Architectural rambling

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t's difficult to be certain, but I believe the house shown in Google maps' street view is the one designed by Clara Content Alden. Fortunately, Riverside County has posted its historic maps online, so I was able to find the River Crest Tract. It took a bit of detective work to locate the homes, however, because all the streets have been renamed. I try to note women's history whenever I get a chance and hoped to write about Alden, but there is nothing to be found of her in The Times. I can only recall one other woman in this period whom we wrote about as an aspiring architect, Penelope Murdoch. Nor is there much in The Times about Harry Hawes, although I learned about a man by that name who was the attorney for Mrs. Adolphus Busch and was a senator from Missouri. Email me

June 21, 1908

	nteresting things from The Times Real Estate Section: The changing face of downtown Los Angeles (shout-out to my pals at onbunkerhill.org) and a proposed luxury hotel for Hollywood that I don't believe was built. This postcard at left gives a better view of the observation tower and Angels Flight shown above in the 1908 photo of Bunker Hill. The building just to the left of the tower is the Crocker Mansion, which was demolished in 1908. As for the hotel, it was the brainchild of Albert H. Beach, a promoter and developer who also had the notion of building a huge cotton mill in Los Angeles in 1909.  According to his 1936 obituary, Beach, 74, was a Canadian who came to Los Angeles in 1881 and was a playwright before he became a real estate developer. Hollywood's Beachwood Park was one of the 150 subdivisions he handled, The Times said. Email me

June 15, 1938

A detail of the arch, as shown on San Pedro High School's website. For the full image, go here.

A cloverleaf interchange, as envisioned in 1938. Note the extensive landscaping on both sides of the freeway. A map of proposed "elevated motorway" routes. One of many that have been prepared over the years.

his victory arch at San Pedro High School was salvaged from the Federal Building (1910-1937), which was at Main and Temple. I'm always thrilled to discover that any piece of old Los Angeles has survived, no matter how small. If you click on the photo below, it will appear full size and you can see similar entryways all along the right side of the building.    At left, the prosecution's closing arguments in the trial of Police Capt. Earle Kynette follows the trail of civic corruption to Joe Shaw, the mayor's brother. With Kynette convicted, attention will turn to the Shaws and the recall movement will gain momentum. Part 4 of Ed Ainsworth's series on Los Angeles traffic lays out an elaborate proposal for 420 miles of "elevated motorways."  As superficial as this story is, it contains key elements of what transformed Los Angeles transportation into what we contend with today: "Street railways would gradually be eliminated and bus service substituted, both on surface streets and the elevated motorways." "The elevated motorways would not run along above present streets. They would be cut through the middle of blocks. Preliminary surveys disclose that is is possible to run practically all of these through so-called blighted areas." Would the motorways be an architectural eyesore? "Definitely not. It is almost an axiom of modern civilization that man's highest achievements in industrial design are in themselves objects of symmetry and beauty." Recall that there are some essential differences between what was proposed and what we have today: One of the original plans called for parking structures to be placed at intervals along the motorways. Also take a good look at the map of the network: It's massive. So here we have a blueprint from 1938: Get rid of the streetcars, switch to buses that can use surface streets as well as elevated lanes and build a massive freeway system. Most important, note the source of the proposal: The Auto Club of Southern California. Not a name one usually hears in discussions of what happened to the streetcars. But the Auto Club was a major player in the demise of the streetcar system. Email me

