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Photo Essays

Driveby Shot: Crossroads of the World

Angeleno Sights
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Now an office building, Sunset Blvd.’s Crossroads of the World opened in 1936 as L.A.’s first themed shopping mall. (Many believe it’s America’s first such mall as well.)
The shipshape design was the brainchild of Robert V. Derrah, well known for his Streamline Moderne Coca Cola building across town on Central Avenue.
Here at Crossroads, a twirling [...]

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Blightseeing: Curbed Sofas in Echo Park

Life in Angel City
Sofa_thumbnail

Don’t you just hate when someone decides to redecorate your neighborhood streets with their tired, worn-out furnishings? (All the more so when they take up precious parking space…)

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That’s Our Lady: Depictions of L.A.’s Namesake

Angeleno Sights
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Los Angeles is known throughout the world as the City of Angels, a fact reflected in this blog’s title. But as your humble blogger has pointed out before, the city’s founders didn’t really name their pueblo for the angels, but for the Virgin Mary (aka, Our Lady of the Angels).
As a reminder of this oft-forgotten [...]

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Photo Op: Pasadena’s City Hall

Angeleno Sights

This building ranks as one of Southern California’s true gems. Completed in 1927, it was designed by the San Francisco firm of Bakewell and Brown. The red tile roofing, cast stone details and massive six-story dome recall 16th Century Italian architectural cues.
When I set out to snap my night photos, I began with the much [...]

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Photo Op: Grand Avenue’s Artsy New School

Angeleno Sights

My regular readers may be wondering where I’ve been lately. The answer is all over town.
Two magazine writing gigs, plus continued work on my book have kept me plenty busy. Add to that a documentary film class that I started at the Echo Park Film Center a couple of weeks ago, and you’ve got the [...]

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Photo Op: Two Views of Pasadena’s Wonderfully Creepy Bridge

Cryptic L.A.

As long as we’re still celebrating the Christmas season, remember the famous Bridge Scene in It’s a Wonderful Life? Had the film been set in Southern California, Jimmy Stewart certainly would’ve considered hurling himself from the spans of Pasadena’s Colorado Street Bridge instead of some snowy old trestle.
Built in 1913, the overpass towers 150 feet [...]

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Photo Op: Seeing the Lights in Altadena

Angeleno Sights

Still in a holiday mood? That’s OK, because technically the Christmas season runs the next twelve days until January 6, when the Christian world celebrates Epiphany, or the Feast of the Magi. So, if you’re looking for something to do this second night of Christmas (or the third or fourth, for that matter), why not [...]

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Photo Op: La Purísima Basks in the Late-Day Sun

Odds and Ends

For me, a visit to this mission is always like a trip back in time.
Off the beaten track just outside Lompoc, La Purísima was founded in 1787 as the 11th of California’s 21 missions. It moved to its current site in 1812 after a huge quake destroyed the first complex, four miles away.
Now a California [...]

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Photo Op: Carroll Avenue Revisited

Angeleno Sights

While organizing my old digital files I stumbled across this detail shot of a dusk-lit Victorian porch on Carroll Ave. It was snapped about two years ago with my then-new Nikon D70s, just after I took up amateur photography.
Each fall I like to return to Carroll Ave. and take in its haunting Victorian homes. Part [...]

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Cryptic Sights: One Lulu of a Burial at Angelus-Rosedale

Angeleno Sights

They say you can’t take it with you.
Maybe not, but it sure can buy you one helluva sendoff.
Just ask Louise Maier, only daughter of the wealthy Joseph Maier, the Bavarian owner of L.A.’s Philadelphia Brewery in the late 1800s. When Lulu (as she was known about town) died in 1897 at the blossom age of [...]

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D’oh! Simpsons Behind Bars

Odds and Ends

You never know what — or who — you’ll run into at the local rummage shop. While out practicing night shots along La Brea, I also stumbled across Homer, Marge and Bart jailed among the shabby chic of this floodlit corner vintage yard.
Hopefully someone will spring them soon and give them a good home. Of [...]

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Street Scene: Labor Day Night at Pink’s

Odds and Ends

What better way to enjoy the waning summer than a late-night outing to Pink’s?
Probably the most popular hot dog spot in all Southern California, Pink’s has plied its trade near the La Brea and Melrose intersection since 1939, drawing huge crowds for its world-famous chili dogs well into the wee hours.
Of course, waiting in lines [...]

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Flashback: The Great Griffith Park Fire of 1933

Odds and Ends

As this past weekend has again reminded us, fires have long been the scourge of Griffith Park. Devastating as the 2007-2008 fire seasons have been, however, the worst disaster in the park’s history remains the Great Fire of 1933, seen in this vintage AP photo sent by a Dateline>City of Angels reader.
Like the recent spate [...]

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Who Let This Horse Out of the Barn?

Life in Angel City

Drive-By Shot: While cruising along Main Street this afternoon, I caught sight of this giant carousel pony in a salvage yard near Avenue 20, at the edge of downtown.
Towering a full story in height, I first thought the equestrian unit might be the project of some artist living and/or working in the nearby lofts. [...]

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Photo Op: Just Another Neon Night

Odds and Ends

My amateur quest for interesting neon scenes recently led me to Echo Park’s House of Spirits liquor store. Always hopping on weekends, the thriving business caters to an extremely “eclectic” crowd ranging from the area’s Old Guard to retro-hipsters, gentrifiers and prerequisite vagrants. Yet despite its unruly appearance and traffic patterns, the store is surprisingly [...]

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Photo Op: Gateway to Elysian Park’s Badlands?

Odds and Ends

An old gnarled trunk forms an eerie arch in the so-called “Badlands” of Elysian Park.
Originally part of El Pueblo de Los Angeles’ common lands, the 600-acre tract was officially established as the city’s first public park in April 1886. Today the green space offers stunning city views and is home to the Police Academy, Dodger [...]

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