Monday, April 30, 2012

How The Civil War Was Fought/Filmed in Culver City by Thomas Ince Long Before Gone With The Wind




Mary Mallory: Thomas Ince, The Civil War and the Silver Sceen

Thomas Ince, sadly more recognized today for his tragic, early death than for the fine films he created, was one of Hollywood’s most successful early film producers. Building his first studio in 1912 at what is now the intersection of Pacific Coast Highway and Sunset Blvd., Ince churned out mostly westerns and Civil War pictures at this location, stories that possessed fine drama along with exciting action. In 1918 he built a fancy, state of the art studio facility at 9336 W. Washington Blvd. in Culver City, which later housed Selznick International Pictures and still stands today as the Culver Studios. Here Ince turned out a wide range of films with high artistic values. In 1924, he turned once again to a story of the Civil War, Barbara Frietchie, one that would allow him to employ many studio buildings as stand ins for Maryland buildings and mansions.
The rest of the story is at Film Works LA:

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

It's Raining Free Memory Over on G-Mail!

WOW!  Google just dropped 3,000 MB of much needed free memory into my g-mail account!  I guess they are trying to make up for how much their new g-mail design sucks.

Friday, April 20, 2012

Attend BOTH LA Times Book Festival at USC AND Historic Downtown LA's Walking Tours This Saturday and Sunday April 21st and 22nd!


The Last Bookstore Presents….
  
The Secret Lives of Historic Downtown Los Angeles


Due to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books this Saturday and  April 21st and Sunday April 22nd, we will have the HISTORIC DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES 101  2 hour walking tour on Saturday April 21st at 2 PM  and at 4:30 PM - and on Sunday April 22nd, at 2 PM and 4 :30 PM, we will have the HOW DOWNTOWN LOS ANGLES INVENTED THE WILD WEST (and why no one knows it) walking tour.


There will be no 11 AM tours this weekend - and this weekend only - so everyone can attend the morning events at the LA Times Book Festival at USC.  Then next weekend Saturday April 28th and Sunday April 29th, the tours will again be at 11 AM and 2 PM on both days with the April 29th Sunday tours INCLUDING special events at the Los Angeles Plaza!


BRADBURY BUILDING
For the next two weekends there will be two DIFFERENT guided walking tours of Historic Downtown Los Angeles’ secret past, its present - and its future.

All tours begin at THE LAST BOOKSTORE at 453 S. Spring Street in the Spring Arts Tower and will be led by long time Downtown resident Brady Westwater who, besides being involved with the Downtown LA Neighborhood Council, the Historic Downtown BID, Gallery Row, Art Walk, and the BOXeight and the CONCEPT Fashion Weeks, has brought over 150 businesses, artists and non-profit institutions to Downtown.Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

Friday, April 13, 2012

Time Change For This Weekend's Four Walking Tours - Historic Downtown 101 - and How Downtown Los Angeles Invented the Wild West.


The Last Bookstore Presents….
  
The Secret Lives of Historic Downtown Los Angeles


Due to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books this Saturday and  April 21st and Sunday April 22nd, we will have the HISTORIC DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES 101  2 hour walking tour on Saturday April 21st at 2 PM  and at 4:30 PM - and on Sunday April 22nd, at 2 PM and 4 :30 PM, we will have the HOW DOWNTOWN LOS ANGLES INVENTED THE WILD WEST (and why no one knows it) walking tour.


There will be no 11 AM tours this weekend - and this weekend only - so everyone can attend the morning events at the LA Times Book Festival at USC.  Then next weekend Saturday April 28th and Sunday April 29th, the tours will again be at 11 AM and 2 PM on both days


BRADBURY BUILDING
For the next two weekends - see below for days and times) will be two DIFFERENT guided walking tours of Historic Downtown Los Angeles’ secret past, its present - and its future.

All tours begin at THE LAST BOOKSTORE at 453 S. Spring Street in the Spring Arts Tower and will be led by long time Downtown resident Brady Westwater who, besides being involved with the Downtown LA Neighborhood Council, the Historic Downtown BID, Gallery Row, Art Walk, and the BOXeight and the CONCEPT Fashion Weeks, has brought over 150 businesses, artists and non-profit institutions to Downtown.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Myth that Floods of 1938 Caused the LA River to be Cemented Continues to Live

In LA OBSERVED today, Kevin Roderick links to a blog post by David J. Barboza which describes a five hour bus tour (and I will suppress any allusion to any five hour boar tour) of the history of the San Fernando Valley hosted by Roderick (which I deeply regret that I missed) and mentions a few errors that were made in Barboza's taking notes during that five hour tour.  But, as is typical in the convoluted, uncollated and poorly recorded history of LA, there needs be be a correction of one part of that correction.

