Reading LA History: LAX, Cat & Fiddle, Van Upp

I've written about the mosaic walls at LAX before, but tonight I'll point you to an article in DesignObserver about Janet Bennett, who claims to have designed those mosaics. I hope enough people will pay attention to make it official.

As far as I know, Janet's boss in 1960 (when she worked for Periera and Luckman, the architects of the Los Angeles International Airport) never claimed credit for the mosaic walls. After he died, however, they became part of his legacy as the designer of the airport's interior - rightly or wrongly. Janet Bennett, who left Los Angeles for other projects before the mosaics were installed, says she designed them, and the fact that a fresh-out-of-school young female artist didn't get proper credit in 1960 probably surprises no one.

The Cat & Fiddle in Hollywood is gone, and the new tenants want to return it to its former days. Before it was a British-style pub, the restaurant with the huge patio was the Mary Helen Tea Room with an enchanted garden. In fact, that's how it started life in 1927, during Prohibition. A bit of its history is here, in posts from the Hollywood Gastronomical Haunts blog.

Eater (the source of this photo) has posts about the new folks moving in, chef April Bloomfield and restaurateurs Ken Friedman, and about the history of the place.

Ever hear of Virginia Van Upp? She was a screenwriter and became Hollywood's first female executive producer in 1944. Great success, and then a big, slow, fall from the heights. This piece in Hazlit.net by Christina Newland goes as in depth as possible into Van Upp's career, but leaves a lot of questions.

Finally, here's a link to Zocalo Public Square's short article on a newly donated group of photographs of Los Angeles and Santa Monica. The collection of over 4,000 pictures came from Ernest Marquez, and was donated to the Huntington Library. This one shows the Arcadia Hotel in the background, while Victorian daredevils ride a roller coaster not far from the shore in Santa Monica in the 1880s.

Christmas Vacation Reading for you

First, here are 25 Los Angeles area restaurants that happen to be over fifty years old. Some old favorites, of course, but also a few--like Cielito Lindo--I had not heard of or visited. You?

Second, seen this iconic photo from 1960? The Case Study House No. 22?

Los Angeles Magazine goes in-depth on its importance, with interviews with the architect (Pierre Koenig) and builders, the models in the photo, the owners of the home, and the photographer, Julius Shulman, who took this shot on May 9, 1960.

Sirens' Mosaics in San Pedro

Here is artist Julie Bender's latest group of works:

Mosaics in Siren's Java and Tea in San Pedro.

And at right is a photo of the mosaic in context, so you can see how it's positioned on the wall.

This mosaic is a tribute to our first responders, and plays off the double meanings of the word "sirens." They can be either ear-piercing alarms alerting us to danger, or femme fatales who sing and lure sailors to their deaths on the rocks. In some legends, mermaids are sirens.

I learned from this story in The Daily Breeze (excuse me, I should have said the Pulitzer Prize-winning Daily Breeze) that Julie Bender is a former fire fighter herself, and the owners of Siren's Java and Tea have strong family ties to fire fighters. One of the owners, Yolanda Regalado, is retired from the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department and had three brothers who were fire fighters.

Here is a link to a photo of Michael and Benjamin Pinel back in the early 80s: two of Yolanda's brothers. Benjamin, on the left, was killed shortly after this picture was taken, while fighting the arson fire at the Proud Bird Restaurant near LAX. The link has an account of that fire that most of us old folks remember well.

Julie Bender also worked that fire, so there is a deeply-felt connection that led to this mosaic tribute.

The building, at 356 W. 7th Street, is big. In fact, it used to be the home of the San Pedro News Pilot, a daily newspaper that published from 1906 to 1998. (The dates are sketchy because the paper changed its name--it was the San Pedro Daily Pilot from 1913 to 1928, and I'm not so sure it was a daily for the last few decades of its existence.)

Here's another one o' those sirens.  To round out the double meaning of sirens, Yolanda Regalado's father was a fishing boat captain. So there you go.

