a newer 5-story brick building that went up in 2008, and is now largely condos, except for the ground floor. I saw one rental available, a one bedroom, for $2800 a month.

You can read more about artist Anne Marie Karlsen here. She's done a lot of public art works - many that I recognize. I blogged about the Nordhoff Station of the Metro, Orange Line and  the fountain at Paseo Colorado. Karlsen also created art on the parking garage at Santa Monica Place, the Lawndale Library, and several mosaics on cruise ships.

West Wing's Tornado Disaster

I just learned that the town hit by a tornado in the 5th season of The West Wing (episode "Disaster Relief") was actually represented by my home town, San Pedro. 7th Street and Centre Street, to be exact. 

Of course, lots of special CGI effects were added, but yup, that's us. The "Glenn R. Th" that you see to the right is actually the old Liberty Auditorium, which is now being refurbed and opening as the Port Town Brewery. 

The Brewery is not open yet; their Facebook page shows pictures of the construction and progress being made. Below is a picture of the building when it's not been ravaged by a TV-land tornado. 

The Liberty Auditorium was a dance hall built in 1918. Apparently it was a garage for a few decades too, but at the time the TV episode was filmed, it had been vacant for several years.


Right next door, with the Wiley Feeds sign, is All O Fit, a gym, and next to that a law office. It had a torn up awning in the show.

I understand the street scene, with upended trees and cars and debris strewn everywhere, stayed unpassable for close to three weeks while the show filmed. 

Below on the left, you see the back of what is now the Crowne Plaza that faces 5th Street.  Beyond that is the 7-story Municipal Building that had a jail on the top for many years. 

Across the street from this devastation was a vacant lot. It's vacant no more. The San Pedro Bank Lofts went up there about ten years ago. But the vacant lot made it easy to film, I'm sure. 

Go, President Bartlet, go. Lead us!

Behind the president and crew, above and to the right, are two more old, three-story buildings that are also gentrified lofts now, the LaSalle Lofts. These are all lovely, interesting, historic places to live in an area full of artists, but residents must deal with homeless folks on the street - something they probably didn't plan on a few years ago when they bought their lofts. 

I'll ramble a question here. What has worked to help the homeless? I hear lots of debate about why this or that plan will work or won't work, but surely there must be something that has worked well in other cities. Let's do that! 

Why am I just learning about this filming now? I never watched The West Wing when it was on. It's a long tradition with me, never watching popular and great shows when they are fist broadcast. I don't even watch Star Trek series until they've been seasoned for a few years. The advantage is that I can watch them all without waiting for next week and the new episode.

People have been telling me to watch The West Wing for years. I finally started, and now I'm hooked. I want this alternate history. With the real news that's on TV today, The West Wing has become my happy place.

Sadly, I have only one more season to go. But my plan is to start on Mad Men next.

Sea Hunt Locale: Marineland & Terranea

Who remembers Sea Hunt? I was surprised to learn it only ran for four seasons (1958-1961) because it seemed such a big part of my childhood TV viewing. And everyone watched it!

Here's a bit of trivia. Did you know that Leonard Nimoy appeared in eight episodes? Long before Nimoy was Spock, he was a bad guy named Tyler, and a jerk named Finn, an abalone diver named Johnny, and more.

Many episodes of the show--including some in which Lloyd Bridges' son Jeff appeared--were filmed at Marineland of the Pacific.

I wrote about Marineland's history for Patch a few years ago. It was the second marine-life water park, not the first. The first--Marine Studios--opened in Florida in 1938, and it was a smash. So the owners decided to try something even bigger out west.

The same architect that would design LAX's Theme Building, William Pereira, laid out Marineland in the mid-50s. But there were no fishies until the very last minute. Just a month before the scheduled opening, a ship was sent out to collect marine life to fill the aquariums and tanks. The four original dolphins that performed were flown in from Florida, where they'd been trained at Marine Studios.

