Hey gerew….(just to rub it in)….I got about 50 seats ( the originals, not the later replacements downstairs) from the California in my mother’s basement….want to swap for something????
Hey gerew, you said the fellow called you a “yuppie”? Maybe it was Charles Bukowski, that dude hated yuppies and gays with a vengeance
and I guess you had the bad luck to fit the bill on both counts….just kidding…I had an anonymous caler threaten me once, not with death, but with pain. He said he was from J & S Salvage, and he accused me of taking the infamous booth( I lied just to piss him off and told him that I had, HA!). The boob tells me that “we will meet in a dark alley someday”. Can you believe that??? Hey, maybe it was a come-on and not a threat. HAHA! What a wiggler. I checked with my pals at Cleveland Wrecking, and guess what, no “J&S Salvage” existed. He called me few times after that and in his increasingly irrational threats he accused me of stealing plants from the Hollywood Bowl…WTF???? Like I said….what a wiggler.
So dude….keep up the good work….you seem like one of the good ones.
I’m sure Steve washed his hand with Clorox after that…yikes!!!
But seriously….Why were they threatening you? I was threatened with a gun once while collecting old balustrades from a demolished West Adams manse. The dude was a picker for antique dealers.
Do you guys remember an usher by the name of Jerri Hovey who worked there during the Caligula years? And there was another unsher there, I think the popcorn girl,Patti, Patty? She looked like a model.They had some hot girls there at that time.
“ when the folks there, that fateful day, were there at the invitation of the owners. Just like you.”
But given permission ( and the keys) a week earlier. Appernetly he TRUSTED us a bit more, wouldnt you say?
Steve Needleman didnt need prodding from any johnny-come-lately so-called preservationist group to do what he did. The Needlemans have been doing that all along. Steve’s restoration, and indeed, the ownership and upkeep of the Orpheum predates any drives by the LAHTF, LAC, CRA, and Historical groups. My beef is not against ANY legit historical preservation outfit that seeks to save any and all the architecturally and historicaly significant buildings in Los Angeles. There are huge gaps in our architectural history, which in turn, I believe, negatively affects our overall quality of life.
There have been times when I misspoke, and I have apologized…..such as the time I blamed a Hollywood historical group of breaking of some details from the Hollyhock House. That was done, as I found out later, done by a rogue member( the man in the red cap and infamous west-side antiques dealer), my arch-nemesis, my Beloch, for these past 30 years. You seem to have good intentions, but are equally naive of the inner workings of city government and special interest groups. And I have seen one too many details and pieces wind up in the living rooms of these self same “preservationists”. The same whose shrill voices we hear at the meetings. The sane who file use blackmail to secure a bit of memorabilia for themselves and decor.
The only legacy that was brought about by the destruction of the California was that we have another parking lot downtown and several parties claiming to be Indiana Jones( only ONE JONES here pal, and thats been me for the past 30 years!) St.Vibiana might be a victory, has the taxpayers of L.A. not been forced to pay so that it would be turned over private ownership/enetprise as a private MTV-like venue…believe me, had I known THAT would happen….better that it be demolished!!!!
I have a bone to pick you might say….yeah, you might say. Preservation has been my calling ever since my dad took us all to dinner one Sunday, and we returned to our apartment( my dad was the manager), only to discover the two giant aqua blue oil jars on the front stoops had been stolen. We found one later that week in a west-side antique shop, priced at $1200 no less!
The owner of that shop, I might add, has been one of the leading “preservationists” in Los Angeles for the past 20 years.
gerew, your memory of the California/Orpheum timeline is skewed, at best.
As for your statement that ,“ many of the pieces removed are still in storage awaiting proper display and re-use”…your own people have told me that those pieces, they FEW and insignificant ones you were able to pilfer, ARE on display currently….in select members households and backyards, perhaps maybe even YOURS???
I have no beef with the current preservationists, only with the lackey looters and the blackmailers of 20 years ago and no amount of shrill whining by gerew will change that.By the way….I saw and read with MY OWN eyes the legal papers concerning the injunctions, you sniveling wiggler.
I personaly knew the Needlemans and that family really hated your guts, for not negotiating in good faith, for the injunction, for the hundreds of thousands lost in the course of the delay.
By the way….who the heck got the ticket booth….it wasnt the “Man in the red cap”, who made off with several pieces of the interior detail (no doubt bound for west-side art dealers), it wasnt the Needlemans, it wasnt Cleveland Wrecking, the foreman at the time was a frend of mine…..so who got the booth???? I had already loosened it from the substrate and some turd-suckers ripped it off during the night. All I found was broken piece of the “parrot” Hispano-Moresque tiles the next morning who would cause such damage to those wonderful tiles???