According to the Breeze again, before the Regalados took over a hundred cats were sharing the abandoned place with squatters.

Now, besides all the accouterments of a busy coffee and smoothie bar and restaurant, there are artifacts from the newspaper days, like framed front pages of important events. There are also tributes to the police and fire fighters on the walls: framed photos, old helmets, models of old paddy wagons and the like.

It's a great place to sit, with lots of light and a high ceiling. I think it was once the lobby, with a mezzanine so folks could look down. And they host live music some nights!

Finally, here is the gorgeous mosaic logo and name that you see when you first walk in, with a bit of the mezzanine on the right. Pretty impressive, right?

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.

Tiki Bars in Los Angeles and Beyond

Monday again? Yikes, where does the time go?

Don't answer. I know. I have 3 facebook pages to update daily, a twitter feed, and my lovely WritersCalendarLA.com site--check it out--just for a start. BUT . . .

While I gather pictures for a new Mosaic Monday post, here is some recommended Los Angeles History reading material on Tiki Bars! Who doesn't love Tiki Bars?

• This Bucket List Bar post features the five oldest such treasures in the country--and included on the list are TWO from Los Angeles County.

• While we're on the topic, here is a much more comprehensive article from LA Weekly, one year ago (OK, 13 months) listing the five top Tiki Bars in Los Angeles. I could get into that kind of research.

• The hits just keep on comin'. Thrillist published "The 17 Best Tiki Bars in America" last January. Only one (Tiki Ti) is from LA.

• The Chow blog narrowed the LA tiki-themed bars down to three in this post: Tiki Ti, Tonga Hut, and Damon's Steak House (and I'm using their picture).

Maybe this will inspire you to do your own research, because the solstice is right around the corner and where better to celebrate?

You're welcome.

Ye Olde Los Angeles Restaurant Trivia

First of all, I have a confession and a warning to make: I'm an aging Boomer, and fine print drives me nuts. My new laptop allows me to make things BIGGER! I love it. But I have no idea how that is going to affect my blog pictures and layout. So I apologize in advance if there's a lot of white space on your display . . . but be assured that mine looks greeeeaaaaatt!

Small print is on my mind because I just tortured myself by trying to read the captions on these pictures. Light gray, 8-point font gives me a headache!

But the pictures--of Los Angeles area restaurants of the 1920s and 1930s--are worth the effort.

The 1924 Airplane Cafe had wings--don't know for sure how long it was in business, but it shows up in the 1976 movie version of Bound for Glory. It's the place where Guthrie cleans a wall in exchange for a bowl of chili. The Kewpie Cafe, the Palomar Ballroom for Dining and Dancing on Vermont (which burned down in 1939), Ernie's 5 Cents Cafe on 5th Street--long gone, but tres atmospheric. Take a trip back in time on this KCET blog post.

Ernie wasn't kidding, by the way. If you blow this picture up (well, I had to blow it up) you can see that a nickel would buy you a hamburger, beef stew, any kind of sandwich, or three cookies. Think about what those items would cost now. Odd that three cookies and a bowl of beef stew cost the same, huh?

One restaurant you won't see there is Chez Jay, which I happened to pass today. The Los Angeles Conservancy site says it opened in 1959 and catered to celebrities by banning cameras and autograph seekers. Owner Jay Fiondella kept his stars cozy and happy.

The city of Santa Monica awarded Chez Jay landmark status in 2012. Even more interesting, the Santa Monica Redevlopement Agency bought Chez Jay back in 1999. The restaurant operates under a lease agreement.

Mosaic Art in Parker's Lighthouse

Today's mosaic is an opportunistic piece. p I was going to point out that the Norton Simon Museum facade is, in fact, a mosaic. It doesn't portray a landscape or person, but it is tile arranged artfully, right? And it seemed appropriate, two days before the Rose Parade which goes right by the building.

115,000 glazed tiles is nothing to sneeze at, right? And, not to be repetitive, but that is it, at right. The tiles.

