On the Road: Landmark

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

A walk down Broadway

I'm a person who is fascinated by history and the story of what came before us,
What something was in it's glory day's and the tale of it's demise or in the odd case it's restoration
Downtown Los Angeles for many years had slowly descended into one very large decaying and decrepit city with pockets of places that were kept up for the Art culture and the downtown elites. Other than that the city of angels wore a rather tattered gown
In recent years the downtown area has seen a great resurgence in development and restoration and I for one have been happy to see this happen.
For instance the old Banking District is now the Art District and there is a wonderful Art Walk that happens there the second Thursday of every month, something I would strongly suggest any native Angeleno, resident or tourist attend.
Downtown Art Walk
Another area that has seen some progress in re-development is on the street Broadway,
This grand avenue was once the most glamorous place in the world and it was the center of the golden age of Hollywood, the many stupendous movie palaces that lined Broadway were the launching pads of the greatest movies of that era.
The movie premiers were attend by the brightest stars of the time and were seen on newsreels around the world, the glamor of Hollywood and the city of Los Angeles never shined brighter.

The day before the 4th was like a holiday here and it seemed many people were off work the day before our national independence day holiday.
I decided to take my camera and go downtown for a walk and hopefully some good photo opportunities. There still is a dark grittiness to many parts of downtown along with the new lofts and condos that have been built.
Some of these are in new buildings and some are in the beautiful old vintage buildings that still stand.
Walking down Broadway you will encounter all of the above along with the various forms of humanity that live, work or visit downtown LA

Traveling south on the 101 freeway I got off at Silverlake Blvd. and the first thing you see as you wait for the light to change is the old Western Exterminator sign

As I headed down Beverly towards downtown, what you notice as you drive along the street is the blending of ethnicity's in the various neighborhoods you pass. They invariably will be predominately one ethnic group and then you start to see the lines blur so for instance in this photo you have a Mexican market with Koren signs on the side of the building

It's all part of the continuing melting pot of humanity here in LA

As I parked on Broadway I had an idea of the sort of things I wanted to take pictures of and that primarily was the old Movie palaces that line this street.
These former shrines of Hollywood's glory days are for the most part in bad shape and sadly many are simply gone, only a few retain their former brilliance
The first movie palace I happened to walk by was the Roxie Theater

The Roxie was built in 1932—the last of the movie palaces built on Broadway and had a seating capacity of 1,600 when it opened and was noted for its Art Deco or Zigzag Moderne style, including its stepped roofline and angular grillwork

There are all kinds of run down retail stores selling crap you probably wouldn't want mixed with the new ventures that someone has opened mixed with the remaining movie palaces, it's an odd juxtaposition of things on Broadway

And you see the working poor, the homeless the have's and the have not's
it's all there..... even some wack nut wearing a bunny costume muttering some kind of nonsense only he and his imaginary friend can understand

One of the great theater's to see a resurgence is the Palace theater

Built in 1911 as part of the Orpheum vaudeville chain (Houdini, W.C. Fields and the Marx Brothers played there), it is now the oldest remaining Orpheum Theater in the United States built in a replica of a Renaissance Florentine palace It seats 1,167
recently they have been trying to book concerts and other live performances, and the new owner plans to spend millions on a major renovation over the next few years

The State Theater was built in 1921 by MGM and it it offered 2,450 seats, making it the largest of all the Broadway theaters, The interior is a mix of medieval, classical, and Spanish design. It was unfortunately converted into a church. and as such, it is now off-limits to the Saturday morning Conservancy tours they have for the downtown Broadway movie palaces

The Tower Theater opened in 1927, constructed in a long and narrow fashion to accommodate its unusual real estate parcel, the Tower Theater's innovative design and exterior is now scarred by street vendors. Its famous tower has been shortened and its marquee has been modernized over the years. But it still is one of the wonderful movie theaters still intact in downtown Los Angeles

Opened in 1917 by J.M. Quinn, Sid Grauman took it over in 1919 and gave it a remodel using William Woollett as the architect and for awhile it was known as Grauman's Rialto.
For many years this theater's lobby was used for a retail store and that was finally closed in 1988, so here it sits....there have been a few proposals in the last few years to renovate and make it into a restaurant/bar/live music venue.

