Halloween's A-Comin'

Here are some spooky goings-on this month. Of course, you can sit home, watch slasher movies, and eat up all the Halloween candy until you fall into a food coma, but in case you'd like to actually move and not pretend you're a piano during the holiday, and if--like me--you didn't get your invite to an A-list party:

• "Haunts of Angelino Heights" Tour and Scavenger Hunt on October 23 and 24 at 4pm.  This is presented by the LA Conservancy--it's the only HAUNTED Scavenger Hunt in LA, I think. BYOF (bring your own flashlight). ($30 and under)

• Long Beach's Annual Cemetery Tour on October 30, 8:30am (huh?) till 2:30pm, at both the Morningside and Municipal Cemeteries. Check out the Facebook Event Page. (under $20, hosted by the Long Beach Historical Society)

• The Cemetery Tour at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, with the likes of Cecil B. DeMille, Rudolf Valentino, Iron Eyes Cody, Bugsy Seigel and more...in fact there are three seperate tours, each with their own theme: Hidden Hollywood, Jewish Heritage, and Cemetery of the Stars. Ongoing now through Halloween! ($12 each)

• Grier Museum Haunted House Tour on Bonnie Brae in Los Angeles on Halloween Day, 1-4pm. ($12--includes refreshments)

• Not enough? Check out the Ultimate Halloween Event Schedule at the Alley Cat Scratch site.

And after Halloween is over, you might want to check out another LA Conservancy tour on November 7--Strolling on Seventh Street. Visit the cool places of yesteryear--there could be ghosts hanging out (after all, once Halloween is over, what else have they got to do?)

Vroman's Mosaic

Today's mosaic ornaments the back entrance of Vromans Bookstore in Pasadena. The store--a veritable institution--has been around since 1894, according to their history site. They started out at a different address and are still family-owned today, and the largest independent bookstore in SoCal.

Vroman's recently bought Book Soup, I hear. The story is on LA Observed and other places--the LA Observed piece has a thoughtful comparison of the two bookstores.

Clicking on the pictures should bring up a larger image, so please do so. There are exquisite butterflies and other wonders to be seen here.

On Flicker, I found a stream of detailed photos of this same mosiac here. There really is a ton of loveliness to be seen when you look close.

Took me awhile to find the artist, and sad to report, what I found was an obituary. Bill Crite passed two years ago, but you can see a picture of him and read about his work at the Mosaic Art and Glass Art blog, here, or by scrolling to page 13 in this pdf version of The Pasadena San Gabriel Valley Journal News. My impression from reading that is that most of his work is in private homes or locations (the High-Roller Suite at the Alladin in Las Vegas is mentioned). So the Vroman's mosaic may be the only acquaintance most of us can have with Bill Crite.

Best Cup of Joe in L.A.--in 1976

Starbucks was a local Seattle coffee bar, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf a West LA site, and Diedrich's only outlet was a roastery in Orange County.  Still, an intrepid and amped Los Angeles Times reporter--named, serendipitously, Jessica Maxwell--went in search of the best coffee in L.A. As she pointed out, people were now buying  filter coffee makers (as opposed to percolators, I guess) and they were traveling more, getting acquainted with truly fine coffees in other lands.

What establishments were recognized in Maxwell's quest, and what trivia can we glean?

Maxwell's top picks among old California landmarks were Vickman's on 8th Street, and the Original Pantry Cafe--which, even then, had been around for over fifty years. The Pantry served Farmer Brothers Coffee then as now. Coffee with free refills cost a quarter. Other recognizable names, in order, were The Brown Derby, which charged fifty cents a cup, Schwab's on Sunset (30 cents), the Apple Pan--which gave you real cream with the coffee rather than half-and-half. Many other restaurants--the Windsor, Dales, Mannings--are unfamiliaar names to me.

Ah, for a 30-cent cup of coffee. Actually, most folks drinking coffee in 1976 remembered well the days of nickel-a-cup coffee--it wasn't too long gone. They thought fifty cents was outrageous!

Mosaic Monday in Cerritos

Today's mosaic is one you can walk through--literally. It has doorways.