The new park was not successful at first, so the owners decided they needed something like a whale to wow the crowd. I like to think Mike Nelson would not go along with that reasoning.

Anyway, the same ship that had collected fish was now tasked with finding a whale. Skipper Frank Brocato and his godson Boots Calandrino were up to the challenge, studying whales and devising their own equipment to capture one. Calandrino described it all for Westways Magazine years later. The whale they caught was only 12 feet long, and no one knew if whales could be trained to do tricks. But just having her, the owners thought, would bring in more customers.

They were right, and Bubbles exceeded all expectations. She was a whale with personality, and everyone loved her. Bubbles the whale was entertaining crowds when Sea Hunt debuted, and she continued to delight audiences into the 1980s, when. in a bit of skullduggery that locals have never quite gotten over, Bubbles was whale-napped along with many other creatures, and shipped to San Diego. Marineland closed, and the property sat empty for decades.

There's Marineland, above right. And below on the left, is Terranea Resort, the expansive luxury hotel that occupies the land today.

Terranea has a great restaurant named Nelson's, right on the coast. And it's named in honor of Lloyd Bridges' character in Sea Hunt, scuba diver Mike Nelson.

Pictures of the TV show like the one above line the walls. Dozens of them, and 8 by 10 glossies as well, along with other memorabilia, like a rowboat hung from the ceiling.

You have to hike to get from the parking lot to Nelson's, which is way out by the water. But it's worth it. They even have an open air service area where hikers can sit with their dogs. My kinda people.

Yes, you'll pay $20 for a burger. It's a very good burger. The food at Nelson's is more than excellent. The blackened salmon on my salad was probably the best salmon I've had in a couple of years, and the others in my group were equally enthralled by their meals. We're all still smilin' when we think about them.

The only bad thing is that all the Sea Hunt stuff is indoors. And the best place to sit, weather permitting, is outdoors.

The view is too gorgeous and the sun too dazzling to stay inside. So you'll only see the cool stuff on your way to the bathroom.

And if the whole Sea Hunt nostalgia isn't enough to float your boat, remember that this is the site where the original fort around Port Royal was built for the movie Pirates of the Caribbean, The Curse of the Black Pearl. The ship sailed all over this coast line, from Redondo Beach to Long Beach. Some shots of the Pearl appearing from behind a bluff are recognizably located in PV. Here's a picture from Steve Zepeda's MySpace page of the filming.

From PV to Bell and Facebook

Long time no see!

I don't want to abandon this blog about Los Angeles history, because I still love the topic. I know that others find it interesting too.

But long, well-researched posts  are time-consuming, and I can't commit to them.

Almost daily, I run across fascinating articles that I think would make great blog posts, but if I took the time to pursue them I wouldn't have time to make a living!

Here's an example--Sam Gnerre of the Daily Breeze wrote this blog post last year titled "Marineland's tumultuous final days," He details the skullduggery of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, the last corporate overlords of the late lamented attraction, which makes a fascinating and tragic tale.

The posts on Sam Gnerre's blog, called South Bay History, go into detail about things like the Harbor City Ice Rink (which is still there!), the Tongva village of Suangna, bootlegging during Prohibition--when rum runners landed at Portuguese Bend and other coastal sites, and much more.

Follow his blog; you won't be sorry.

Zocalo is another site where you can find Los Angeles history stories, which is odd because Zocalo is actually a product of Arizona State University.

Their stories are usually accompanied by in-depth analysis--like this one that starts with a summing up of the scandal in the city of Bell. But as author Joe Mathews says, "The sense of triumph we feel after getting past a scandal is part of our problem." 

The small towns in our area have complex financial issues, partly because we've saddled them with so many regulations and laws. But it's still possible to cheat, and officials are often desperate. It's a thought-provoking tale.

Zocalo's featured a first-hand account of Martin Luther King's Freedom Rally at the Sports Arena in the early 1960s, written by then-teenager Ellen Broms, and artist Barbara A. Thomason's story about her 100 paintings exploring the not-so-famous views of Los Angeles. These are unique tales that you probably won't find anywhere else.

