Found this vintage mid-century motoring gem courtesy Ed Padgett on his Los Angeles Times Pressmens’ Blog.

One of the cool things about biking around Los Angeles is the stuff you get to discover that’s hidden in plain sight, with a favorite of mine being sidewalk vandalism. Most of the time you’ll just see a name and maybe a date scratched in the concrete or perhaps a decades-old shoe print. But sometimes you’ll come across more enigmatic stuff — like the following for example, written into the sidewalk by George, Bobby and Robert on the east side of San Fernando Road south of Figueroa Street, directly under the Arroyo Seco Parkway overpass (here) and right at the bottom of the steps leading up to what I like to call the “super-secret freeway bike/ped path” paralleling the southbound 110 between here and the what once was Chavez Ravine (click to enlargify):

I’ve accessed those steps easily a couple dozen times over the last few years, but it was only today that I looked down and found this odd permanent record of the existence of George, Bobby and Robert. That crack running around it like a frame is interesting, but I’m at little more than a guess at the significance of the comma-delineated numbers that follow each name: 28, 1969; 27, 1969; 29, 1969. Birthday date and birth year, maybe? Or their ages during that fateful year? Or perhaps a year yet to come in the lives of these future thinkers?

What’s most curious is the decidedly more faint shapes scrawled at the bottom: a five-pointed star bookended on either side of it by swastikas that mirror each other. Three names, three figures. Kinda makes you go hmmmm.

Rally event poster, used with permission

Admission to the rally is free. If you want to enter a vintage bike in the judging, the cost is $10 and includes VIP parking. Others arriving by motorcycle can park for $5. According to The Argonaut newspaper, proceeds from the rally will benefit the American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association (AHRMA). I plan to arrive on foot, but if there are bikes for sale, then who knows, I may be leaving in a different manner.

Hat tip to my friend Petrea Burchard over at Pasadena Daily Photo for turning me onto On Bunker Hill this morning via a tweet.

On Bunker Hill has blogs and historical archives of the history we lost when Downtown LA grew so explosively after World War II.  George Mann has quite the historical archive of images of some of the old homes that once stood on Bunker Hill taken in the 40′s and 50′s.  (They are for sale too if you are so inclined).  A little quoted from their blog to get you interested in checking out the site:

Bunker Hill is a ghost, and though you may today walk streets named Grand and Hope and imagine that you stand where once were grand Victorian homes turned flophouses, you are in fact one hundred feet beneath the old roads, which the city shaved away to make a wider footprint for the high rise tenants that replaced them.

Its always just a little interesting to see what we have lost in the name of progress.

The Shelby Car Show last Saturday on the Santa Monica Pier was just about the greatest thing ever. But instead of gushing about it in words, I’ll show you more photos after the jump.

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Thanks to the Internet Archive by way of Blogdowntown I found this high-resolution digitization of some amazing footage of 1940s downtown, apparently filmed for use in some unidentified motion picture. Look close and you might see John Fante (or perhaps even Arturo Bandini) walking around.

The clip is made up of several segments, and is literally the next best thing to actual time travel. As best as I can plot it the car follows this route from 2nd Street to Grand, to 5th Street to Flower and back up to 2nd. I’ve already spent too much time scrolling through it frame by frame just entirely mindblown at the slice-of-life details to be discovered in the people and places and passenger vehicles the camera captures in passing, and invite you to get lost in this record of a long-gone Bunker Hill (best viewed full screen in 1080p) :

How can you not trust a hot dog with a halo??

Since 1949, Papoo’s Hot Dog Show has been filling the tummies of Toluca Lake residents and visitors with tasty hamburgers, sandwiches, fries and of course….hot dogs. Countless movie and TV stars have been regulars over the years. Though the owners and recipes have changed, it has always remained a great hole-in-the-wall place for some really good grub. Well today, Sunday August 28, 2011 marks the end of 62 years of Papoo’s Hot Dog Show.

Hot Dog Show holds a special place in my heart as I’ve been going there since….well before I was born! My mom worked there when she was 16, her initials STILL carved into the counter. In fact, I only just found out that my parents met there. If it weren’t for the Hot Dog Show, I wouldn’t exist! Having lived only 1 block away for most of my life, I can remember riding my scooter or bicycle up there on a regular basis. I always ordered 2 plain dogs with ketchup, fries and a Dr. Pepper. While I would wait for my food I would play either Galaga or Ms. Pac Man with the “WOOZ” (upside down “ZOOM”) button. With that “WOOZ” button I could fly through to the banana stage in about 4 minutes flat.