"Illumination" was installed in 2006 to celebrate the city of Cerritos' 50th anniversary. The artist is Terry Braunstein, who has also done a lot of work in her hometown of Long Beach--most visible are the Blue Line Station signs.

The mosaic has the form of an open book, with ten-foot-tall pages framed in stainless steel. I could probably blog on a panel a week and stretch this out, but that would be cheating.

A couple of themes are immediately striking. First, a tree is in most panels. It's the tree of learning and of life. It grows and reaches upward and produces wonderful, nourishing fruit.

The city of Cerritos is proud of being named a Tree City USA by several groups, and it also presents itself as a community that's constantly growing. Cerritos has a diverse population, and the tree of life motif also represents harmony--the kind that Cerritos enjoys.

Another theme woven through is the history of Cerritos--the mosaic wraps around several old black and white photographs, and even incorporates tile mosaic pictures, like this of the Performing Arts Center.

Here are two other panels. Again, trees--though different styles--and black and white pictures.

The words at the top of these two panels are "Heritage" and "Diversity." (The first picture had headings of "Prosperity" and "Culture.") Under Heritage, we have cows, recalling Cerritos' days as Dairy Valley, the original 1956 name when the city incorporated. The name Cerritos was adopted in 1967.

The Diversity tree is taken from a 13th century illuminated manuscript--Spanish and Christian, and the children surrounding it represent all the different ethnic origins of Cerritos' residents. And hanging from the tree--I think--is an astrolabe.

The image at left shows the cover of the book, the spine (with the work's title) and the back cover. Aerial shots of the city in 1956 and 2006 are over the door in front.

Since the artwork sits in front of the Cerritos Public Library--a building redone ten years ago to become the first titanium-clad structure in the USA--the book theme is especially appropriate.

I love the idea of walking into the book through its cover--isn't that how a good book makes you feel, like you've just walked through a doorway to another world?

On the cover is another tree, more black and white photos-and Kabalah symbols. Click on the pictures to make them bigger, because the detail is truly beautiful.

Besides Kabalah, there are Biblical figures, Mayan symbols, Asian tapestries, Islamic motifs, African woodcarvings, Mexican ceramics, and Buddhist and Christian murals depicted throughout the artwork.

You can see "Illumination" near the northwest corner of Bloomfield and 183rd Street, just outside the Cerritos Public Library. Those into public art can glut themselves here: beside this multi-panel mosaic, there's a sculture garden, a couple of fountains, one featuring bronze dolphins and the other shooting water around and through exotic metal flowers, and a white bench that looks like an open book. And more. Inside the library, there are paintings and ceramic sculpture.

The piece was commissioned for $350,000, and the fabricators were Carlson and Co., CA and Franz Mayer of Munich, Germany.

Diamond Bar 1963

A picture from Shorpy.com to remind us boomers how old we are becoming much our Southern California has changed.  Ha!

Who didn't have a neighbor with that car--or maybe your Dad had one? Who didn't live in a house with that exact exterior panelling, and visit friends from school in the same style home? It all looked new and modern then...and much bigger.

Judging from the comments on Shorpy, there werecoastal oaks, roadrunners and occasionally, cougars in the hills.

One Shorpy reader speculated that we are looking northeast toward the hill where the 60 freeway would be built.

Wayne Long, Artist

The animals on the exterior wall of the Millard Sheets Center for Fine Arts were done by artist Wayne Long. If I'd blown up my own pictures and examined them verrrry carefully, I would have found a "W. Long" signature on the top right corner of the branch that the monkey is holding.

My thanks to Christy, a former curator of the Center, for the information. She pointed out the signature on the tile, and sent me this page from the 1956-57 Catalogue of the Los Angeles County Art Institute (now the Otis Art Institute), which has been the only place we've found that actually credits Mr. Long for his work.

Time for the Fair!

Since the Los Angeles County Fair is on (well, not today. The Fair is dark Monday and Tuesday), this Mosaic Monday post will focus on the delightful animals on the outside of the Fair's Millard Sheets Center for the Arts. Like this monkey...or gibbon.