Pointing you toward articles like these seems a good reason to blog.

The internet landscape has changed in the eight years since I started the History Los Angeles blog. Social media--most especially Facebook--circulates so many bits of Los Angeles history that a blog can't possibly keep up.

Do you follow the Facebook pages Photos of Los Angeles and SoCal Historic Architecture, which post both old and new photos (and often overlap)? Photos like this one of Tom Breneman's restaurant on Vine. Followers then chime in with bits of information and memories of the place. Breneman hosted a radio show called "Breakfast in Hollywood" from this place in the 40s, and folks all over the US tuned in. Facebook fans responded to this picture with a half dozen black and white photos of the restaurant, including an old ad for the show, and bits of trivia like the fact that the restaurant closed with Breneman's death in the late 40s and was briefly an ABC studio, and that a movie with Zasu Pitts was filmed using the radio show as a plot and setting.

Now you can't beat that. Facebook is interactive, and blogs--though you can leave comments--really aren't.

So I'm going to blog periodically, but mostly I'll be rounding up other sites and linking to them.

Boardner's

Boardner's--on Cherokee, near Hollywood Blvd--has been in business since 1942. The picture at right is recent though. Boardner's was used in the movie Gangster Squad (starring Ryan Gosling) and that's why Cherokee was lined with vintage cars and men in fedoras.

The tilted neon sign is exactly the same, but the painted brick and posters, as well as the red awning, were added for the movie. 

Below is a picture of the sign at night--taken in 2012, same as Gangster Squad: the year that Boardner's turned 70. Not sure who to credit these pictures to--they are posted on several sites.

Before it was Boardner's though, it was a speakeasy upstairs, and a beauty shop called Morressy's Hair Salon downstairs. And before that, when it was founded in 1927, it was called My Blue Heaven, after the song. The owner was none other than the songwriter, Gene Austin.

Steve Boardner came along in 1942, when he lost his lease at the Cross Roads of the World (at Sunset and Las Palmas) and was looking for a new place for his bar and restaurant. Steve established the Boardner's we know today--upstairs and down. Out with the beauty salon, in with the bar.

Here's a short list of the movies Boardner's has been in:

• Ed Wood
• LA Confidential
• Hollywood Homicide,
• Wag the Dog
• Leaving Las Vegas

TV shows include NCIS-LA, Don't Trust the B in Apt. 23, Numbers, Angel, and Cold Case. That is not a complete list at all.

Boardner's biggest claim to fame may be that it's believed to be the last place where Black Dahlia victim Elizabeth Short was seen alive. Other stories are mentioned at Boardner's website.

That picture of W.C.Fields was over the booth I sat at. It's real. He signed it back in the 1940s. 

Through the main bar is a patio with stage, and the floor out there is authentically old but not conducive to spiky heels. Here's a shot of it from above through a window, and another of some of the detail. Only a true history geek would take pictures like these (thanks, Flo!)

Back in the early days, this patio was for customers who parked behind--the building was the first in LA to have a drive-in business. 

The entire building that encloses Boardner's is called the Cherokee building, and was designed by Norman Alpaugh--including the patio.

The upstairs room, which used to be the speakeasy, has been goth-ed up with an antique bar that once was at the Biltmore Hotel, and murals that replicate stained glass from the Pere la Chaise Cemetery of France. So what's not original, in other words, evokes a sense of "divine decadence." Although you do need to give your eyes time to get used to the darkness.

I'd just like to add that they serve great macaroni and cheese. And other stuff, too--fabulous nachos--but good mac & cheese is a big weakness of mine.

If you ask really nicely they'll probably give you a copy of their 5-page history, which includes a list of the celebrity regulars that have stopped by over the years. Some of the names have their regular drinks listed--W. C. Fields, it turns out, drank Coke there. Ed Wood liked scotch and water; Mickey Mantle came in for bourbon & ginger ale. Phil Harris ordered coffee and anisette.