Perhaps some…..“preservationists”?????
Many movie and theatre people count themselves as long time residents in South Pas, something should be done in the way of turning it into a multi-purpose.
I dont mind reading the post 5 times….its a good post. You care about the world you live in. I guess everyone here does. Care about the quality of life. Look at Boston or San Fran….for there are layers of history, architecture, life there ….we have huge gaps in Los Angeles , mostly from our own early boom-town exhuberance, but also from letting developers go Buck-Wild periodically. Got to save everything we still have left. I remember about 15 years ago, a friend and I self-published a mag( staples, Xerox, Chattertons)named Smogtown, and in it I had a section called, RIP, and it was photos and a small byline on some historical or architecturally significant building that had just been demolished. The saddest thing, aside from theatres, was the old Cetral Didtribution Warehouse, a beautiful Castle like structure,complete with tiled turret( very similar to Hllywood First National on Highland), and for a year we rented rehearsal space in there. About ten stories tall. Would have made great apartments, but the structure was in Vernon city limits, so there was no chance for it to be saved However, in Los Angeles there are several legal ways to protect these significant and historic structures and movie houses, but hey, I guess I’m just preaching to the choir.
I know years ago, around ‘84-88, they let garage bands play there on Sunday nights, until some San Marino High fellows got into it with some South Pas kids and busted up the cut-glass doors out front. I played harmonica there with a band one night, some Smokestack Lighting.. Nice natural acoustics inside….most of these wood and plaster places have a nice warm sound. Another stumbling block are the high property taxes in L.A. County.
What an extraorinary venue this could be if it brought back up to speed.
What sticks out in my mind from the “Caligula” era, was that the Holly was one of the few theaters chosen to run the pic exclusively. There was one theater in New York , one in San Francisco, and one in Chicago, I believe. Guccione refused to release it to video for at least the first 3 years of release , and needless to say, it caused a huge unrequited demand. Until of course the managers, ushers and sundry employees of the Holly staged a fake robbery of the 35mm projection print in order to let a fellow in the Valley make ¾" video dupes. Rumour has it the Holly employees were payed over $80,000 by the video duplicator. Funny, most of them quit shirtly after this caper.
Cnichols writes,“offer Toblerone at the snack bar… It’s a REALLY nice theater in a rapidly improving neighborhood.”
What does that mean??? I’ve been living there for 40 years and the change I have seen is that guys like Charles Bukowski, Lawrence Tierney, Tom Waits and Beck have moved out because yuppies and silly scenesters have moved in (and they REALLY hated yuppies). You call that “rapidly improving”???? Please use , “rapidly being discovered by clueless poseur hipsters who buy their hot rods from Ebay instead of building them”…..LOL!!!!!
I believe they filmed part of “The Man With Bogies Face” in the upstairs offices at the Vista. When I was a kid I used to sneak up on the roof and alter the big billboard on the roof.
Who is the moron who wrote, “A largely unheralded theater in Los Angeles' historic Los Feliz area, the Vista’s exterior is an island of style in a street of prevalent decay”, in the header text??? First of all, it’s not in Los Feliz (she-it, the Los Feliz theater isnt even in Los Feliz!), its in East Hollywood. And second, WHAT STREET OF PREVALENT DECAY???? East Hollywood??? Where the average home is in the $600,000 range??? Hey, there are just as many craftmas in East Hollywood as in the westside….‘cept the westside has more BUMS living in its streets!!!
I’m going to try and buy it. I’d like to put my animation studio upstairs. I heard from a friend of the fellow who had baseball card shop on the corner street level storefront that the owners wont consider selling at any price, but I’ll try.
I wonder if the name change had anything to do with its close proximty to Frankiln High School? There seems to be precedent for this…..there was a Belmont Theater about a mile and a half from Belmont High.
I wonder if this is the Cy Perkins that bought an airport around Lake Elsinore around 1920, or the granddad of Joe Perkins, who had a grocery store near Garavaza in the 1920s, or if it was a movie tie-in promotion and the cow was to be given away by actor Ernest Shields, who played the character, “Cy Perkins” in the 1915 movie, “Cy Perkins in the City of Delusion” . There was big-time ballplayer back in the teens and twenties named Cy Perkins, but he has no connections to L.A.
I asked Jess but he has no idea.
I always hated these Mansard roof facades. It seems many theaters were “modernized” with these in the 60s. Yuck!!!
Hey gerew….(just to rub it in)….I got about 50 seats ( the originals, not the later replacements downstairs) from the California in my mother’s basement….want to swap for something????
