Just a few hundred yards away from the pandemonium that is Venice Beach on a sunny summer Sunday, the Venice Canals are a sea of tranquility. Aside from the obvious stunning visuals, what strikes me is the sound. It’s quiet. Instead of city traffic noise, you hear gurgling water, wind chimes, birds, some animals, a few muffled human voices. You rarely encounter more than a dozen people even if you wind your way through the entire canal system.
When I was doing shows at ACME in Hollywood, I drove past those cool televisions at the intersection of Riverside Drive and Fletcher at least twice a week. I always wanted to stop there sometime and take a bunch of pictures, and though I never managed to do that myself, I saw that a guy called Rob, who posts pictures at MarilynCarolin.com had done just that. In addition to the nifty pictures, there’s also this interesting history lesson:
These recycled RCAs are sitting atop the ruins of Los Angeles’ first attempt at mass transit dating back to the turn of the century. The cement forms underneath the televisions were the footings for a railroad trestle that ran across Fletcher Ave. in Silverlake for the Pacific Electric Red Car line. Even though GM took apart the Red Cars in the ’50s to sell us all on buses, what is left here of the old run from downtown to Glendale has recently been declared a historical monument.
While you’re there, be sure to check out his pictures of the old Los Angeles Zoo, yet another one of those cool LA landmarks I’ve always wanted to visit, but never have.
A stark reminder of L.A.’s Cold War air defense system can be found at the top of San Vicente Mountain, off an unpaved portion of Mulholland Drive. The official name for this facility is the Cold War-creepy LA-96, a/k/a the Van Nuys/Sepulveda Nike Missile Control Site. It’s also one of the more scenic spots in L.A., rewarding hikers and mountain bikers at the top of the West Ridge and Sullivan Canyon Trails with stunning 360-degree vistas.
According to the San Vicente Mountain Park website, LA-96 contained a radar tracking station for the Nike-Ajax antiaircraft missiles that were prepared to fire from the nearby Sepulveda Basin at invading Russkie warplanes. Now the site has picnic tables and bathrooms for hikers and other visitors.
I tend to run with the artsy fartsy crowd, so when I heard two weeks ago that Lucent Dossier was performing Wednesday the 23rd (or was it the 16th? it all blurs) of April down at The Edison, I was bummed to miss it. Having a real-life day job has put a serious crimp on my nights out. Yes, I have money now, but I never spend it anymore because I never leave the house after 8pm.
Luckily the Lucent + Edison pairing seems to be an ongoing thing. I went to take in the show last Wednesday. Apparently I was there along with LAist Editor Zach Behrens, LAist News Editor Andy Sternberg, and Caroline on Crack, but as I am a blogger who primarily communicates via screen, I haven’t the faintest what they look like. Checking Caroline’s pics from that night, I think I remember seeing them. But everyone was dressed very alike, very glam-roaring 20s-clubby, so I could be completely wrong.
Click through for Miss Lucinda’s Wild Ride. :P Pics by Caroline on Crack for LAist.
Last night some of us Metbloggers got together for drinks downtown at the gorgeous Hotel Figueroa. I’d never been there before, and it is definitely worth a visit. Several photos below the cut, all taken in the basement. Which is where they keep the Ladies’ Room. Yes, there are pictures of the bathroom. But it’s a pretty bathroom.
The pictures are as big as they get, since I took most of them sans flash and they’re a bit blurry.
On my bike ride in to work this morning I spotted this remarkably well-preserved and throughly psychodelic custom-painted 40-year-old Saab V4 Wagon north of Venice Boulevard and was helpless to resist doubling back to get these snaps. This car runs on awesome. And shrooms. Be sure to check out the Saab-branded roofrack and the airplane in the nameplate.
(But we’ll take what we can get)
Downey has a few cultural landmarks–funnily enough, all of them related to fast food. Oldest McDonalds? Yep. First Taco Bell? Yep.
But our pride and joy has always been Johnie’s Broiler, a 1950s Googie-style diner located at 7447 Firestone Blvd.
Having grown up in Downey, Johnie’s has been a fixture in my life since as far back as I can remember. Every time it appeared in movies (License to Drive! Heat!), it was a cue to go get a milkshake.
When The Broiler’s illegal demolition began back in 2007, residents and preservationists called police and halted the bulldozers. Since then, The Broiler’s future has been uncertain.
Car-hoppers rejoice! Hot rodders, start your engines! According to Downey’s local paper, Johnie’s current owner and reps from Bob’s Big Boy have reached a tentative lease agreement. Under the agreement, the architecture will be restored, the diner will be fully-functional, and the weekend car-hops will continue.
Photo by Wiki user Astroluxe under a CC license.
Is the dream of a new Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles about to become a reality? You might want to snap some pictures now, because, in 5 years it might be unrecognizable. A new plan was unveiled today by Los Angeles City Councilmember Jose Huizar and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. It’s a plan that, if successful, will change the face of Downtown and put a shine on one of the city’s greatest jewels.
There is one big red flag, after the jump!
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ASIFA-Hollywood has just posted scans of issue number one of “The Adventures of Big Boy” written by Stan Lee and drawn by Bill Everett in 1956.
Published by Timely Comics, which later changed their name to Marvel, (maybe you’ve heard of them) The Adventures of Big Boy is one of the World’s Oldest continuously running comic book lines, still being produced over fifty years later.
Bob Wian opened his first Big Boy restaurant twenty years earlier in Glendale, and turned animator Benny Washam’s caricature of a local boy into a franchise juggernaut.
The whole story, which is pretty damn cool, if you ask me, is on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive website, along with the comic.
(ASIFA is actually a French acronym:”Association Internationale du Film D’Animation” Who knew?)
Thanks to Boing Boing for hipping me to this.
Another downtown landmark goes the way of the gentrification Dodo tomorrow: Craby Joe’s, that diveyest of dives, the holiest of holes-in-the-wall, closes its doors for the last time on Christmas Eve. I always felt that a marker of a good bar was (a) it was named after its original owner or (b) it was named after an unpleasant animal. Quite possibly covering both (a) and (b) in one fell swoop (although I don’t know the original proprietor’s name, alas), Craby Joes was a bastion of crustiness in a rapidly sterilizing downtown.
The historians & cultural/literary archivists behind 1947project.com will be lifting their final pints at Craby Joes in a celebratory wake tomorrow. I suggest y’all swing by on your way to or from your respective holiday celebrations, or, should you lack one, let this be your wassailing headquarters for the night.
Click through for the full invite from 1947project.com.
I wonder what will come to replace Craby Joes…let’s see, maybe another Katsuya? Pinkberry? Golden Gopher 2? Upscale dog-clothing boutique? Le sigh. Kim Cooper says “Craby Joe’s has served as a watering hole to John Fante, Charles Bukowski, and many other great souls who drew from this well of characters and atmosphere from the wrong side of the tracks…This fragile coral reef of artists, galleries (the hub of Art Walk is two blocks away at 5th and Main at Bert Green’s), SRO hotels and their long time residents will suffer a severe blow with the close of Craby Joe’s…” Photo from the venerable www.latimemachines.com.
I don’t mind downtown’s gentrification as much as, say, one of the artists who lived in the Tomahawk building or the “Dancing Girls” building across the street from it–just some of the folks who lost their homes to the “artist’s lofts no artist could ever afford” wave. I like being able to walk around downtown feeling safe[r]. I just wish we didn’t pave over our history quite as much.
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