Beside the architecture on Broadway there is always the unique street art here and there if you look for it
Like this dark menacing face peering down from above

Or Nosferatu with some added graffiti

And you can still see quite a bit of old signage still lingering on the sides of the old buildings

The next theater I came to was the United Artists Theater

The downtown United Artists Theater was opened in 1927 by its founders Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and Mary Pickford; who needed the massive Spanish Gothic style movie palace as a venue for world premieres of their movies, it featured a domed, mirrored ceiling, and offered 2,141 seats. Its walls still have murals of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks in historic poses. It has been wonderfully restored, but is now used as a church, the good news is this is one of the theaters you can visit on the conservancy tour

Up the street from the United Artists theater is one of the greatest examples of Art Deco architecture ever built and that is the Eastern Building

Here is the grand Art Deco entryway for the Eastern Building on Broadway, this amazing building opened in 1930 and is considered by many to be the most beautiful of Los Angeles' historic buildings, as well as one of the finest surviving example's of Art Deco architecture in the world

And the lobby

Across from the Eastern Building is another Jewell in the crown of movie palaces
And that is the Orpheum Theater

Built in 1926, the Orpheum Theater is another Broadway theater that has been wonderfully preserved - from its crystal chandeliers to its grand staircase, right down to its mammoth, original Wurlitzer pipe organ (which is still played, on occasion). Open over 70 years now, the Orpheum is still a spectacularly beautiful theater. Its ornate, gilded ceilings soar nearly five stories above its 2,190 seats. Its lavish Paris Opera architecture features large balconies, opera boxes, even a marble lobby which is decorated with fine sculpture, gold/copper leaf, and 20-foot-high crystal chandeliers. In 2001, the Orpheum reopened after a $3 million make-over, including the addition of air conditioning, a new orchestra pit, refurbished dressing rooms, and the theaters re-lighting of the rooftop neon sign (which hasn't worked since WW2)

Here is the beautifully restored and maintained marquee

And if you happen to be downtown and in need of a cool libation the very trendy Broadway Bar is right next door

Another LA landmark is Cliftons Cafeteria at 7th and broadway
Opened In 1935 this redwood forest themed restaurant has served millions of customers, unfortunately for me it was closed for the Holiday Weekend
so all I got was this tasty neon sign in the window

Now feeling a pang of hunger after passing Clifton's I ducked into this joint for a quick snack

Moving onward after my repast I came across the Globe Theater

Opened in 1913 this theater was conceived not as a vaudeville house or nickelodeon, but as a elegant dramatic play house, In 1987, concrete was used to level the floor from the lobby to the stage, so that a permanent indoor swap meet could supplant what had once been the first serious playhouse in Los Angeles....... now the theater is used as a downtown nightclub

And last but not certainly the least is the granddaddy of all the movie palaces
The Los Angeles

Built in 1931 in the French baroque style of Louis XIV, it was a virtual Hollywood cathedral. Famous for its huge crystal fountain in the lobby, the Los Angeles Theater was considered at the time one of the four or five finest movie palaces in the world.

Well I had now arrived at 4th and Broadway and I decided to check out one of my favorite little places downtown and that is The Museum of Neon Art, it's a rather small museum but they do have a great collection of vintage signs and are always restoring and finding new pieces. MONA

They were having a poetry reading and Jazz concert that evening and Kim the gal that runs the museum was kind enough to let me take a few pictures

Walking past the Hotel Barclay I headed back to my truck

As I started to make my way homeward I stopped briefly by one of the new Los Angeles landmarks the Walt Disney concert Hall

Designed by architect Frank Gehry, the Walt Disney Concert Hall is the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and it's a pretty cool building to see day or night

I reflected on my evenings adventure, seeing the old and the new with the changing Los Angeles identity.
I hoped that the usual destruction of our LA landmarks will not be the norm as it's been now for many decades, but that a renewed appreciation of our rich history will be left standing for other generations to appreciate.

Too many times all we are left with is a photo of what was and will never be again

Saturday, June 6, 2009

A Day In LA

Waking up to the sound of rain and the crackling of the passing thunderstorms I thought to myself maybe this isn't a good day to go out to the barn and ride horses.
The thought of staying in on a rainy day isn't so bad here in LA because we really don't have that many of them in the course of a year.
As I did some things around the house the next couple of hours I noticed that much of the wet part of the storm had passed and I thought to myself, what should I do now?
There was something that I had been mulling in the back of my head now for awhile, kind of a personal challenge if you will..........and it was this,
Go out with my camera and just take a day traveling around the greater Los Angeles area taking pictures......shoot whatever came up or interested me, but take the rest of the day to do it, see how many places and things I could capture with my camera

The weather by this time was actually the way I really like it, large passing clouds perfect for backdrops, sometimes shaded with dark shadows and sometimes sunny with that clear brilliance that only is there after a nice rain.
I packed up my camera hopped on the Harley and headed out so see what the day would bring me.
Being a native Angeleno I've seen many parts of this great city that I've become accustomed to my whole life,

Los Angeles, (The City of Angeles) is so much more than just the downtown area
The greater Los Angeles metropolitan area is home to nearly 12.9 million residents
and spans over 498.3 square miles......lol obviously I wasn't going to cover all of that but I had an idea of a few places to explore a little further