Hey gerew, you said the fellow called you a “yuppie”? Maybe it was Charles Bukowski, that dude hated yuppies and gays with a vengeance
and I guess you had the bad luck to fit the bill on both counts….just kidding…I had an anonymous caler threaten me once, not with death, but with pain. He said he was from J & S Salvage, and he accused me of taking the infamous booth( I lied just to piss him off and told him that I had, HA!). The boob tells me that “we will meet in a dark alley someday”. Can you believe that??? Hey, maybe it was a come-on and not a threat. HAHA! What a wiggler. I checked with my pals at Cleveland Wrecking, and guess what, no “J&S Salvage” existed. He called me few times after that and in his increasingly irrational threats he accused me of stealing plants from the Hollywood Bowl…WTF???? Like I said….what a wiggler.
So dude….keep up the good work….you seem like one of the good ones.
I’m sure Steve washed his hand with Clorox after that…yikes!!!
But seriously….Why were they threatening you? I was threatened with a gun once while collecting old balustrades from a demolished West Adams manse. The dude was a picker for antique dealers.
Do you guys remember an usher by the name of Jerri Hovey who worked there during the Caligula years? And there was another unsher there, I think the popcorn girl,Patti, Patty? She looked like a model.They had some hot girls there at that time.
Hello
What death threats did you receive gerew, I’m curious.
“ when the folks there, that fateful day, were there at the invitation of the owners. Just like you.”
But given permission ( and the keys) a week earlier. Appernetly he TRUSTED us a bit more, wouldnt you say?
Steve Needleman didnt need prodding from any johnny-come-lately so-called preservationist group to do what he did. The Needlemans have been doing that all along. Steve’s restoration, and indeed, the ownership and upkeep of the Orpheum predates any drives by the LAHTF, LAC, CRA, and Historical groups. My beef is not against ANY legit historical preservation outfit that seeks to save any and all the architecturally and historicaly significant buildings in Los Angeles. There are huge gaps in our architectural history, which in turn, I believe, negatively affects our overall quality of life.
There have been times when I misspoke, and I have apologized…..such as the time I blamed a Hollywood historical group of breaking of some details from the Hollyhock House. That was done, as I found out later, done by a rogue member( the man in the red cap and infamous west-side antiques dealer), my arch-nemesis, my Beloch, for these past 30 years. You seem to have good intentions, but are equally naive of the inner workings of city government and special interest groups. And I have seen one too many details and pieces wind up in the living rooms of these self same “preservationists”. The same whose shrill voices we hear at the meetings. The sane who file use blackmail to secure a bit of memorabilia for themselves and decor.
The only legacy that was brought about by the destruction of the California was that we have another parking lot downtown and several parties claiming to be Indiana Jones( only ONE JONES here pal, and thats been me for the past 30 years!) St.Vibiana might be a victory, has the taxpayers of L.A. not been forced to pay so that it would be turned over private ownership/enetprise as a private MTV-like venue…believe me, had I known THAT would happen….better that it be demolished!!!!
I have a bone to pick you might say….yeah, you might say. Preservation has been my calling ever since my dad took us all to dinner one Sunday, and we returned to our apartment( my dad was the manager), only to discover the two giant aqua blue oil jars on the front stoops had been stolen. We found one later that week in a west-side antique shop, priced at $1200 no less!
The owner of that shop, I might add, has been one of the leading “preservationists” in Los Angeles for the past 20 years.
gerew, your memory of the California/Orpheum timeline is skewed, at best.
As for your statement that ,“ many of the pieces removed are still in storage awaiting proper display and re-use”…your own people have told me that those pieces, they FEW and insignificant ones you were able to pilfer, ARE on display currently….in select members households and backyards, perhaps maybe even YOURS???
I have no beef with the current preservationists, only with the lackey looters and the blackmailers of 20 years ago and no amount of shrill whining by gerew will change that.By the way….I saw and read with MY OWN eyes the legal papers concerning the injunctions, you sniveling wiggler.
I personaly knew the Needlemans and that family really hated your guts, for not negotiating in good faith, for the injunction, for the hundreds of thousands lost in the course of the delay.
By the way….who the heck got the ticket booth….it wasnt the “Man in the red cap”, who made off with several pieces of the interior detail (no doubt bound for west-side art dealers), it wasnt the Needlemans, it wasnt Cleveland Wrecking, the foreman at the time was a frend of mine…..so who got the booth???? I had already loosened it from the substrate and some turd-suckers ripped it off during the night. All I found was broken piece of the “parrot” Hispano-Moresque tiles the next morning who would cause such damage to those wonderful tiles???