Recommended Los Angeles History Events

The LA Conservancy is offering a special tour of the restored Wilshire Boulevard Temple--a restoration that cost $47.5 million, which should make you feel better about the quotes you're getting for your roof.

That includes a docent-led tour of the original 1929 buildings; a performance by William Beck on the temple's pipe organ (I don't know how these things are measured but the organ has 4,000 pipes so I'm guessing the sound is spectacular); and talks by temple leaders and preservation architect Brenda A. Levin, FAIA, who oversaw the restoration.

The four-hour tour takes place on April 27.

But . . .

If tales of true crime are more your thing, Esotouric presents a Black Dahlia Bus Tour, departing at noon on April 5 from the Millennium Biltmore. You should return to the Biltmore in time for high tea, which strikes me as an odd thing for Esoutouric to point out because I wouldn't imagine that crime voyeurs are into high tea. I could be wrong (I often am).

I've mentioned the Da Camera Society before--that's the chamber music group that performs at historic homes and venues around Los Angeles. They'll be at the Doheny Mansion under the TIffany Dome on April 12 (Shoenberg & Tchaikovsky, followed by a catered reception) and on April 26 (jazz piano, followed by champagne & dessert). On May 3, several soloists will perform music by Corelli, Bruch, Debussey, Beethovan, and Dvorak. Is that varied enough? Is it even legal?

Chamber music--classical concerts in general--can be pricey, but Da Camera's Dance and Design events on April 5 & 6 are only $25 per ticket. Enjoy live dance and discussion about dance--specifically, Fred Astaire's dancing. (But not at the Doheny locale.)

Here are some other dates from their schedule:

• April 27 at Artemesia in the Hollywood Hills

• May 9th at the Farmers & Merchants Bank downtown with very modern music

• May 18 at the San Gabriel Mission Playhouse

This last item is not an event but just a fun read: pictures of the Dresden Room highlight a blog post on "Friend Visiting from Out of Town Wants to Go to the Bar from Swingers" It appeared in LA Weekly and reminds me that we in Los Angeles (and environs) get to hang out at some pretty cool places.

Johnie's Coffee Shop and Dream of Simultaneous Connection

Two items today;

First, Johnie's Coffee Shop on Wilshire has been declared a historic-cultural landmark.

I have two standout memories of Johnie's. The first was in the mid 1970, when I had an hour to kill between job interview downtown. I was lost--the building on Wilshire are nothing if not intimidating to someone who's never worked there. Johnie's was the friendliest looking place around. Big blue and white roof (I didn't know Googie from Gaga back then), totally unsophisticated and unlike all those skyscrapers with their tinted glass windows. I sat at the counter and drank coffee.

The second memory is of the movie Miracle Mile, which I loved. In that film the early morning crowd--really early, like 3 AM --doesn't believe a guy who comes in, all shaken up, saying he just heard that nuclear warheads are heading toward Los Angeles. Until Tasha Yar (well, the actress Denise Crosby who will always be Tasha Yar to me) uses a gigantic cell phone to call her friends in DC, only to hear that they're all getting out of town. And things go downhill from there.

Johnie's has been closed since 2000, but gets leased out for films. I'm told bits of The Big Lebowski and Resevoir Dogs were filmed there as well as several music videos. (Lebowski also filmed at Dinah's in Culver City).

It opened as Romeo's in 1956, but its location was under consideration as a Purple Line Metro Construction staging area, according to the LA TImes. Now, they're talking about it reopening when the Metro Station is up and running.

The second item is a throwback to the previous post about a mosaic sculpture along Ocean Blvd. in Long Beach--the previous post, just last Monday.

Timing is everything, and my timing was off. I drove by the art today and this is what I saw.

Since there was some scaffolding in place on the upper floors of the building as well, I'm assuming the artwork is being protected against stray spritzes from either a texture or paint coat.