Barboza states:
Between and to the north of Sherman Oaks and Encino lies the Sepulveda Basin, including the Sepulveda Dam. The dam was developed to control the LA River in response to devastating floods in 1937.
Roderick corrects:
Couple of clarifications to his report, just for the historical record. The Beatles did not play at the Bob Eubanks' Cinnamon Cinder club (they held a press conference before performing at Hollywood Bowl in '64), gangster Mickey Cohen did not shoot Jack Whalen at Rondelli's (but he was there when it happened), and the flooding that triggered the construction of Sepulveda Dam and cementing of the Los Angeles River occurred in 1938.

Now the correct part of  the correction is that the great flood of 1938 happened in... 1938.  It did not happen in 1937.  But the part of the correction that needs correcting is that the flood of 1938 had nothing to do with the plans for the cementing of the LA River - or the construction of the Sepulveda Flood Control Basin.

In fact, that entire flood control system had already started construction even before1938 flood occurred.  But in Kevin's defense, it has long been part of LA lore and history that 1938 flood that was the reason for those plans and I myself was raised hearing that same statement over and over again from the generations before me.


But, as Blake Gumprech reported in his now classic book “The Los Angeles River”, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2001, we were all wrong in believing that.  Instead, the inspiration for those flood control devices began with the 1914 floods which led to a bond issue in 1926 that was defeated.  


However, after the single worst one day flood in LAs history on January 1st, 1934, a new far larger bond issue (ten times as much money) was passed by LA County voters.  Then  in March of 1934 a vastly larger project was endorsed by a presidential committee and that was followed in  July of 1935 with 13.9 million in federal funds being allocated and - finally - in 1936 almost 25% of all federal funds from the Flood Control Act of 1936 were allocated to Los Angeles Country to avoid repeat of the 1934 flood and the project had been expanded to flood control basins such as the one built at the Supulveda.


And all of that was just getting under construction when the Flood of 1938 hit.   So, when the work resumed right after the flood waters had receded, it was only natural that it would be forever embedded in local memories - that the project was a result of the flood of 1938.


And below is a short except from a great website on the history of flood control.  And if anyone wants a 2 hour walking tour of Historic Downtown Los Angeles, check out www.historicdowntownlosangeles.blogspot.com for the hours of each weekend's  "Historic Downtown LA 101 Tour and the "how Los Angeles Invented the Wild West - and Why No One Knows it Tour.  Each tour costs $15 and begins at THE LAST BOOKSTORE at 453 S. Spring Street.




Fallout from the New Year’s Day Flood 1934

In the days after the New Year’s Flood on January 1, 1934, LA County’s Chief Engineer E.C. Eaton was understandably apoplectic. He blamed the disaster on the defeat of the 1926 bond issue mentioned above, which would have provided $2.4 million for flood control construction in the area where damages were greatest. (16) He said, “In no case where permanent types of protection work were installed was serious damage experienced.” (17) For his efforts, the public turned against him, blaming him for the failure of flood control. He resigned in August 1934.
In the fall of 1934, the desperate LA County Board of Supervisors placed a $26.3 million local bond issue on the ballot to fund emergency improvements in the foothills and numerous other projects similar to those that the voters had handily rejected in 1926 (see above). The funds were meant for constructing 1) 12 “debris basins” in the La Canada Valley to capture debris flows before they reached the communities located there; 2) concrete channels to carry water from the debris basins to the Los Angeles basin; and 3 levees along the entire river. Again the citizens of LA defeated the measure by a 4 percent margin. (17)
The Federal Government Takes Over Flood Control in LA County
With the failure of the local referendum, the LA County supervisors again turned to Washington where they requested $19.3 million from the federal government under the “Emergency Relief Appropriation Act”, a Depression-era recovery program created by the US Congress. This act had been passed in April 1935 and granted President Roosevelt $5 billion with which to implement relief programs and government employment programs. (18) Interestingly, a presidential committee had already endorsed the comprehensive plan created by E.C. Eaton inMarch 1934, which carried a price tag of around $100 million and included 64 separate projects, according to Gumprecht.
   , i