Perhaps some…..“preservationists”?????
Many movie and theatre people count themselves as long time residents in South Pas, something should be done in the way of turning it into a multi-purpose.
I dont mind reading the post 5 times….its a good post. You care about the world you live in. I guess everyone here does. Care about the quality of life. Look at Boston or San Fran….for there are layers of history, architecture, life there ….we have huge gaps in Los Angeles , mostly from our own early boom-town exhuberance, but also from letting developers go Buck-Wild periodically. Got to save everything we still have left. I remember about 15 years ago, a friend and I self-published a mag( staples, Xerox, Chattertons)named Smogtown, and in it I had a section called, RIP, and it was photos and a small byline on some historical or architecturally significant building that had just been demolished. The saddest thing, aside from theatres, was the old Cetral Didtribution Warehouse, a beautiful Castle like structure,complete with tiled turret( very similar to Hllywood First National on Highland), and for a year we rented rehearsal space in there. About ten stories tall. Would have made great apartments, but the structure was in Vernon city limits, so there was no chance for it to be saved However, in Los Angeles there are several legal ways to protect these significant and historic structures and movie houses, but hey, I guess I’m just preaching to the choir.
I know years ago, around ‘84-88, they let garage bands play there on Sunday nights, until some San Marino High fellows got into it with some South Pas kids and busted up the cut-glass doors out front. I played harmonica there with a band one night, some Smokestack Lighting.. Nice natural acoustics inside….most of these wood and plaster places have a nice warm sound. Another stumbling block are the high property taxes in L.A. County.
What an extraorinary venue this could be if it brought back up to speed.
I meant nail.
Howard has hit the nal on it cabeza….mix use is the only way to in this day and age.
The place is still haunted, BTW, as is the Olympic Auditorium.
They are renting the theater for private parties and screenings. The rental number is currently on the marquee. My foot hurts.
Just kidding….
What sticks out in my mind from the “Caligula” era, was that the Holly was one of the few theaters chosen to run the pic exclusively. There was one theater in New York , one in San Francisco, and one in Chicago, I believe. Guccione refused to release it to video for at least the first 3 years of release , and needless to say, it caused a huge unrequited demand. Until of course the managers, ushers and sundry employees of the Holly staged a fake robbery of the 35mm projection print in order to let a fellow in the Valley make ¾" video dupes. Rumour has it the Holly employees were payed over $80,000 by the video duplicator. Funny, most of them quit shirtly after this caper.
Cnichols writes,“offer Toblerone at the snack bar… It’s a REALLY nice theater in a rapidly improving neighborhood.”
What does that mean??? I’ve been living there for 40 years and the change I have seen is that guys like Charles Bukowski, Lawrence Tierney, Tom Waits and Beck have moved out because yuppies and silly scenesters have moved in (and they REALLY hated yuppies). You call that “rapidly improving”???? Please use , “rapidly being discovered by clueless poseur hipsters who buy their hot rods from Ebay instead of building them”…..LOL!!!!!
I believe they filmed part of “The Man With Bogies Face” in the upstairs offices at the Vista. When I was a kid I used to sneak up on the roof and alter the big billboard on the roof.
Who is the moron who wrote, “A largely unheralded theater in Los Angeles' historic Los Feliz area, the Vista’s exterior is an island of style in a street of prevalent decay”, in the header text??? First of all, it’s not in Los Feliz (she-it, the Los Feliz theater isnt even in Los Feliz!), its in East Hollywood. And second, WHAT STREET OF PREVALENT DECAY???? East Hollywood??? Where the average home is in the $600,000 range??? Hey, there are just as many craftmas in East Hollywood as in the westside….‘cept the westside has more BUMS living in its streets!!!
I’m going to try and buy it. I’d like to put my animation studio upstairs. I heard from a friend of the fellow who had baseball card shop on the corner street level storefront that the owners wont consider selling at any price, but I’ll try.
I wonder if the name change had anything to do with its close proximty to Frankiln High School? There seems to be precedent for this…..there was a Belmont Theater about a mile and a half from Belmont High.
Is that a 1917 Harley out front? Or a 1916 Indian?
I wonder if this is the Cy Perkins that bought an airport around Lake Elsinore around 1920, or the granddad of Joe Perkins, who had a grocery store near Garavaza in the 1920s, or if it was a movie tie-in promotion and the cow was to be given away by actor Ernest Shields, who played the character, “Cy Perkins” in the 1915 movie, “Cy Perkins in the City of Delusion” . There was big-time ballplayer back in the teens and twenties named Cy Perkins, but he has no connections to L.A.
I asked Jess but he has no idea.