Airport Mosaics

This post will not be about the Long Beach Airport WPA mosaics, because I've blogged about them before, here and here.

No, today's post is for travelers. We have fifty-year-old mosaic walls along the concourses as LAX.

And travelers who see those walls are often going or coming to other airports that sport mosaics so we'll mention those as well.

But first: LAX.

Interior designer Charles Kratka installed the LAX walls--each 300 feet long--in 1961.

At the time, Kratka was the head of Interior Design for the airport, answering to William Pereira and Charles Luckman,

 His idea was to make pedestrians think of the changing seasons, his daughter said. But as the Los Angeles Times pointed out in his 2007 obituary, tour guides today interpret them geographically. The blue as you start down the tunnel represent the sea, and the gold and brown tones are our nation's heartland. Apparently there is one vertical line of red right in the middle (I don't remember that), then at the other end, blue again: Sea to shining sea.

I've included a picture of that red stripe below, after the video.

Here's a YouTube video of the Terminal 4 mosaic--must be one of the few still open. From the comments I see that the fabricator was Alfonso Pardinas of Byzantine Mosaics in San Francisco.

It's also visible in Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown.

I haven't noticed them lately, so I was not surprised to read that many of these walkways were closed after 9/11, in the interest of tightened security. Not all are closed though.

In the early and mid-60s, my Grandma used to visit relatives in Utah once or twice a year, and walking along those corridors to take her to the plane or greet her on her return is a vivid memory. (That and her mink stole. She always broke that out to travel in style.)

After the 60s, they looked very dated to me--not bright or curvy enough to compete with more psychedelic designs. But 50s stuff--or more properly, Mid Century Moderne--is very much back in style now, so people can appreciate these mosaics once more.

The two pictures of LAX's mosaic is borrowed from the DesignerNotes blog.

NOTE: I've since learned that these mosaics are claimed by artist Janet Bennett, who worked for Charles Kratka. She is trying to clear the misperception that he designed these walls, and you can read more about that in my later blog post.

Now as to other airports:

A Wall Street Journal piece by Scott McCartney titled "Airports for Art Lovers" pointed out a few mosaics among the sculptures, light shows, and murals that ornament our terminals (LAX's mosaics did not get a mention.--his focus was on art installed in the last decade). He tells how many factors have combined since 9/11 to create areas--large open atriums, for example--that are ideal for art.

So here are some mosaics from airports around the country:

First, at Reagan International Airport in Washington DC, on Concourse C and Concource B, there are several floor mosaics in the forms of medallians worthy of your attention. The pictures are from the Public Art Photo Albums of the Metro Washington Airports Authority. There are man more pictures and more artists, so please take a look.

The first is based on a map of the Chesapeake Bay, by artist Joyce Kozloff:

The second is by Michele Oka Doner: It's called "Flight" and is of terrazzo and cast bronze:

Moving on to Miami International, another work by Michele Ok Doner is titled "A Walk on the Beach," which was done in the early 90s. Two thousand cast bronze images reflect the sea life of South Miami Beach:

Here is one from Lambert St. Louis Airport called "New Village" by artist Alicia LaChance, a native of St. Louis:

This next one is on a staircase leading to the car rental facility in the Kansas City Airport (Missouri).

There are tons more. I may do another post on international mosaics, since airports in Russia, Tunisia, and other countries have beautiful mosaics.
I'll finish with some of the MANY mosaics at Dallas Ft. Worth Airport. More than 20 artists participated in creating mosaics, and you see thumbnails of all the different works (very frustrating, though, because the pictures don't link to more information).

The Dallas-Ft Worth airport is also full of sculpture, glass and much more.

This particular 20-ft wide medallions in Terminal D shows cypress trees and snowy egrets, and is by artist Arthello Beck.

The "Concentric Orbs" are by Ted Kincaid, 22 feet across.

