Time-traveling to Old L.A.

Reader and past contributor Nathan Marsak posited a question the other day: what if you had a time machine, and you could pop back to Old L.A. for a weekend. What time in the city's history would you choose?

For me, without a doubt, it would be the weekend of October 14-16, 1910.

Why? Mostly, it would be to attend the Saturday dedication of the brand new 'Million-Dollar' Post Office – the building which first sparked my interest in L.A. history.


U.S.C. Digital Library.


For my accommodations, I'd book the top-floor corner room at the United States Hotel at Main and Market Sts., which would have an absolutely perfect vantage point for viewing the festivities in Temple Square.


U.S.C. Digital Library.


There'd be plenty of other things to see and do while I was there, of course. Assuming I could get my hands on a period camera, I'd take a ton of good pictures of various buildings for posterity, especially the ruins of the L.A. Times Building, which had been terror-bombed only two Saturdays ago.

I would also love to take a 360-degree panorama from the top of the 1888 Court House. (1910 would be the last year you could do that, with the Hall of Records rising immediately south of the Court House at that time.)

I'd also try to get an Edison cylinder recording of the bell chimes of the old Court House (and the 1888 City Hall's bells, if there actually were bells in that tower – does anyone know for sure?).

And I'd probably walk the old diagonal alignment of Spring Street about a dozen times. I'd ride Court Flight over and over, too, until they kicked me off of it. (Never mind Angels Flight – been there, done that, 50 years later.) ;)


Court Flight.


Re: dining – I'd probably eat breakfasts at the Hollenbeck Hotel and the Hotel Nadeau, and at least one lunch at the little hole-in-the-wall indicated in this old postcard. It had to be good! Someone actually wrote home about it!




But mostly I'd eat as much "Spanish" food (as Mexican food was called at the time) as I could. I'd be very curious to know what the native cuisine tasted like a hundred years ago!

I'd do a bunch of other things, too, including a mandatory jaunt down to the Longstreet Palms. World-famous at the time, no visit to old L.A. would be complete without seeing them!



Another time I'd like to travel back to would be October of 1936, so I could see the Los Angeles that my mother knew when she first moved there. Of course, Number One on my list of places to visit then would be the incredible Richfield Building. I'd also take my own set of panoramic photos from atop City Hall, and go to the Paris Inn every night for dinner, too. My kind of place, definitely!

But most of all, I'd make sure to be hanging out at the northwest corner of Olympic and Broadway during lunch hour on Tuesday, October 20th, so I could watch a certain snooty young lady get her picture taken by a street photographer. 8)



Ooooh, now here's a Twilight Zone thought for you – what if Mom's photographer actually turned out to be time-traveler Me?!  D:

 

Temple Square: Then, Then, Then & Now

Temple Square – the former junction of Main, Temple and Spring Streets – photographed from the roof of the Bella Union Hotel.

c.1870:


Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection.


1876:


Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection.


1888:


Link to image on Flickr.


And here is the view from the former site of the Bella Union in the present day...



Photo by J Scott Shannon.

 

Mom's first car at the Silver Lake Auto Court

Mother's new position as General Secretary of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera was apparently sufficiently remunerative for her to be able to buy her first car. It was a used 1936 Pontiac Master Six Coupe. Here she is with her new Pride and Joy at the Silver Lake Auto Court at 2500 Glendale Blvd. in July, 1938.


Link to original photo on Flickr.


I know Mom did not live there, though. In 1938, she and her sister were living in their first apartment at the Barker Hotel in Westlake.

Here is a contemporaneous linen postcard of the auto rest.




On the reverse of the card it states: "A 67 unit Auto Court with Trailer Sites. Resort Atmosphere in the heart of the City, well known for its Hospitality and Service. Rates Most Reasonable."

Here is an aerial view. As best as I'm able to determine, Mom was posing with her car near the spot where the red arrow is pointing.


silverlake.org


Remarkably, Michael Smith, a/k/a Kansas Sebastian on flickr, posted this Then & Now composite of the Silver Lake Auto Court in the 1920s with a comparison shot from 2010. His sleuthing revealed that the older aerial view was taken approximately 11 years before Mother was there posing with her Pontiac.


Click image to view the original photo on Flickr.


Amazing the things one can find on the 'net, eh!

 

Los Angeles's THREE historical Plazas

Fellow Los Angeles history buff "Richard R." recently found a very interesting webpage which details and summarizes various pieces of historical evidence pertaining to the location of the original pueblo and its plazas. Yes, that's "plazas," plural.

Article from the website La Nopalera.

tl;dr version – It turns out there have actually been three different locations for La Plaza de Los Angeles:

• The first plaza dates to the founding of the pueblo in the 1770s. It is believed to have been located to the south and east of the present Plaza. Constructed on low ground adjacent to the Los Angeles River, the first plaza was obliterated by the Flood of 1815.

• The second plaza and the re-built pueblo were re-located to higher ground a few dozen meters to the north and west of the present Plaza Church, on the west side of Main Street. The approximate location of the second plaza is shown on the map below:



Map by Howard Hurtig Metcalfe from his webpage La Nopalera.


The second plaza was in existence for only a decade or two, though, from the post-Flood of 1815 period to c.1830, when it was moved to its present location east of Main Street and south of the southern terminus of Wine (Olvera) Street. This is "La Plaza" that all latter-day Angelenos are familiar with. The general assumption that La Plaza has always been located where it is today, however, is now known to be demonstrably incorrect. Somewhere along the line, the knowledge that there had been two historical locations which pre-date the present Plaza was mostly forgotten.

Some general awareness of the location of the second plaza lingered on into the mid-20th century, however. In 1950, the "Plaza de Los Angeles, Inc." submitted this re-development plan to the State Park Commission. N.b. the yellowed label pointing to the "Original Plaza" at what would then have been the northwest corner of Main and Marchessault Sts.



Courtesy USC Digital Library-Los Angeles Examiner.


"Richard R." also found this interesting account in the Department of Water and Power database hosted by the Los Angeles Public Library:


Historical Photo Collection of the Department of Water and Power, City of Los Angeles.


It should be noted that the docent website of El Pueblo de Los Angeles does, in fact, acknowledge that the present Plaza is actually Los Angeles's third such town square. It was certainly surprising news to me, though, and I'm sure it remains an unknown fact to all but a handful of knowledgeable L.A. historians.

And what now occupies the former site of the second plaza? What else but a parking lot!


View Larger Map

A big thank you to "Richard R." for his excellent historical sleuthing!

 

View from atop Angels Flight, 100 years ago

A panoramic postcard view of Downtown Los Angeles from atop the observation deck of Angels Flight, just over 100 years ago.


Click image for a nice 2592x503 enlargement.


I believe this photo can be dated fairly precisely to late summer 1910, as the second Los Angeles Times Building has not yet been bombed, and the Hall Of Records behind it is in the earliest stage of its construction. Quite a remarkable view, in my layman's opinion!

 

Los Angeles past

An historical chronology from the 1943 Renie Road atlas of L.A. City and County. It's interesting to me to note what events/dates were thought to be significant at the time...