The 5722 address is for the corner office, the U.S. Office Machine Company, one of the last three typewriter repair comapnies in the Los Angeles area. Jess Flores the owner has been there for 40 years or more. Him and his two sons repair and restore vintage typewriters for the public as well as movie production companies.I believe the other address next door is 5720. Inside the typewriter place there is a stairway that cuts off half-way. The theater has been divided up into three storefronts, I believe. The back part of it was leased at one time by Zach De La Rocha of Rage Against the Machine. Jess Flores,used to be one of the sponosrs of the now defunct Highland Park Christmas parade. It looks like most of the facade has also been covered up by cheap tile, plaster and other false fronting. Most of the buildings on Fig have had this happen to them, along with ugly 1950s plastic facades. A few of the business owners, however, are stripping off the false fronts and exposing the orignal brick or tile fronts.
Its postage stamp sized. WE should have the Nuart…tiny movie houses should go with tiny towns.
I wonder why they cant just start by painting the exterior facade, its peeling badly, the wood is exposed to the elements. Did you see those huge water stains on the side….water damage. thats what they should fix first, like now, or else there will be nothing left to fix.
Its unfair to compare the Rialto and the Nuart. The Nuart is much younger than the Rialto, and much tinier, whats the capacity? 150? 175?
Another one of the reasons that the Rialto not doing adequate business is that Landmark withold the reall good films from the Rialto that it shows at its other venues…the moneymakers, the foreign, the single auteur, the type of films that people queue around the block for. Landmark WANTS you drive out to the Westside to see THOSE films(ARGHHH…the traffic, the lack of parking, the insane drivers, the high crime!!!). Take a look at Landmark’s calendar handouts…there is a bigtime discrepancy when it comes to the Rialto.
As for live performances…..They use to allow local bands on stage late Sundau evening. I used to do harmonica jams there with Portnoise Complaint and Pagan Dream Salad back in ‘88. Great acoustics I must say.
One thing about sneaking in. if the nightwatchman sees you, the South Pas PD will be there in three seconds(the police deepo is only two blocks away), the downside of living in the safest city in L.A. County.
One more thing…is it spelled THEATRE or THEATER????
Duh….krammy…you brought it up. As for the Rialto, maybe they can turn it into an Arclight Theare, so krammy and his west-side pallys can have quiche popcorn with their movie.
As for a tunnel being hard to insure….terrorist attack? Unlikely but possible(thanks mr. bush) and earthquakes?? I suppose earthquakes can hinder construction and damage any unsecured construction equipment etc., but as Caltrans itself and 99% of all seismic scientists have stated repeatedly that in an earthquake, a tunnel is the safest place to be.
In any case…Freeways are no longer the answer. If we allow the freeway men their way, L.A. would be carved up into neighborhoods of less than 5 square blocks, think about that , Krammy my boy. And we still get stuck with traffic , air and a quality of life ten times worse.
Wouldnt be much point in saving historic theatres in a city like that, except to use them as high-density apartments, which is another great plan from the dame folks that brought you the freeways.Besides that, new freways never alleviate traffic, they only make it worse.Take for instance the cry-babies in Alhambra, crying and whing about how much traffic they get because the 710 was never completed. What a BUNCH of little bitches!!!! You why there is bad traffic in Alhambra??? Because all through the 60s, 70s and 80s, developers greased the palms of Alhambra councilmen and knocked down hundreds of single-family dwellings to build multi-story high density apartment houses. You know what Alhambra did recently?? They allowed the building of a Lowes and dozens of shops in a very large mall, directly on some of the worst congested streets in that city.You want a freeway, krammy, lets build one through Beverly Hills, or better yet, where do YOU live????
The whole is historic, Krammy my boy. I read somewhere that is historic Paris neighborhood, one that is several hunder years old but with a population of mostly working class and middle calss folks, like South Pas, stopped a freeway that would have destroyed the town. AS for the 710 extension, its a trucker freeway, so by its very nature will have to built wide. Stilts are fine, but dangerously unstable in any earthquake over 6.0. A tunnel…a real tunnel, not a cut and fill trench, something dug out by a TBM, would be okay. In Europe, there are dozens of tunnels through the Alps, some of them 30 miles long. The 710 connection would be only 6.1 miles. The only problem, Europeans are highly advanced technology and science-wise, here in America, its rich men who control our resources and have stifled scientific development.