Mosaics Changing Hands

A roundup of changes in the LA Mosaic community:

The former Home Savings and Loan Tower in Pomona--one of the buildings that anchored the open-air Pomona Mall back in the mid-60s when it was built, thanks partly to the efforts of Millard Sheets--has been a Chase Bank for a few years now.

According to this article in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, the building is being sold to Western University for $4.2 million.

Superficially, things won't change much. Chase signed--or will sign--a 10-year lease with the building's new owner and continue to run its bank on the ground floor. Plus, since Chase has already spent a considerable amount of money restoring the facade of the building, the mosaic was never really in danger. But everyone seems pretty happy about the change.

Another building that Millard Sheets designed and filled with art, the Scottish Rite Masonic Temple on Wilshire, was purchased last summer by Maurice and Paul Marciano, the founders of Guess.

I've never blogged on that particular building because, besides hearing how beautiful it is, I really never had too much information on it, and no pictures. It's been empty for nine years. But this Los Angeles Times story says that the Marciano Brothers will keep the building intact and turn it into a museum, moving part of their huge art collection into it. It will occasionally be opened up to the public.

The Times also mentions that part of the movie National Treasure was filmed there. Hmmm.

Here's a mosaic that I did blog about. It was at the Summers Studio Art Academy in Lomita, but has been removed from the building on Lomita Blvd. It's going to be installed in a new area of UCLA Harbor General Hospital on Carson St. in Carson--not too far away--early next year. The art studio is creating a new mosaic--again with the help of local artists and students--to hang in its place in a few months.

And finally--I don't think I mentioned this before--the WPA mosaic "Recreations of Long Beach" is now the centerpiece of Harvey Milk Promenade Park, on 3rd Street in Long Beach.

This post has its history; briefly, forty artists worked to assemble this mosaic in 1936-1938, led by Albert Henry King, Stanton MacDonald-Wright, and Henry Nord. For years it rested over the entrance of the Municipal Auditorium. That building was torn down in 1975 to make way for the Terrace Theatre & environs, and for a long time it was part of the parking structure for the downtown mall--a beautiful part of the structure, but really not a worthy placement of a work of art.

So on what would have been Milk's 82nd birthday, ground was broken to create a small park in his honor. It opened in May of 2013. The Long Beach Press-Telegram printed all the details--who worked for it, who was honored at the opening, why Harvey Milk was being celebrated--but they left out any mention of the mosaic. Go figure.

So here's a big picture:

Corky's Retro Vibes

Charles Phoenix was at Corky's earlier this week (follow his FB page if you love mid-century kitsch) and the place looks wild.

Of course, in this instance I am defining wild as something brighter than Pepto-Bismol. Your results may vary.

Armet and Davis designed the joint--you know them, right? They designed so many Googie-style places, like the original few Norms, Pann's Coffee Shop, the Wich Stand (now Simply Wholesome), Johnie's Coffee Shop on Wilshire,  Bob's Big Boy in Toluca Lake, the LAX Theme Building, and more.

If you love Googie, check out this Road Trip Slide Show, courtesy of James Horecka,

Here's another photo of Corky's interior, with John Gilmore, writer, glowering at the camera of That Man Ray . . . From Venice (taken from the blog of the same name.)  Ray calls Gilmore the "quintessential L.A. noir writer," which fits since he's penned books on crime in our city, like Severed: The True Story of the Black Dahlia Murder

Corky's started life in 1958 as Stanley Burke's Coffee Shop on Van Nuys Blvd, according to this article from the Sherman Oaks Patch.

(Let me just digress to say that I hope all our LA-area Patches survive the coming apocalypse, since they are a great source of community-interest articles that would otherwise be relegated to blogs like this. My fondest dream would be for Patch to thrive and be able to actually pay writers again!)

Anyway, Hal Lifson in Patch writes that Stanley Burke's changed to the always open, 24/7 Corky's in the early 60s, and stayed that way for 25 years. Billy Joel played piano there in the 70s.