In July 1935, President Roosevelt allocated $13.9 million in Works Progress Administration (WPA) funds to finance 14 of the most pressing projects in Eaton’s comprehensive plan. LA County provided $3.5 million to purchase land needed for the projects, as homes had been built all along the Los Angeles River directly in its flood plain. All work was placed under the US Army Corps of Engineers and was to be carried out by unemployed local laborers on WPA relief rolls. (19) Most of the relief funds went to improving channels and constructing debris basins at the openings of San Gabriel canyons. The US Congress in July also funded a preliminary examination of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers and their tributaries by the US Army Corps of Engineers as prelude to a federally-funded LA County flood control program.
The Flood Control Act of 1936
In 1936 the US Congress passed the Flood Control Act of 1936, which greatly expanded the role of the US Army Corps of Engineers in addressing the nation’s flooding problems. In the 1930s, flood control was conceptualized as the “use of large, expensive, and environmentally intrusive physical structures.” (20). Neither Congress nor the Corps paid much attention to alternative approaches common today, such as flood warning systems, flood insurance, flood plain information programs, and procedures to discourage new building development on flood plains.  
The 1936 Flood Control Act identified 50 flood control projects nationwide and Los Angeles County flood control was one of them. Indeed, Los Angeles County received more money than any other project in the nation. An additional $70 million  was provided for Los Angeles County projects, which calculated to almost one-fourth of the total federal expenditures under the act. Although the Corps initially used Eaton’s original comprehensive plan, problems were identified. In December 1936, US Army Major Theodore Wyman submitted his own recommendations for controlling the Los Angeles River. His approach involved construction of 1) debris basins, 2) large flood control basins, and 3) stream channels both deepened and lined with beauteous re-enforced concrete to enable floodwaters to be transported to the ocean as quickly as possible. (21)
Federal flood control work had barely begun when the most damaging flood in the history of Los Angeles County struck in March 1938.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

George Lucas Drops Plans for Movie Studio in Marin County.

According to the Los Angeles Times, due to to local opposition, George Lucas has decided against a film studio in Marin Country to supplement his studio in the Presdio in San Francisco.

Now, of course, this means that the crack economic development teams in the City of Los Angeles and the County of Los Angeles will combine forces and fly up to Marin to convince Lucas to open a branch of his studio in the LA area.

And that will happen at the exact same moment every pig in the state of California suddenly takes flight and starts circling the runways of LAX.

The force wasn't with George Lucas -- at least in his latest building plans.
Lucasfilm, the company behind the "Star Wars" movies, said it was scrapping plans to build a huge studio facility in Marin County, citing longstanding opposition from homeowners.
"The level of bitterness and anger expressed by the homeowners in Lucas Valley has convinced us that, even if we were able to spend more time to acquire the necessary approvals, we would not be able to maintain a constructive relationship with our neighbors,'' Lucasfilm said in a statement Tuesday. "We love working and living in Marin, but the residents of Lucas Valley have fought this project for 25 years."
Lucasfilm moved its headquarters and most of its employees, including its visual effects unit ILM, to the Presidio in San Francisco several years ago because it outgrew its location at Skywalker Ranch in Lucas Valley.  

The rest of the story is at the above link is in the LA Times Entertainment blog at George Lucas Drops Plans for Movie Studio.

Should the government be ENCOURAGING mountain lions to live in Los Angeles City Parks?

On March 25th, 2011, a 110 pound male mountain lion was captured in a trap in Griffith Park.  It was lured there by the carcass of a dead animal.  It was then tagged with a radio collar to track its movements.  But instead of being relocated to an area where it would not endanger the thousands of people - many of them young children - who use Griffith Park every day - it was released back into Griffith Park in the heart of Los Angeles.

Now the only reason to do this is if the goal is to make Griffith Park into a breeding ground for mountain lions, also known as pumas. And the only way a healthy population can permanently inhabit Griffith Park is if the Griffith Park breeding colony can permanently breed with other mountain lion populations.

That would require all of the Santa Monica Mountains between Griffith Park - including the Hollywood Hills, upper Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Brentwood and the Pacific Palisades - not to mention the San Fernando Valley hillside communities on the other side of Mulholland such as Sherman Oaks, Encino, Tarzana and Woodland Hills - to become part of a permanent mountain lion corridor; a corridor which would make all of those hillside communities potentially home to breeding colonies of mountain lions.

Now it was stated that the lion was not captured by any hiking trails - but that was only because the trap was not set next to a hiking trail.  And since a full grown male mountain lion has a very large range - it could easily reach any hiking trail in Griffith Park within a day - if not within hours.

So the question is - when those of us who voted to make the mountain lion a protected species (as I did) - did any of us expect that the government would use that law to help reintroduce mountain lions into the city parks and residential communities of urban Los Angeles?

Now I am not taking a stand on this at this moment.  I simply think there needs to be some kind of public debate about this policy.