I know what you mean about the tiles. Alot of those buildings on Broadway, Hill, Olive and Spring have those glass tiles, most of them
are over basement storage areas. When I was little kid, I snuk into the Bullock’s or May Company’s basement once, and there was one tile with a crack in it, and being the budding pervert that I was, climbed up some boxes and spent a mesmerised hour looking up women’s skirts on the sidewalk. Those things were a cool way to illuminate a basement.
Well folks…its the END….FIN, for the Rialto. It is set to close down as of August 20th. The end of an era. Here is a snippet from the Pasadena Star-News,and quoting Bill Banowsky, CEO of Landmark Theatres, “Like so many aging single-screen theaters, the Rialto has become uneconomical to operate as a movie theater. If we can develop an economically viable plan to restore the theater, that is our preference.” One thing though, they will not tear down of in any way demolish the theater…..for now. What can we do?
Building the connection through South Pas would destroy over 1000 homes, many of them, about 500, historic. The thing about the Pasadena-South Pasadena-San marino area, is that we have more historic homes than in all the rest of Los Angeles County PUT TOGETHER!!
South Pas has TWICE more Craftsman style homes than Hollywood, Santa Monica, Venice, West Los Angeles, Fullerton, Echo Park, Silverlake and Glendale, COMBINED!!!
(Hey, I better shut up…we’ll have the goddamed yuppies moving here next!!)
It would also be the first time history that a regular community, the “little guy” mangaged to beat the freeway bullies. Come on Ken….you ever wonder why there are no freeways through Beverly Hills????
Besides, when you come to South Pas, this is the birthplace of “Mission” and “Arts & Crafts” in California.
Hey Vokoban…I remember going to the Westlake back in the early 70s. My friend’s mom would drop us off for a double-feature and then split. Ahhh, parenting in the 70s….no wonder we turned out this way. Anyway, I think the last thing we saw there was “Guide for the Married Man” and a Rock Hudson movie. I remember seeing rats running up the aisle every now and then.
I’ve been to every downtown theatre at least once, and most, many times starting around 1962. My dad ususally picked the flicks, and I really hated his taste in movies, so I would go exploring every nook and cranny, even making it on the roof , crawl spaces, backstages, underground, even a few times the cat walks, with the theatre dark and everybody watching the screen, nobody noticed a little skinny Mexican kid wandering about. The only time I actually watched the films is when I got to pick the film, usually “Godzilla vs.Mothra” or “300 Spartans”, then and only then would I sit quietly. You know what was great about alot of these theatres? The restrooms. Those things were palaces by themselves. Fancy tiles. Mahogany wood. Thick carpet. Giant jardinieres and sand jars for decoration. I felt like the Sultan’s kid taking a leak in those places.
This was one of those theatres where they would hand you a little bingo card with your ticket , I believe they called the game Keno, and they called the numbers during intermission. Many of the theatres downtown played this game, I suppose to bolster the number of dwindling cutomers. I remember my dad won once, but he had to share the pot with about 15 other winners, and I still remember to this day his cut….$6. The Tower had Keno, and I think the California did as well.
I cant get those last photos. Concerning the Latino films…latinos were allowed on Main by that time. Old-timers tell me that latinos and blacks were not allowed on Broadway or the surrounding city center until after the 1940s. One old latino gent told me that if you were black or latino, you needed a permission slip to be in the area from your employer or you would be arrested, escorted out, or beat-up by the police and passers-by. But by the 50s, this was no longer deemed feasable or proper, and much of downtown opened up to blacks and latinos. Interesting to note, in some John Fante and Raymond Chandler novels set in the 40s, the area bordering Main was already looked upon as run-down and even referred to as “skid-row”.