The first place I rode out to was North Hollywood, there were a couple of cool old vintage signs that I had been wanting to take some photos of and I thought that this would be a good start to my day's photo adventure

The first stop was Circus Liquor on Burbank Blvd, where the giant neon clown sign is kind of a San Fernando Valley landmark
It was also the place where Alicia Silverstone was ditched, mugged, and forced to lay down on the asphalt in the movie "Clueless" (1995)

As some of you know by now I also like taking pic's of old motel signs
And the Silver Saddle Motel was just a few miles away from the clown on Lankershim Blvd.
It's kinda run down now but they still have the large plastic horse on top of the roof of the motel lobby and the original neon sign

I decide to ride over by the Burbank airport and San Fernando Road which used to be part of the old 99 highway that used to be the main north-south highway on the West Coast, there are alot of old motor motels and other things for a sign hound like me to photograph

Riding on over to the old Mount Washington area I stopped at this old super market and got something to drink

Ya, you can tell this section of town has gone Hispanic, the smiley face is now wearin a sombrero

Riding through the back side of Echo Park and Chavez Ravine where Dodger Stadium is located I headed towards downtown LA and Chinatown

Right near Chinatown is the restaurant "Philippe" and it's one of the oldest restaurants in downtown (established in 1908) and still going strong serving up their original French dipped Sandwiches, I stopped long enough to get a pic of the vintage sign

Right up the street from Philippe's on Alameda Street is the Los Angeles Terminal Annex post office building and it was the central mail processing facility for Los Angeles from 1940 to 1989
The Mission Revival building was designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985, I decided to make a quick stop and check it out

Crossing the bridge over the Los Angeles river I headed over to Boyle Heights

Boyle Heights is basically East LA,
There is a term for it that says "All Roads lead to Boyle Heights" this is because the area has been a immigrant destination sense the mid-1800's and for the last several decades has been primarily a Hispanic barrio
I took this shot while waiting at a stoplight on Cesar Chavez blvd.

The main reason I went to this neighborhood was that the oldest graveyard in LA is here and I've always wanted to take some pictures there
Established on August 23, 1877, Evergreen is the oldest existing cemetery in Los Angeles. It is also one of the largest, with over 300,000 interments
Evergreen is the final resting place of some of the most prominent people in the history of the City of Los Angeles. Many pioneers are interred here, names such as Bixby, Coulter, Hollenbeck, Lankershim, Van Nuys, and Workman, I would say most of these names people only know of them because that is what their city is called but many of the cities and streets within the greater Los Angeles area were named after the individuals and pioneers whose work and vision made LA what it is today

Something sobering about an old stone garden like this, you can see a large obelisk or a small meager headstone........ in the end it doesn't really matter, rich or poor
no one gets out alive..... I guess what I'm saying is enjoy and savor the moments you do have here in this life

Leaving the cemetery I decided to head back to the valley, staying off the freeway I took Sunset Blvd. through Echo Park and Silverlake stopping to catch a few signs

Like this old neon sign for The Jensen Recreation Center,
In 1997, the sign was restored to its original appearance through a cultural affairs grant and at night the 17x28 foot incandescent sign (illuminated with 1,300 red, green and white light bulbs) sitting atop the building depicts a bowler throwing a strike.....really cool old sign

I've been to this joint in Silverlake many a late night for a meal or desert craving

Another old motel on Sunset Blvd.

It was getting to be late in the afternoon and I knew of a old diner sign I really wanted to take a picture of using the clouds as a background, it was in an area of the San Fernando Valley that I grew up in......the Valley's namesake the City of San Fernando. So I rode all the way to the east end of the valley stopping at the James restaurant for a slice of apple pie and this photo

After I finished my snack I rode through the small downtown section of San Fernando
noticing part of a Ferris wheel in the skyline, I made a couple of turns and found myself at the local Catholic church which it seemed was having a carnival night with some rides,
The carny workers (and they are always a trip) were just finishing setting up for the nights festivities and it seemed like it would be a good photo opportunity for me without anyone else around......here are some of my favorites

I left the carny rides and headed up Maclay street catching a few more signs
Like this still in business Fosters Freeze

Or this great old hardware store in Slymar, "Coopers" established in 1949

I picked up a couple of egg rolls at Ying's in Slymar and decided to head over to Mission Hills and the old San Fernando Mission, it was a place that I used to play often at as a boy and going there always brings back some nice memories

Mission San Fernando Rey de España was founded on September 8, 1797 by Father Fermín Lasuén, this mission has had quite a history and if any of you would like to read more about it here is a link San Fernando Mission