June 14, 1908

View Larger Map Wilshire and Westmoreland via Google street view
View Larger Map Lake and Hoover via Google street view
	ow if only research led in a straight line -- but thankfully, it doesn't. Research corkscrews and jets off at unexpected angles. Today's project was supposed to be about the home of the week -- in this case, the house built by Reuben Shettler at Wilshire and Westmoreland. At top, we have the home as it appeared in 1908 and the corner as it appears today via Google street view. (Bonus view: Hoover and Lake, the site of the other home of the week.) Of course, it would be nice if I had a little information on Reuben Shettler, so I dug up the personal note about him and his wife entertaining Ransom E. Olds, maker of the Reo automobile, at 3100 Wilshire Blvd. It turns out that Shettler's son Leon was an early Los Angeles car dealer. But in tracking down that information, I stumbled across new details on the Chinese massacre of 1871 -- on the society page, of all places. The woman being interviewed, Mrs. William LeMoyne Wills, says her father sheltered Chinese to protect them from the violence of the mob. This is the first I've ever heard of anyone offering sanctuary to the Chinese during this tragic incident. Then, in researching the Chinese massacre, I came across a photo of our old friend the dragon in Chinatown that was once part of The Times' flagpole. I really need to go looking for this thing to see if it's still there. E-mail me

June 11, 1908

ook, if you dare, into the mysterious disappearance of a fisherman on Santa Catalina Island named Tony the Greek, obscured not only by the details, but further muddied by the convoluted account in The Times. Toss in a private detective (Paul Blair of the Blair Detective Agency) who's approaching the disappearance as a case out of Sherlock Holmes and it's a good day's work merely to untangle the facts. View Larger Map Also: Plans for an incline railway up Mt. Washington, starting at Avenue 43 and Marmion Way (above). As the story notes, the railway was designed as a funicular, like Angels Flight, with two cars counterbalanced so that one descends when the other ascends. On the jump, a race war between whites and Japanese in the Imperial Valley over picking cantaloupes. Email me

Home of the week

June 7, 1908

Above, the home of J. de Barth Shorb (1842-1896) in San Marino, which Henry Huntington has torn down to make way for his cozy little cottage.  True confession: I have been a member of the Huntington for years and spent many hours on the grounds, but I never really thought about what used to be there, rather foolishly assuming that it had all been vacant. In a word, no. "Mr. Huntington was asked how much the building will cost and he remarked that it looked to him as though it will cost $75,000 ($1,649,028.64 USD 2007) at least, perhaps it will cost more. He said he will find out about that later on." Email me

May 5, 1908

 

Above, an update in the Brownsville incident ... Below, arson destroys a "spite house" next to 1712 W. Adams ... Ministers of the First Christian Church help raise money toward a legal test case on the Bible in public schools ...  Population of the city of Los Angeles, as determined in a school census, is 305,000, The Times says. There are 65,000 children in the city younger than 17.   

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Home of the week

May 3, 1908

Look what I found! Another 100-year-old home, as shown on Google maps street view:

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According to The Times, the Los Angeles Investment Co. developed a portion of what was known as the College Tract. The development consisted of 80 acres divided into 450 lots. The Times gave the boundaries as Gramercy, 48th Street, Wilton Place and Arlington Avenue, which don't form a rectangle, unfortunately. Houses ranged from modest bungalows to large, two-story homes. Home buyers were given two years' use of adjoining lots, which the company left vacant, The Times said. The builders also created small, landscaped parks throughout the development.

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Note: If you cannot see the Google image, you may need to install Adobe Flash Player as a browser plug-in. You may also need to switch to Firefox.

May 2, 1908

Above, the daring "ladder thief" strikes at the Doheny residence on Chester Place (apparently named for Stanford student Chester Silent) ... Below, a fascinating tale of legal intrigue, tangled relationships and greed told in the story of a land baron's love child--and 3,000 acres in Santa Barbara County where oil was discovered ... Beulah Hawkins awakens after 85 days ... Six Navy destroyers arrive in San Pedro ... Mounted police pursue several cars after the drivers attempt to drive the Arrowhead road in San Bernardino that is restricted to horses ... Someone sabotages the streetcar tracks at 9th Street and Channing and nearly causes a bad accident ... And the Chamber of Commerce is asking for auto owners to loan their vehicles so visiting sailors can get a tour of Los Angeles. 

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Home of the week

April 17, 1938

Here's a model home at 2270 Brentford Road in San Marino. Zillow says the house is still there and is valued at $975,000. I'll try to swing by there today and get a picture of it.

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