Check out the long gone old-world fountain where Main separates from Spring in that photograph. That disappears from the record around the 30s. Those are the little touches that make a city, a city. Many of our landmarks or architectural details disappeared during the development madness of the 60s and 70s. There are huge gaps in the natural architectural progression of our city, but luckily and inexplicably in some cases, so much has survived. I remember back in the 70s and 80s, so many buildings near the historic core and older neighborhoods were demolished( many of these structures built in the 1890-1900s) and no effort was made to salvage any important details. I remember wrecking balls smashing into two-story high stained glass windows and ornate neon marquees with a mechanical indifference that was mirrored in the eyes of developers. That “look” is STILL there. If the city would relax some of the square-footage and commercial tax issues that hamstring preservation efforts, without having commercial entertainment and private parties ( bogus preservation groups)taking advantage of it at the expense of the taxpayers, THAT would go a long way to putting the profit of developers in a permanent back-seat to the interests of the public. It is our birth-right.Citizens of European cities, residents of Boston, San Fran, San Diego, New York, and cities , towns and hamlets across the country can take a walk on their streets and witness layers of historical architecture. We still have most of our layers. Unless dictated by extraordinary circumstances, there should be zero demolition of any historic structure,especially of theaters.
(Yes Kenny, I guess the Cal was a “gem”…..for about 6 months anyway, or until the REAL palaces were built up on Broadway).
Thanks for the posting, Ken MC, I have the same one around here somewhere. I’m sure you’ll agree that it just goes to show how limited , as far as telling the whole story, that the snippet-journalism of media can be. For insatnce, the California was never considered a gem of the theatre district. Certainly the facade was beautiful, but if was a mere concrete box inside. Second, the so-called Hillsman-Wright group never really meant to rehabilitate the theatre, but merely wanted to loot and carry away as many architectural details as possible, or use the theatre for their own purpose, in essence, using the law to steal private property under the guise of historic preservation. As for the assertion that the Needlemans were not trying hard enough to preserve the structure, this is a definite canard and misreprentation of the truth, as we know now. The Needlemans, who at the time were known as the DENMARST company, were not a hugely wealthy limited, but a mediun-sized real
estate business. Tye were faced with a choice of rehabilitating the
Orpheum, a REAL and BONAFIDE movie palace, and the California, a water and earthquake damaged building that could have taken several million to re-hab. The Needlemans chose to rehab the Orpheum, which has now been brought back to its glory days, and IT has become THE centerpiece of the center-city rehabilitation. The Hillsman Wright group did manage to blackmail the Needlmans by slapping the Denmarst company with so many legal injunctions, which ended up costing the Needlemans hundreds of thousands of dollars in construction delays.
The so-called “preservationists” contacted Denmarst with the blackmail offer, in which Hillsman Wright, the Historic Theatre Preservation group and their cronies would drop all injunctions and the Needlemans were free in demolishing the theatre if the Needlemans would pay a donation/bribe of several hundred thousand dollars. This the Denmarst did, if only to stop bleeding money and resources. One of the stipulations was that the “Theatre Conservancy” agency would have first dibs on all the interior objets d'art, architectural details, seats, projector, lights, curtains, etc….however, the Needlemans, to their credit, gave me the keys a week before , and my crew and I were able to STRIP the theatre before the Conservancy folks got to it.In any case, kudos to landowners like the Needlmans, who are the REAL HEROES of downtown revitalization, and not these west-side blackmailers and artsy-fartsy looters!!!
Hooray!!! Hey William, I’ll try and upload a new photo on the Fox Arroyo today. Its got a new business inside, and I believe they changed the address from the original 3236 to 3232, but I am not sure so I’ll go by there today. I saw the comments by Joe Vogel on the theatre link. Its true that this place is surrounded by a great many historical residences, and not just Heritage Square. Highland Park/Cypress Park was one of the first suburbs of Los Angeles and has a plethora of interesting buildings , houses and sites of historical interest spanning many periods. And its an area blessed with several nice theatres, like the Highland further up Fig, and the Rialto in South Pas.