Technically, though, I don't think it's ever been referred to as a mosaic facade, and I was saved (actually, you were saved) from this slip into New Year non-mosaic-ness by the simple fact that some friends invited me to Parkers' Lighthouse in Long Beach for a Goodbye 2013 luncheon.

And Parkers' Lighthouse has beautiful mosaics adorning its lobby. 

This is one set, at left. They are under a chrome counter, and I moved a bench to take this picture. Next to it is another quartet of mosaics, but an easel and daily specials where there and I didn't want to cause too much trouble. 

Rather amazing, and I could not find anything about the artist. But here is a close up picture of the fish on the upper right panel.

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.

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.)

Sidewalks in front of Clifton's Cafeteria

Are these mosaics? Let's stretch the term and say yes.

This is part of the sidewalk outside Clifton's Cafeteria on Broadway, which is currently closed for the "most comprehensive restoration since it was constructed, having served over 170 million guests since Clifford Clinton transformed the Boos Brother's Cafeteria into a forest oasis at the heart of the Urban Jungle in 1935."

 That quote is from the Clifton Cafeteria website, where there are lots of historic and new pictures along with news about the restoration. They found a whole grotto under a staircase, for example, and a bunch of hand-tinted pictures of the area from the old days.

And of course, the neon sign was uncovered--read about that on BlogDowntown.

They're even planning a TIki Bar as a nod to the Cliftons Pacific Seas, once on Olive.

But will this sidewalk mosaic medallion of a sailing trip to Catalina Island (you can just make out the metal wording) be restored as well?

No one has said anything about the sidewalk, which is technically terrazzo,  and sometimes mosaic, and that worries Richard Schave of LAVA (Los Angeles Visionaries Assoc.) and Esotouric.com, who led a tour down Broadway the last Sunday in July.

(There'll be another tour on the last Sunday in August, focused a bit more on the north--3rd and 4th street.)

(The tour is free, but you must reserve in advance.)

Well, since it seems I've digressed from the sidewalk into talking about the tour, I'll add that the Broadway walking tour follows FREE lectures given in the upstairs room of Les Noces de Figaro at 618 S. Broadway. Those lectures are called "The Sunday Salons" and take place on the last Sunday of each month, at least through the end of the year.

In July, the two lectures (each about 45 minutes) were on Mack Sennett and the search for the Oldest Neon Sign in the USA (thought to be right here in Los Angeles). That second lecture was by Dydia DeLyser and was full of wild research taking us through old photographs of Packard dealers in the 1920s, in both Los Angeles and San Francisco.

If that's enough of a tease, go check out LAVA's Sunday Salons.

Back to the sidewalk! The concern is that nothing in Los Angeles city ordinances protect the sidewalks in front of buildings. The sidewalk is a blur of public and private land.

In the early part of the o2th century, up through the 30s, theatre owners and other entrepreneurs--like Clifford Clinton--put in beautiful sidewalks downtown, and some have survived. But for how long?

The sidewalk in front of CLifton's--technically Clifton's Brookdale--with 12 scenes from Los Angeles' history, was installed in 1934. And up to the 1950s, this spot (Broadway & 7th) was the busiest intersection in Los Angeles, so the sidewalk artwork was constantly appreciated.

 I learned from Public Art in LA article that designer Frank Romero and community redevelopment agencies may have had a hand in restoring this and other decorative sidewalks on Broadway in the 1980s.

Only a couple of the scenes before Clifton's are visible now, because of the construction. This picture to the right is from a Flickr stream put up by Jericl Cat. Go look at the lovely pictures, taken in 2007.

I have no end or wrap-up to the post, because no one knows for sure what will happen.

Just for fun, though, here is a link to the LA Times' panoramic view of Clifton's Brookdale--but it doesn't show the outside. Just the incredible inside.

August 9 update:

Here's a link to some fantastic photos of not only the sidewalk (though there's a baker's dozen covering that) but the interior of CLifton's Brookdale, taken by Bob Marlow!