Then it became the Lamplighter. And toward the end of its life as The Lamplighter, it served as a location in the 2010 version of Nightmare on Elm Street. This picture is from the ItsFilmedThere blog, highlighting film locations in Chicago & LA. I suspect this is a screencap from the film; it shows the same booth that Mr. Gilmore sat in above.

Now it's Corky's again. With that rechristening came a retro renovation, so I do not know for sure which parts are really really new, which are original, which are imitative of the original, and which are the rich fantasies of decorators gone wild. And which photos have had the colors tweaked a bit, though I have my suspicians. But it's all good.

(BTW, there is an Inland Empire-based chain of Corky's Restaurants--not related.)

August 20 (2013) talk in Venice on Buster Keaton Film

This comes straight from their email announcement:

The Films and Career of Buster Keaton including his famous Venice Film by Elaina Archer  August 20th at 7:00 pm (Venice, CA)— 

The Venice Historical Society (VHS) has scheduled a classic evening watching the Cameraman, a famous Keaton film featuring an important aspect of Venice history with a site remembered by many early bathers as their favorite place in Venice – The Venice Plunge. Film Historian and documentary filmmaker, Elaina Archer will be presenting this wonderful program about Keaton’s career and discussing his tremendous contribution to the world of comedy. ...
Tuesday, August 20th, at 7:00 pm, and will be held at S.P.A.R.C. (Old Venice Police Department Building), 685 Venice Boulevard, Venice, California, 90291. Free for VHS members. $5 for non-members. Snacks available.

CBS Studio Center

So, Studio City . . . besides mosaics, what else you got?

Duh. The name is Studio City. So here are some pictures of CBS Studio Center.

This is part of New York Street. Every studio has a NY Street, right? But I am assured by someone who knows--well, actually, someone who knows someone who met someone who knows--that one of these two fire escapes was in the final scene of Pretty Woman. Yup, one of these two is is the one Richard Gere climbed up to get to Julia Roberts.

I'm told.

CBS Studio Center, btw, was founded in 1928 by Mack Sennett of Keystone Kops fame. He'd been making movies for 15 years and needed a bigger studio, so he bought this former lettuce ranch bounded by the LA River.

Sadly, Sennett declared bankruptcy during the Depression and other companies rented, then bought the studio complex--an outfit made up of about five different film companies, which collectively called itself Republic Pictures.

The picture to the left is there simply because I like the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I have no idea what the big LIPS were used for at the CBS Studio Center.

Republic Pictures made lots and lots of Westerns, then they wound down in the late 1950s and the studios became rental property again.

In 1962, CBS was looking for a studio lot on which to film about four hours a day of local programming. They rented the center for five years and put a CBS sign up, then in 1967 they bought the place outright.

One TV show filmed there (among many dozens, maybe hundreds) was Gilligan's Island, and this is the Gilligan's Island lagoon. It was built in 1964, after filming a couple of episodes of the series at Malibu and Zuma beach proved problematic, because of fog.

According to this article in the Los Angeles Times, the lagoon was paved over in 1995--thirty years after the series. Bob Denver recalled that they couldn't shoot in the lagoon until after 9 am, because of the noise of rush hour traffic from the nearby freeway. The huts and other parts f the island were constructed on sound stages.

You cannot tour CBS Studio Center outright, the way you can some other studios. You might get in as an audience member, if you want to see The Talk or a few other shows filmed. You might also be lucky enough to be invited as a guest to a wedding or luncheon or meeting there. Carla's Cafe, the on-site commissary and caterer, does special events and has fabulous food so you'll be lucky on two counts.

MGM in 1962

Shorpy displayed this photo, which originally ran in Look Magazine, of a scene being shot in Culver City for the Dr. Kildare TV show. That's Richard Chamberlain standing to the right, and the photo was taken by Earl Theisen.

The Shorpy on the back of the Dodge Dart had to have been Photoshop'd in--but look, it even has a reflection!