Hey, there was a theatre in the Cypress park area of L.A., catty-cornered from Nightengale Middle school. It had been used as a sweat shop or warehouse for years, now I believe its a store or restaraunt. It still has its original Moorish facade. I wonder if anyone knows anything about it, I mean, what it was in its heyday. Its on 3232 North Figueroa. Hey, do I get credit for finding a new/old theatre? Do I get anything?
Here’s another interesting story, concerning the California. You know how everyone thinks the Theatre Conservancy is such an altruistic bunch of folks….well…think again!! When it was announced that it would be sold and razed, the Theatre Conservancy filed an injunction to stop the demolition. Back and forth the owners, the city, and Conservancy haggled over its fate. It was costing the owners a pretty penny to have their construction/demolition/business plans delayed by the injunction.One day, the owners received a call from the top people at the Conservancy. It seem that the Conservancy folks would let the owners demolish the building under one condition…..that the Conservancy would be given dibs at taking out any architecturaly significant fixtures, lights, seats, curtains, equpiment….objects’d'art, etc, even the ticket booth. The owners, needless to say were enraged that the only reason for the injuction had been to allow the L.A. Theatre Conservancy the rights to plunder, and not to save the theatre….but they agreed, in order to proceed with their business. Of course the double-cross took place when the owners gave me the keys a full week before the Conservancy was to receive them. This was the owners way of getting a bit of revenge, and it was a good one. When the Conservancy guys walked in a week later, almost everything had been stripped by me and my crew. We watched the amusing scene from across the street at Joey’s Coffee Shop….the Conservancy guys had brought a bunch of west-side yuppies in TWO U-HAUL trucks!!!! HAHA!! You should have been there!!!!
You know, Ken, if the owners were only able to hold out for a few years more, it could have been saved. There were certain political and finacial situations involving the owners , which seemed intractable at the time …but which later proved to be of no consequence. But of course, to what purpose? It wasnt the big beautiful type of palace found on Broadway. It had a semi-interesting facade, and a mostly plain interior. Still, I would have much preferred it taken over as a Mexican Bazaar or Korean church than be demolished.
The 5722 address is for the corner office, the U.S. Office Machine Company, one of the last three typewriter repair comapnies in the Los Angeles area. Jess Flores the owner has been there for 40 years or more. Him and his two sons repair and restore vintage typewriters for the public as well as movie production companies.I believe the other address next door is 5720. Inside the typewriter place there is a stairway that cuts off half-way. The theater has been divided up into three storefronts, I believe. The back part of it was leased at one time by Zach De La Rocha of Rage Against the Machine. Jess Flores,used to be one of the sponosrs of the now defunct Highland Park Christmas parade. It looks like most of the facade has also been covered up by cheap tile, plaster and other false fronting. Most of the buildings on Fig have had this happen to them, along with ugly 1950s plastic facades. A few of the business owners, however, are stripping off the false fronts and exposing the orignal brick or tile fronts.
I was just kidding, but it is small.
Its postage stamp sized. WE should have the Nuart…tiny movie houses should go with tiny towns.
I wonder why they cant just start by painting the exterior facade, its peeling badly, the wood is exposed to the elements. Did you see those huge water stains on the side….water damage. thats what they should fix first, like now, or else there will be nothing left to fix.
Its unfair to compare the Rialto and the Nuart. The Nuart is much younger than the Rialto, and much tinier, whats the capacity? 150? 175?
Another one of the reasons that the Rialto not doing adequate business is that Landmark withold the reall good films from the Rialto that it shows at its other venues…the moneymakers, the foreign, the single auteur, the type of films that people queue around the block for. Landmark WANTS you drive out to the Westside to see THOSE films(ARGHHH…the traffic, the lack of parking, the insane drivers, the high crime!!!). Take a look at Landmark’s calendar handouts…there is a bigtime discrepancy when it comes to the Rialto.
As for live performances…..They use to allow local bands on stage late Sundau evening. I used to do harmonica jams there with Portnoise Complaint and Pagan Dream Salad back in ‘88. Great acoustics I must say.
One thing about sneaking in. if the nightwatchman sees you, the South Pas PD will be there in three seconds(the police deepo is only two blocks away), the downside of living in the safest city in L.A. County.
One more thing…is it spelled THEATRE or THEATER????