I’ll miss you Hot Dog Show and I’m not looking forward to the rumored Italian restaurant taking your place. At least we still have Dale’s Jr. Money Tree Hampton’s IHOP Copper Penny Bob’s!

My friend Stephen Roullier just posted this Super 8 clip he and his fellow-filmmaker John Watson made (and co-starred in) showcasing a nice variety of the quick eateries found in and around the East Hollywood, Los Feliz Village, Silver Lake and Atwater Village area from back in a day when McDonald’s boast wasn’t the boringly general “Billions and billions served,” but rather the relatively paltry and more specific “Over 30 billion served.” Those were the days my friend.

My favorite moment comes when the legendary and still sorely missed Jay’s Jayburgers at Virgil and Santa Monica Boulevard makes an appearance at the 1:34 mark. Dig in:

I’m a bit of a collector of vintage cookbooks, mostly from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, and I recently picked up a copy of the Ford Treasury of Favorite Recipes from Famous Eating Places, initially published by the Ford in the late 1940s.  It’s a fascinating little book – each page has a recipe from a different restaurant somewhere in the U.S.  The book is organized by region, and was, apparently, designed to fit in the glove compartment of your car, so in addition to being a recipe book, it’s a travel guide.  The book is also beautifully illustrated, with a picture of each restaurant by a different artist, so it’s also a neat little anthology of mid-century design.

Los Angeles restaurants are extremely well-represented – below are some of the images and recipes from the book of L.A. restaurants of the past. Most of these are now long gone, but we can now re-create them in the comfort of our own kitchens, thanks to the magic of used bookstores and the internet!

First getting shpritzed with some holy water during Saturday’s Blessing of the Animals and next dutifully adjourning to a patio table at Olvera Street’s La Golondrina where we watched the parade of animals and peoples pass while partaking religiously of our own personal Blessing of the Margaritas, Susan and I decided afterward to wobble along the cobbles and across Main Street to check out the freshly opened La Plaza de Cultura y Artes in the awesomely restored Brunswig and Garnier Block historic buildings just south of La Placita Church.

On a side note, seeing how it’s not a whole lot of people who arrive bearing reptiles, I’m pretty sure we made museum history as being the first (and perhaps only) people to visit the place with a tortoise in tow, and Buster was warmly welcomed (and admitted free of charge).

What an amazingly interactive and fantastic place — long overdue — and I greatly enjoyed the inaugural exhibition of “LA Starts Here,” an exploration of Mexican and Mexican-American history and culture spread throughout the expansive first floor, while wonderfully occupying the second floor was “Calle Prinicipal,” a hands-on re-creation of 1920s-era Main Street, at that time the heart of Los Angeles’s growing immigrant community.

Flickr photoset of the above thumbnails are viewable here.

What surprised me the most was how moved I was by a simple exhibition showcasing what I feel was one of the greatest injustices perpetrated by this city upon its citizens: the eviction and destruction of Chavez Ravine. The installation, consisting of a high chain link fence, through which pictures and quotes are visible under the heading of “Urban Renewal: Division of the Barrios,” left me deeply touched, especially by the following two statements:

“I don’t want to be responsible for taking another man’s private property through the use of eminent domain and giving it over to another private individual for his private gain.”

— De Witt McCann, aide to the mayor, resigning his job

“You may call this blight, but we call it our neighborhood.  Sure, we say get out if you can. But why not pave our streets? Give us decent streetlights like they have in Westwood or Pasadena. What gives you the right to take our land away from us? We didn’t sign on to ‘eminent domain.’ It’s unspeakable the way your dragged Mrs. Aurora Archega out of her very own house in Chavez Ravine — and put her in jail! You call it progress. We call it injustice.”

— Camos Vecinos

There’s much to see and experience and enrich yourself with at La Plaza. I highly recommend a visit. It’s open noon to 7 p.m., Wednesday through Monday. Closed Tuesdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. Admission is $9 for adults, $7 for seniors, college students and military, $5 for children 5 and up, and free for children under 5.

I’m totally geeking out over these few photos of the Cabazon Donosaurs being built. As you should know Claude K. Bell started building these things in the 60′s and for many years they were quite the tourist attraction along that strip of the 10, and then of course there was this – though I still attest that Tim Burton’s version how how they should have been lit is by far the greatest. As I mentioned when I blogged about these back in 2006, they are now owned and operated by creationists so if you visit you can learn a little bit about how medieval knights had to fight dinosaurs to protect their families and how God killed them all in a “world wide water disaster.” Which is honestly so goddamn amusing it’s worth it. What sucks is that so much got built up around them which completely kills the effect of giant dinosaurs roaming the desert.