The Fine Arts Building was one of several added to Fairplex in 1937 by the WPA--the Works Progress Administration. The same program that brought new post offices and murals to so many parts of the country, and pretty much created a style that--subliminally, at least--most Americans recognize and enjoy. And it put food on the table for a lot of craftsmen and construction workers.

(I'll let the historians left and right argue about how effective the program was in lowering the unemployment rate, which soared to around 25% in the 1930s. Whatever the WPA's effect on the Depression, the buildings and art it generated are part of our  collective culture now.)

Anyway, we're still using the buildings erected then. The Fine Arts Building was renamed the Millard Sheets Center for the Arts in 2007. Millard Sheets, of course, is the artist responsible for these animals. ***error--see comments. Wayne Long is the name of the artist per Christy, and I will post a correction.*** Sheets operated the Fine Arts Building for years, as his son Tony--who says he practically grew up at the Fair--does now.

The Flower Garden and Clock Tower were not added until the early 1950s (I'm surprised; I thought they were older.) This year, the flower and plant arrangements and the gardens celebrate Mexico in a vivid display. Here's a teaser picture:

Back to the mosaics. The racoon above and the owls below, and several other critters, are on the exterior of the Millard Sheets Fine Arts Center and look down on a patio area. That's where--this year, at least--artists and artisans work while fairgoers watch and ask questions. Some of the artists are very well-known and have been involved with the Fair for years. Beside those on the patio, others inside the Fine Arts Building in various nooks are also sculpting, brushing and carving, working with canvas, paper, glass, wood, clay and fabric, showing us all how art is made.

And all this is background. The exhibit is actually about Three Centuries of Artistic Innovation, with displays showing--for example--how printing developed over the years. Or photography. Or what steam power allowed us to invent. The exhibit demonstrates, over and over, how one brainstorm led to another and another, each building on previous ideas. Read how it all came together here.

Rose Parade Mural

Since I completely missed Mosaic Monday this week, I will instead post photos of about one-third of  Millard Sheets' Rose Parade Mural that used to sit in the Pasadena Home Savings and Loan/Washington Mutual/Chase Bank.

I once repeated the story that Chase Bank was about to paint over the mural--that was not true. But they were remodeling the Pasadena branch lobby, so the artist's son removed the mural and will soon be installing it in a new home in Pasadena, where we can view it in all its glory.

Tony Sheets, who is Director of the Fine Arts Gallery (actually, the Millard Sheets Fine Arts Gallery) at the Los Angeles County Fair, has this portion of the mural on display at the Gallery.

The walnut panels have lightened over the years. The grayish shadows on people's faces were once much lighter than the wood, and so created realistic faces--but now, with the wood lighter than the paint, the effect is almost like looking at a photo negative. Here's a close-up of the dogs, cause I like dogs.

What's Fouling Redondo Beach?

Sorry, I know this is supposed to be history. But these photos were taken around 9am Sept. 22, 2010, just south of the Redondo Beach pier. What is the crud washing into shore?

There were big patches of it all over, whatever it is. And NO ONE was in the water.  I see nothing in the Daily Breeze; nothing on Patch.com.  What is this crud?

Spence Air Photography in Air & Space

Yay! Another publication! 

The November 2010 issue of Air & Space Magazine features my article on Robert Spence and Spence Air Photos, complete with a 1921 oblique air photo of the Venice Pier. Not to steal their thunder, I'll add another of Robert Spence's pictures (he took over a hundred thousand, btw), this one from the Los Angeles Public Library collection. A 1939 photo of the Los Angeles Harbor looking south, with the Union Oil refinery in Wilmington in the foreground.

Spence began photographing Los Angeles from the air in 1919 and didn't stop till he retired in the early 1970s.

Of course, his collection--housed at UCLA's Geography Dept's Benjamin and Gladys Thomas Air Photo Archives--includes shots from other locales too: Disneyland as it was being built, the St. Francis Dam disaster a day after the dam collapsed, the "new" Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Hoover Dam (now Boulder Dam), and even (I think) some wartime shots taken over Burma during WWII. Fascinating legacy. He just hung out of the plane with a camera that weighed half as much as he did (at least in the early days) and shot!