Duh….krammy…you brought it up. As for the Rialto, maybe they can turn it into an Arclight Theare, so krammy and his west-side pallys can have quiche popcorn with their movie.
As for a tunnel being hard to insure….terrorist attack? Unlikely but possible(thanks mr. bush) and earthquakes?? I suppose earthquakes can hinder construction and damage any unsecured construction equipment etc., but as Caltrans itself and 99% of all seismic scientists have stated repeatedly that in an earthquake, a tunnel is the safest place to be.
I’m meant Kohl’s, not Lowes
In any case…Freeways are no longer the answer. If we allow the freeway men their way, L.A. would be carved up into neighborhoods of less than 5 square blocks, think about that , Krammy my boy. And we still get stuck with traffic , air and a quality of life ten times worse.
Wouldnt be much point in saving historic theatres in a city like that, except to use them as high-density apartments, which is another great plan from the dame folks that brought you the freeways.Besides that, new freways never alleviate traffic, they only make it worse.Take for instance the cry-babies in Alhambra, crying and whing about how much traffic they get because the 710 was never completed. What a BUNCH of little bitches!!!! You why there is bad traffic in Alhambra??? Because all through the 60s, 70s and 80s, developers greased the palms of Alhambra councilmen and knocked down hundreds of single-family dwellings to build multi-story high density apartment houses. You know what Alhambra did recently?? They allowed the building of a Lowes and dozens of shops in a very large mall, directly on some of the worst congested streets in that city.You want a freeway, krammy, lets build one through Beverly Hills, or better yet, where do YOU live????
I meant to write…“The whole town of South Pasadena is historic”.
The whole is historic, Krammy my boy. I read somewhere that is historic Paris neighborhood, one that is several hunder years old but with a population of mostly working class and middle calss folks, like South Pas, stopped a freeway that would have destroyed the town. AS for the 710 extension, its a trucker freeway, so by its very nature will have to built wide. Stilts are fine, but dangerously unstable in any earthquake over 6.0. A tunnel…a real tunnel, not a cut and fill trench, something dug out by a TBM, would be okay. In Europe, there are dozens of tunnels through the Alps, some of them 30 miles long. The 710 connection would be only 6.1 miles. The only problem, Europeans are highly advanced technology and science-wise, here in America, its rich men who control our resources and have stifled scientific development.
I know what you mean about the tiles. Alot of those buildings on Broadway, Hill, Olive and Spring have those glass tiles, most of them
are over basement storage areas. When I was little kid, I snuk into the Bullock’s or May Company’s basement once, and there was one tile with a crack in it, and being the budding pervert that I was, climbed up some boxes and spent a mesmerised hour looking up women’s skirts on the sidewalk. Those things were a cool way to illuminate a basement.
Well folks…its the END….FIN, for the Rialto. It is set to close down as of August 20th. The end of an era. Here is a snippet from the Pasadena Star-News,and quoting Bill Banowsky, CEO of Landmark Theatres, “Like so many aging single-screen theaters, the Rialto has become uneconomical to operate as a movie theater. If we can develop an economically viable plan to restore the theater, that is our preference.” One thing though, they will not tear down of in any way demolish the theater…..for now. What can we do?
Building the connection through South Pas would destroy over 1000 homes, many of them, about 500, historic. The thing about the Pasadena-South Pasadena-San marino area, is that we have more historic homes than in all the rest of Los Angeles County PUT TOGETHER!!
South Pas has TWICE more Craftsman style homes than Hollywood, Santa Monica, Venice, West Los Angeles, Fullerton, Echo Park, Silverlake and Glendale, COMBINED!!!
(Hey, I better shut up…we’ll have the goddamed yuppies moving here next!!)
It would also be the first time history that a regular community, the “little guy” mangaged to beat the freeway bullies. Come on Ken….you ever wonder why there are no freeways through Beverly Hills????
Besides, when you come to South Pas, this is the birthplace of “Mission” and “Arts & Crafts” in California.