For LAers traveling on JetBlue Airways, Long Beach Airport (official initials LGB, not to be confused with sexuality categories) is often the only departure option. I don’t mind that at all. Pulling up to LGB always reminds me of the final scenes of “Casablanca”, which is appropriate given the airport’s extensive history.  For instance, the airport’s main terminal was built in 1941, making it a year older than the release of “Casablanca”, and the airfield itself dates back years earlier. Read the rest of this entry →

L.A. has been the topic of more than a few songs over the years because there is so much to love. What’s your favorite love song to the city we live in? You need to click the headline to get to the Sinatra vid. Hat Tip to Hidden LA who found this great old video.

Happy Valentines Day to the city I love.

I finally checked off an item that’s been at the top of my Los Angeles area to-do list by going to Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank/Toluca Lake.  And what better way to be introduced to this new pleasure than a meetup with my fellow blogging.la-ers?

I think I just sucked on a lemon

We got together last Saturday afternoon in summer-like weather.  Almost all of the b.la bloggers made it there, and we had a table of 10 or so.  Some of these folks were obviously Bob’s veterans, such as Will, who ordered an elaborate-looking double burger from memory, then scarfed it in record time (though, to be fair, he bikes everywhere & is entitled to replace those burned calories), and Jodi, who lives nearby and wrote a great post last August about how Bob’s is one of L.A.’s greatest landmarks.

Bob from the side, sporting his 80s Morrissey 'do

Although Bob’s seems to be most famous for burgers, fries, and shakes (I know, chili spaghetti too), some of which were represented at our table, I opted for pancakes.  Mine were very good, although the “fruit” on the side consisted of “Caine Mutiny“-style canned strawberries.  Quick, somebody call Captain Queeg.  We also learned some interesting Bob’s trivia.  For instance, there may or may not be a secret dessert there called “Ross’s Ass.”  Supposedly, a server named Eli can hook you up, but really, do you want him to?

Check out Bob checking out Tammara

When we finished, we took the obligatory photo with Bob.  It was a great get-together at a well-deserved L.A. area landmark.  And fear not, readers, Bob’s is still high up on our list of future Classic Eats candidates.

Allow you me this story. Apparently I don’t search hard or well enough. When my 12-year-old favorite pair of sunglasses broke at the frame just above the nose piece in 2000 I did what I thought was my best to seek out a place to get them fixed. I failed. Every place from Lenscrafters to the jewelry repair guy my mom swore by said “nope,” in part because they were just a pair of off-the-shelf frames I’d purchased during a mostly senseless spree at Needless Markup back in the summer of Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Eight. The so-called experts would look at the glasses, look at me, and tell me either it wasn’t possible or occasionally they’d say how much they’d need to overcharge me to maybe make it possible.

Facing an amount that was more than the shades cost new, at one point I even bought a soldering gun and sat there with the thing in one hand and the spool of metal in the other trying to convince myself I could somehow immediately acquire the skills required for such pinpoint detail work. Wisely I put down the gun and stepped away from that fiasco-in-waiting before I could entirely fubar them. Instead, I put them away where they lived with a sliver of hope in a series of drawers.

Why? Well the broken glasses became somewhat representative. I won’t bore you any more than I already have with the details of their symbolism other than to say they cracked at a time when a lot of other things broke — most of them intangible stuff like relationships and dreams, but all of them pretty much beyond repair. Suffice it that Y2K may not have fucked up my personal computer but it wreaked havoc on my personal  life, and out of that annus horribillus these beloved glasses became one of the few things I could fix — or so I’d hoped. And hoped. And hoped.

And hoped. Fast-forward to this summer when it had been literally four or five years since I’d given the glasses a thought and Los Angeles magazine’s “Best of LA” issue arrived. Flipping through it I found a write-up extolling the miracle work done by a humble gent who goes by the name Paul Gross in his humble hole-in-the-wall on Wilson Avenue in the Jewel City and I thought my long-dormant prayers had been answered — except when I went hunting for the shades they weren’t a-n-y-w-h-e-r-e to be found and I became dejectedly sure it was because at some point a few years back I’d extinguished that flicker of hope kept burning for so long and pitched them in the trash.

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