This other photo (on the left) showing the car from the front got a lot of comments: several folks id'd the camera as an Arriflex 2C, a mobile, handheld camera developed in Germany and used by Leni Riefenstahl--a fascinating bit of trivia. In the smaller photo, Chamberlain is driving.

An astute commentator (on Shorpy) said the location was on Culver Blvd., just inside the Menton Gate. The place is now Sony studios, of course, but the buildings haven't changed much. Big tree is definitely gone (hey, this was 51 years ago!) but I think some of the buildings are the same.

In fact, if you look at this Google maps location, I think you'll see that the brick building inside the lot just to the right of the tree shows up-the second story anyway, and the taller building beyond it is visible.

If I'm oriented correctly, that means a big ol' parking garage now covers the left side of this studio street. and the water tower would be just behind and to the right of the top picture.

Alexandria Hotel, News on Her Second Century

The 107-year-old Alexandria Hotel holds some secrets. I've written about the hotel's history--a rich tale, because this is a place where Charlie Chaplin once lived, Gloria Swanson married, presidents and world leaders stayed, and early Hollywood moguls struck deals, etc. And it has a ghost, rumored to be no less than Rudolf Valentino.

That's all in the first century, of course. What is unique about the Alexandria is that it enjoys a second century--in Los Angeles, that's an anomaly.

(picture at left and below are from Wikipedia, btw. For some neat "then and now" pictures, go to Bryanat Arnett's site.)

In its second century, The Alexandria Hotel has been a film location for the Spiderman movies (because it does look like New York, which has many old hotels) and has been subdivided into micro lofts (learn about that here) (I guess that means it's no longer a hotel, since ALL usable rooms have been converted).

But did you know there's another unused wing of The Alexandria, a seven-story wing that was shut up in 1934 and has sat abandoned ever since? And that wing has a new owner who is planning to bring it back to life.

The picture above is of the Palm Court, dating back to the glory days of the hotel. It's amazing, isn't it, that the stained glass survived? But as the hotel got run down, this became a room that no one used, so it was pretty much left alone--except for boxing matches.

Seriously. There's an incredibly detailed and well-cited article on the Palm Court, including a list of the notable events that took place there, on Wiki.

Anyway, back to the new owner of the boarded-up section:

The owners are an investment group represented by Nick Hadim. He is not an investor, though. Hadim will be renovating an unused, abandoned wing of the Alexandria. A flurry of articles just before and after last Halloween (2012) reported on this. You can read about it in:

• Los Angeles Times (and there's a photo spread there too)

• LA Curbed

• Los Angeles Downtown News

• KPCC (NPR)  This piece goes into the history of the abandoned wing a little more, and has a picture of the whole hotel where the wing is circled so you can see it in context. "Wing" is a misnomer.

Basically, Hadim's investors bought the wing for $2 million and plan to create luxury apartments in it. (The original Alexandria are micro-lofts, remember? Teensy. Only the very largest have a bedroom!) And he wants to add a two-floor subterranean nightclub.

My snide comment that I can't stop myself from typing: Everyone who can afford at least $1700 a month for a small apartment and wants to live on top of a noisy, trendy night club and look out the window to see people puking, raise their hand!

The new wing will be called the Chelsea Building, and Hadim is planning to spend $3 million on it. He'll have to add elevators and stairs, because none exist in this wing--which is actually an annex, added to the hotel in 1910.

Seven floors and no stairs means that Hadim's investors bought the joint more-than-half sight unseen. The first, second, and seventh floors are the only ones he could access.

The picture above at right, from our LA library's collection, shows the hotel in 1950. The wing/annex/slice in question is out of sight--it would be about 20 feet to the right or the right edge, I think.

The 35 new apartments planned will all be under 700 feet, and Hadim announced a rental price of $2.50 per square foot. All pending permits, of course. So even though the PR refers to them as luxury units, the luxury is not in space.

I really want to see how this all turns out; the renovations are supposed to be done by the end of this year.