Hey Vokoban…I remember going to the Westlake back in the early 70s. My friend’s mom would drop us off for a double-feature and then split. Ahhh, parenting in the 70s….no wonder we turned out this way. Anyway, I think the last thing we saw there was “Guide for the Married Man” and a Rock Hudson movie. I remember seeing rats running up the aisle every now and then.
I’ve been to every downtown theatre at least once, and most, many times starting around 1962. My dad ususally picked the flicks, and I really hated his taste in movies, so I would go exploring every nook and cranny, even making it on the roof , crawl spaces, backstages, underground, even a few times the cat walks, with the theatre dark and everybody watching the screen, nobody noticed a little skinny Mexican kid wandering about. The only time I actually watched the films is when I got to pick the film, usually “Godzilla vs.Mothra” or “300 Spartans”, then and only then would I sit quietly. You know what was great about alot of these theatres? The restrooms. Those things were palaces by themselves. Fancy tiles. Mahogany wood. Thick carpet. Giant jardinieres and sand jars for decoration. I felt like the Sultan’s kid taking a leak in those places.
This was one of those theatres where they would hand you a little bingo card with your ticket , I believe they called the game Keno, and they called the numbers during intermission. Many of the theatres downtown played this game, I suppose to bolster the number of dwindling cutomers. I remember my dad won once, but he had to share the pot with about 15 other winners, and I still remember to this day his cut….$6. The Tower had Keno, and I think the California did as well.
I cant get those last photos. Concerning the Latino films…latinos were allowed on Main by that time. Old-timers tell me that latinos and blacks were not allowed on Broadway or the surrounding city center until after the 1940s. One old latino gent told me that if you were black or latino, you needed a permission slip to be in the area from your employer or you would be arrested, escorted out, or beat-up by the police and passers-by. But by the 50s, this was no longer deemed feasable or proper, and much of downtown opened up to blacks and latinos. Interesting to note, in some John Fante and Raymond Chandler novels set in the 40s, the area bordering Main was already looked upon as run-down and even referred to as “skid-row”.
Check out the long gone old-world fountain where Main separates from Spring in that photograph. That disappears from the record around the 30s. Those are the little touches that make a city, a city. Many of our landmarks or architectural details disappeared during the development madness of the 60s and 70s. There are huge gaps in the natural architectural progression of our city, but luckily and inexplicably in some cases, so much has survived. I remember back in the 70s and 80s, so many buildings near the historic core and older neighborhoods were demolished( many of these structures built in the 1890-1900s) and no effort was made to salvage any important details. I remember wrecking balls smashing into two-story high stained glass windows and ornate neon marquees with a mechanical indifference that was mirrored in the eyes of developers. That “look” is STILL there. If the city would relax some of the square-footage and commercial tax issues that hamstring preservation efforts, without having commercial entertainment and private parties ( bogus preservation groups)taking advantage of it at the expense of the taxpayers, THAT would go a long way to putting the profit of developers in a permanent back-seat to the interests of the public. It is our birth-right.Citizens of European cities, residents of Boston, San Fran, San Diego, New York, and cities , towns and hamlets across the country can take a walk on their streets and witness layers of historical architecture. We still have most of our layers. Unless dictated by extraordinary circumstances, there should be zero demolition of any historic structure,especially of theaters.
(Yes Kenny, I guess the Cal was a “gem”…..for about 6 months anyway, or until the REAL palaces were built up on Broadway).
Thanks for the posting, Ken MC, I have the same one around here somewhere. I’m sure you’ll agree that it just goes to show how limited , as far as telling the whole story, that the snippet-journalism of media can be. For insatnce, the California was never considered a gem of the theatre district. Certainly the facade was beautiful, but if was a mere concrete box inside. Second, the so-called Hillsman-Wright group never really meant to rehabilitate the theatre, but merely wanted to loot and carry away as many architectural details as possible, or use the theatre for their own purpose, in essence, using the law to steal private property under the guise of historic preservation. As for the assertion that the Needlemans were not trying hard enough to preserve the structure, this is a definite canard and misreprentation of the truth, as we know now. The Needlemans, who at the time were known as the DENMARST company, were not a hugely wealthy limited, but a mediun-sized real
estate business. Tye were faced with a choice of rehabilitating the
Orpheum, a REAL and BONAFIDE movie palace, and the California, a water and earthquake damaged building that could have taken several million to re-hab. The Needlemans chose to rehab the Orpheum, which has now been brought back to its glory days, and IT has become THE centerpiece of the center-city rehabilitation. The Hillsman Wright group did manage to blackmail the Needlmans by slapping the Denmarst company with so many legal injunctions, which ended up costing the Needlemans hundreds of thousands of dollars in construction delays.
