Love this video, just wish it had a sound track.  Love the old stock footage from 1940′s Los Angeles where they really went out of their way to decorate for Christmas in Hollywood.

Merry Christmas all…

Happy 4th of July! Being a sucker for historic images of our city, I just had to share the following two exquisite views of Main Street, La Placita Church and the historic Los Angeles Plaza that I found on the History, Los Angeles County blog and the Watt Way blog. Both photographs were reportedly made in 1869, and may very well have been done by the same photographer on the same day — the first one facing east from Fort Moore Hill and the second facing north from the Pico House Hotel that was completed that same year (click to slightly enlargify):

Bonus image after the jump is one from Fort Moore Hill looking a bit more southeast of the location seven years later with Pico House at the right and the plaza having adopted its round configuration that remains today.

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M*A*S*H ambulance with recent paint job

Two of my L.A. area loves, hiking and filming locations, were married recently when I joined a group of hikers to tour the set of the television series M*A*S*H in Malibu Creek State Park. As a bonus, much of the original Planet of the Apes movie was shot there too.

More pics after the jump

If I’m getting redundant in my topics — maps, cycling, birds, maps — file your complaint with the other contributors here who have far better things to do than post. In the meantime, I just keep plugging away in this lonely place — this time with another historic map from Big Map Blog — and  just in time for that local trade association’s annual function known as the Academy Awards this Sunday. If I were giving out the Oscars, Big Map Blog would get one for bringing all us little people out there in the dark this awesome and timely 1937 addition to its collection of cartrography: Hollywood Starland, at right (moderately embiggenable if clicked).

Sure the artist misspells Katharine Hepburn’s name, and strangely enough the then 14-year-old Hollywoodland sign isn’t anywhere to be found. But don’t let those oversights keep you from clicking on over and marveling at the full-size version of this otherwise meticulously glorious representation of a bygone era in celebrity worship so bitingly chronicled just a couple years later in Nathanael West’s “Day of the Locust.”

I have sung the praises of the Big Map Blog in the past, most recently in December when a 1932 map of Los Angeles was added to its extensive cartographical collection. And here I go again, because they just posted another jaw-dropper in the form of H.B. Elliott’s birds-eye viewpoint of our town when the population was only 65,000 back in 1891 — one that looks like the artist drew inspiration for it from an imagined vantage point aloft above what is now Elysian Park.

What makes this document so exquisite is not just the map itself, but the detailed representations of both exteriors and interiors of some of the commercial and civic landmarks of that time, most of which are long gone. Click the above image to biggify it. But better yet, got here on Big Map Blog and click the full size download link and get yourself the 157″ x 111″ version to marvel at available there for free.

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.