Food Sherpas in Los Angeles

You know they're there . . .

I've blogged about them before . . .

They've been on local TV . . .

But now they're in the NY Times!

I'm talking about Melting Pot Food Tours, of course. Lisa and Diane Scalia started this company five years ago, escorting groups down 3rd Street between Farmers Market and the Beverly Center, with stops to sample the wares at tea shops, Joan's on Third, The Little Next Door, a culinary book store that is gone, Travelers' Bookcase, etc. etc.--and that's not even mentioning the shops in Farmers Market, like Pampa, where we sampled Argentinian meats, then other shops for homemade donuts, monkey bread, gourmet olives, and more.

So . . .as all successful businesses do, they've expanded.

And gotten press, and a trendy name: Food Sherpas.

Melting Pot's Thai Town Tour, led by Chef Jet Tila, is what made the NY Times (along with tours in Paris, Istanbul, Rome, and San Francisco by other entrepreneurs).  But Melting Pot still tours the Third Street/Farmers Market area every weekend, and there are also tours in Old Town Pasadena (at left, enjoying authentic gelato), and the East Los Angeles "Latin Flavors Tour,"  that features old-style (LA's 1st tortilla factory and family owned eateries) and new (health-conscious pupuseria).

You can also meet Diane Scalia (in the picture above), at her "day job" (though it's actually an evening gig) at the Bar Comida at Chez Melange in Redondo Beach, where she serves up both traditional and some innvative tapas. (Her Green Gazpacho is to die for!)

And yes, she's a dear friend, and I'm very happy to post about her success!

Hollywood History on Eye on LA (ABC)

Caught an Eye On LA show this Sunday afternoon--a repeat of a January 19, 2013 show--all focused on Hollywood History, with commentary from Marc Wanamaker and others. It was so interesting I want to provide these links to the show, so you can see it yourself.

(Actually, all of these segments have the same URL--you just have to click on the video you want to see.)

But who knows if they'll broadcast it again? And since it's a local show, if you live near, say Detroit, how would you see it at all?

The ABC website breaks the show up into these segments:

• Hollywood's basic history and the arrival of the movie studios is summarized in "Studios Arrive, Set up Shop in Hollywood" with tons of pictures. De Longpre, Wilcox, D. W. Griffith, Universal, Paramount, Raleigh Studios, United Artists all get mentioned. Also--Walt Disney explains his 7 Dwarfs and their names, and the early Oscars appear.

"Old Hollywood Hot Spots Still Thriving" is my favorite 7-minute segment. It starts with the Hollywood and Highland Center and its link to D.W. Griffith's sets, then goes to Ye Olde Max Factor Building, now the Hollywood Museum. That place has the Hannibal Lector jail cell set from Silence of the Lambs (who would've guessed that?), plus a room dedicated to Lucille Ball. A new exhibit dedicated to Loretta Young started January 2013 is pictured at right. The segment finishes up with visits to Musso & Franks and the Formosa Cafe.

• More on the first Oscars at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel (which begins and ends the segment), Whitley Heights, Harold Lloyd's estate, Greyhall and Greystone, and the Beverly Hills Hotel (below left, circa 1945) are in the segment, "Classic Hollywood Estates Maintain Their Beauty." The Beverly Hills Hotel just celebrated its 100th birthday six or seven months ago and produced a great 5-minute video summarizing the history of Beverly Hills and the hotel here. Guess who did the commentary? Stars like Michael Douglas, Warren Beatty, Jimmy Fallon, and more.

• Finally, the Hollywood Forever Cemetary dominates the last segment. "Stars Live On at Hollywood Forever Cemetary." Although it starts at Grauman's Chinese Theater.

The photos of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in the 1930s and the Beverly Hills Hotel Pool circa 1945 are from the Los Angeles Public Library Collections, btw. The The Loretta Young exhibit photo is from the Hollywood Museum website.

