Hiatus

My apologies for the lack of updates recently. Due to Real Life circumstances, I've been forced to take a bit of a hiatus from writing about my favorite avocation here. When I come back, though, I'll have something really special to share – something quite different than what I usually post, and more personal, too. Anyway, rest assured, Los Angeles Past will be back again in a week or two. Stay tuned!

 

Palm Drive: Then & Now

Nathan Marsak recently sent me this lush postcard image of the palm drive of Singleton Court in West Adams, circa 1915. These are the Longstreet palms which I've written about previously. Planted circa 1875, the 23 Longstreet palms that remain today are quite possibly the oldest living things in Los Angeles. These trees have a continuous documented photographic history which alone affirmatively attests to their great age.

Palm Drive, Singleton Court, West Adams, c.1915:




The same view of Palm Drive, 2009:


Photo by J Scott Shannon.


These palms actually began life during the Civil War, almost a century and a half ago. Only five buildings still standing in all of Los Angeles are older (dead link) than these palm trees. They may look just like any others, but the Longstreet palms are really quite special, indeed...

 

Mission statement

It's "history" now (literally), but "Los Angeles Past" actually started out on LiveJournal. One feature of LJ that I liked was their profile page where you could write at length about yourself and why you're keeping a journal there – like a blog mission statement. Unfortunately, my LiveJournal "Bio" is too long for my Blogger profile, so I thought I'd post the LJ blurb here so readers can better understand my motivation for creating Los Angeles Past...

"Natural and man-made catastrophes have played a part in the destruction of many old cityscapes in the United States. The original buildings of our nation's capital city – Washington, D.C. – were torched by invading British troops during the War of 1812. Most of Chicago was wiped out by its Great Fire of 1871. Victorian San Francisco was destroyed by its famous earthquake and fire of 1906.

"Historical Los Angeles, though, suffered a no-less-thorough destruction of its own. This civic calamity was no act of war nor of God, however. Old L.A. was destroyed intentionally by its own government and citizenry in the name of 'progress.'

"So complete was this man-wrought devastation that a person born in Los Angeles in 1875 and living a normal life span of 75 years would have lived long enough to see virtually the entire city they grew up and grew old in wiped clean off the face of the earth. And whatever life there was left in Los Angeles by 1950 was finally bled out of it by the freeways.

"By the time I was born in an L.A. suburb in 1954, Los Angeles had become little more than a commuter destination. When I was growing up, that's all it ever was to me. I never knew Los Angeles as a living city, as my mother and father had. So when I left the L.A. area for greener pastures at the age of 28, I didn't feel like I was leaving anyplace particularly special.

"In recent years, however, I have been delving ever-deeper into the pre-WWII history of Los Angeles, and I'm finding it to be quite a revelatory experience. Piece by piece, I am uncovering a vanished world. This historical city is almost entirely new and unfamiliar to me. It's been a fascinating adventure thus far! Old Los Angeles was a truly amazing place. Have a look through this blog and you'll see what I mean!

 

Historical map overlays at ucla.edu

[Note: the information in this post is obsolete.]

Recently, reader Gregg D'Albert wrote to tell me about the "hypercities" project at ucla.edu. This is an archive of historical maps of Los Angeles city and county that you can view in their original form, and also view as overlays on today's Google maps. Got a few minutes to explore a little? Whenever you're ready, begin by opening the URL below into a new browser tab or window:

http://linuxdev.ats.ucla.edu/#item_type=collection&item_id=8835

The site does have some limitations. For one thing, it can't be used with Internet Explorer. The interface is also a bit confusing at first. Here's how to view the maps and overlays.

First, go to the upper right of the map, and change the view from Satellite to Map. While you're up there, click the X box in the upper right of the sidebar to reveal the map selection menu.

Next, click the green button at upper left. Then, browse the available maps in the sidebar. Mouseovers of each menu item show the area covered by that map.

My favorite one to start out with is the 1898 "Official Map of the County of Los Angeles California." Click on that item in the sidebar, then wait for the map to load at left. (This can take awhile if you have slow DSL like I do.)

Now notice that there is a slide control inside the map's sidebar item. Move that back and forth to adjust the transparency of the historical level.

With the 1898 map, though, I recommend first just inspecting it as is for awhile. Zoom in there for a close look (remember to be patient as the historical map loads). The details are really fascinating! Find where you live now and see it as it was just over 100 years ago, and be amazed at the changes that have occurred here in the span of only 1-1/2 lifetimes...

Another one that's fun to explore is the 1897 Maxwell's City Directory street map. See Wilshire Boulevard when it was only 4 blocks long!


From 1897: The new Wilshire Boulevard at upper center (ats.ucla.edu).


Here, also, are two much better overlay "then and now" maps of the streets of Downtown than I presented in this post.







I hope the folks at ats.ucla.edu won't mind me reproducing this small portion of its wealth of old maps! That hypercities site really is quite addictive, I must say.

 

Plan for proposed Los Angeles Civic Center, 1940

At first glance it almost looks like something out of Stalin's USSR, or maybe even the Third Reich. Then parts of it start to look familiar. It's actually the Los Angeles Civic Center – at least someone's idea of what it should look like in the years after 1940.


Courtesy U.S.C. Digital Library.

Look at that completely absurd County government building palace in the foreground. It looks like Las Vegas in downtown L.A.! Thank goodness that monstrosity never got built...

I wish I knew the story behind this proposed but never-implemented plan, but I don't. Given the grandiose nature of that County building, though, it almost had to be the County's idea. ;-)