The so-called “preservationists” contacted Denmarst with the blackmail offer, in which Hillsman Wright, the Historic Theatre Preservation group and their cronies would drop all injunctions and the Needlemans were free in demolishing the theatre if the Needlemans would pay a donation/bribe of several hundred thousand dollars. This the Denmarst did, if only to stop bleeding money and resources. One of the stipulations was that the “Theatre Conservancy” agency would have first dibs on all the interior objets d'art, architectural details, seats, projector, lights, curtains, etc….however, the Needlemans, to their credit, gave me the keys a week before , and my crew and I were able to STRIP the theatre before the Conservancy folks got to it.In any case, kudos to landowners like the Needlmans, who are the REAL HEROES of downtown revitalization, and not these west-side blackmailers and artsy-fartsy looters!!!
Hooray!!! Hey William, I’ll try and upload a new photo on the Fox Arroyo today. Its got a new business inside, and I believe they changed the address from the original 3236 to 3232, but I am not sure so I’ll go by there today. I saw the comments by Joe Vogel on the theatre link. Its true that this place is surrounded by a great many historical residences, and not just Heritage Square. Highland Park/Cypress Park was one of the first suburbs of Los Angeles and has a plethora of interesting buildings , houses and sites of historical interest spanning many periods. And its an area blessed with several nice theatres, like the Highland further up Fig, and the Rialto in South Pas.
Not even a bag of popcorn???
Hey, there was a theatre in the Cypress park area of L.A., catty-cornered from Nightengale Middle school. It had been used as a sweat shop or warehouse for years, now I believe its a store or restaraunt. It still has its original Moorish facade. I wonder if anyone knows anything about it, I mean, what it was in its heyday. Its on 3232 North Figueroa. Hey, do I get credit for finding a new/old theatre? Do I get anything?
Still…you should have been there.
Here’s another interesting story, concerning the California. You know how everyone thinks the Theatre Conservancy is such an altruistic bunch of folks….well…think again!! When it was announced that it would be sold and razed, the Theatre Conservancy filed an injunction to stop the demolition. Back and forth the owners, the city, and Conservancy haggled over its fate. It was costing the owners a pretty penny to have their construction/demolition/business plans delayed by the injunction.One day, the owners received a call from the top people at the Conservancy. It seem that the Conservancy folks would let the owners demolish the building under one condition…..that the Conservancy would be given dibs at taking out any architecturaly significant fixtures, lights, seats, curtains, equpiment….objects’d'art, etc, even the ticket booth. The owners, needless to say were enraged that the only reason for the injuction had been to allow the L.A. Theatre Conservancy the rights to plunder, and not to save the theatre….but they agreed, in order to proceed with their business. Of course the double-cross took place when the owners gave me the keys a full week before the Conservancy was to receive them. This was the owners way of getting a bit of revenge, and it was a good one. When the Conservancy guys walked in a week later, almost everything had been stripped by me and my crew. We watched the amusing scene from across the street at Joey’s Coffee Shop….the Conservancy guys had brought a bunch of west-side yuppies in TWO U-HAUL trucks!!!! HAHA!! You should have been there!!!!
You know, Ken, if the owners were only able to hold out for a few years more, it could have been saved. There were certain political and finacial situations involving the owners , which seemed intractable at the time …but which later proved to be of no consequence. But of course, to what purpose? It wasnt the big beautiful type of palace found on Broadway. It had a semi-interesting facade, and a mostly plain interior. Still, I would have much preferred it taken over as a Mexican Bazaar or Korean church than be demolished.
Here is a look at the Belmont Hotel fire, hope the link works.
View link