Filming Mildred Pierce in Glendale

Sadly, most of the places are no longer around, but the 1945 Mildred Pierce movie was filmed largely in Glendale. In fact, Mildred's restaurant was none other than Henry's restaurant on Colorado Blvd, a "streamline moderne" style place.

This picture is NOT from 1945--looks a lot more like the 1980s. It came from the LA Library's photo collection.

I'd like to tell you more about Mildred Pierce but I'd be stealing, so instead, just follow this link to Katherine Yamada's great article in the Glendale News Press. The article has a picture of Henry's too.

Yamada has tried to pin down the house from the movie, and mentions some other scenes filmed in Glendale.

And thank you to Hidden Los Angeles (whom I follow on FB) for highlighting the story.

Plum Catsup and Other 19th Century Recipes

Just stumbled across the website and blog for Vintage California Cuisine, a cookbook with recipes from the early days, pre- and post-statehood. How did I miss this before? But now, in time for Christmas gifting is the Amazon page for Vintage California Cuisine: 300 Recipes From the First Cookbooks Published in the Golden Stateby Mark Thompson.

The blog link above takes you to a post about catsup. The book has several recipes, and not all are made with tomatoes. In fact, the one on this blog post was made with plums bought fresh at the Santa Monica Farmers Market.

Please go and enjoy the blog (here's the link again) or better yet, buy the book for someone who will appreciate it (you, perhaps?). After all, these are not recipes that are likely to show up on the Food Network or Epicurious.

Dia de los Moles

We are all celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month through October 15, a fact that usually stays in the back of my consciousness until someone says Mole. Then I pay attention.

Mole!  There is actually a Feria de los Moles on Olvera Street, October 7th from 10 am to 7 pm.

Last year, 30,000 people showed up. I'm going early. There will also be live music and folk art/craft booths, etc. It's definitely a family-oriented festival.

If you speak Spanish, you can read all about the details here.

Si tu no habla, like me, I'll just tell you that the big event features  moles from Puebla and Oaxaca so you can do your own taste test, and that at least 13 different moles will be available, along with other Mexican goodies which are, to quote the LatinRapper blog, "dulce, salado y picante."

Ah-ha! Here is the Feria de los Moles website with all the information you need. I was going to look up mole's history, but the Feria website already repeats most of it.

Mole is made up of many, many flavors, including pinches of cocoa, clove, cinnamon, pepper, with tomatoes, almonds, and vanilla--just to start. It comes in yellow, green, black, red, and many other varieties. Usually, you get it served over chicken, but some innovative restaurants--like Ortega 120 of Redondo Beach--serve special moles over baby back ribs or enchiladas.

There's a charming legend that the first Mole Poblano was cooked up by the poor nuns of the Santa Rosa Convent in Puebla, who had practically no food when Viceroy Tomas Antonia de la Cerda y Aragon came to call. After some quick but fervent prayers, the nuns were inspired to use the little bits of flavoring they had to make the mole, which delighted the Viceroy.

Happy Birthday Randy's Donuts & Hollywood Bowl

When I drove by this morning, the sky was not as blue (this picture is from October 2010) and there were birds sitting atop the donut like so many candles. Randy's Donuts, in case you missed the news last night, turned 60 yesterday (July 11, 2012).

And--how cool is this?--July 11, 2012 is the day Marty McFly arrived in the future, at 11:21 AM.

As for the Hollywood Bowl, it opened July 11, 1922, so it's NINETY. Can that be possible? Vintage Los Angeles (on FB) says it's so.

That was the date of the first Symphony Under the Stars, although the Los Angeles Library (where I found this photo) has shots of 50,000 people attending an Easter Sunrise Service earlier in the year. However, none of those pictures show a stage--only the audience.

The place used to be called Bolton Canyon, according to the Bowl's own history pages. Civic-minded folks got together as the Theater Arts Alliance and raised funds to buy 59 acres. They persuaded the LA Philharmonic to play for Easter Sunday services in 1921, and there were also choral performances and Shakespeare plays performed before the Bowl officially opened in 1922.