Thursday, April 05, 2012

Discover the Secrets Of Historic Downtown Los Angeles On Four Walking Tours This and Next Weekend!


The Last Bookstore Presents….
  
The Secret Lives of Historic Downtown Los Angeles



The HISTORIC DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES 101  2 hour walking tour (see details on this tour BELOW) HOW DOWNTOWN LOS ANGLES INVENTED THE WILD WEST (and why no one knows it) walking tour (see details of this tour BELOW) take place most weekends.  See the latest post on this blog for the next dates.
BRADBURY BUILDING


All tours begin at THE LAST BOOKSTORE at 453 S. Spring Street in the Spring Arts Tower and will be led by long time Downtown resident Brady Westwater who, besides being involved with the Downtown LA Neighborhood Council, the Historic Downtown BID, Gallery Row, Art Walk, and the BOXeight and the CONCEPT Fashion Weeks, has brought over 150 businesses, artists and non-profit institutions to Downtown.  All tours are only $15 per person.

Wyatt Earp

If you are a participant in Saturday's 'Historic Downtown Los Angeles 101' Tour, you will see the first motion picture theater built,  the place where Babe Ruth signed his contract with the Yankees, the hotel where Charlie Chaplin lived when he made his early films (and the place where he made his Los Angeles vaudeville debut in 1910) - plus the homes and haunts of everyone from actor Nicholas Cage, the Black Dahlia, Rudolph Valentino, LA’s version of Jack the Ripper, President Teddy Roosevelt, the Night Stalker, western outlaw Emmet Dalton,  actor Ryan Gosling and more.  And you will also visit where O. J. Simpson bought his knife.

You’ll explore an intersection where all four buildings were often visited by gunfighter/sheriff Wyatt Earp since they were all built or occupied by friends of his from Tombstone during the shoot-out at the OK Corral.  At this intersection you will also discover what John Wayne, a prime minister of Italy, Houdini, Winston Churchill, boxer Jack Dempsey, Greta Garbo, President Woodrow Wilson and multiple Mexican boxing champions all had in common here.

You will also see where the first new lofts were opened, the places where Gallery Row and the Art Walk began and where Fashion Week returned to Downtown.  You will see many of the new boutiques, designer showrooms and stores that have recently opened in the area along with getting a sneak preview of what will soon be happening in the area.

And if you take the "How Los Angeles Invented The Wild West (and why no one knows it"tour, you will discover that long before the famed Western cowtowns and mining camps Tombstone, Dodge City, and Deadwood existed, Los Angeles was the first town where everything that happened in the Wild West, happened here first and that everyone from Wyatt Earp to Judge Roy Bean came to Los Angeles first before going east to help start the Wild West. You will also discover LA was a far ‘wilder’ town than any Western town that followed after it.

And besides ‘inventing’ the original Wild West, Los Angeles also remained part of the Wild West for far longer than other place (from 25 years to over 90 years - compared to the average period of 3 or 4 years to 10 years of most cowtowns) and LA was also one of the few towns built upon both cattle and mining.

Tickets for either tour are only $15 per person - free for children under 8 - and reservations can be made by calling Brady Westwater at 213-804-8396 or emailing bradywestwater@gmail.com.  All credit card orders will be processed  at Last Bookstore and cash payments may be made at the start of the tour.   All proceeds will go towards the revitalization and the study of the history of the neighborhood.  

Lastly, future tours will feature specialized areas of interest such as architecture, art of all kinds, shopping and food, single streets, sports (from steer wrestling to luchador wrestlers to a Sumo wrestler), transportation, specific periods of history, the hidden Wild West history of Los Angeles, movie locations, Downtown after hours and many other aspects of the neighborhood. And custom designed can be developed by request  for groups of four or more.

We will also be soon starting weekday and evening tours on what it's like to live in Downtown Los Angeles. You will be introduced to the many of stores, restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues (and often their owners, too) - along with being given previews of one of a kind special events - so you can get a feel for what it is like to live in Downtown Los Angeles.

We expect this tour to be popular with not only people considering moving to Downtown and people who work in Downtown and who would like to know what to do after hours in Downtown - but also to recent and even long established Downtown residents who want to know more about their neighborhood.

For future updates and more information go to www.historicdowntownlosangeles.blogspot.com

Wednesday, April 04, 2012

Demolition underway of Pickford Building at The Lot - LA Observed

Demolition underway of Pickford Building at The Lot - LA Observed

It is unimaginable that this type of destruction can still happen when so many other ways could have been found to create an even more profitable project while still preserving the historical structures.