House of Davids pic via b.la's la_koga

Via Curbed Los Angeles comes the news that the House of Davids is having an estate sale. Not only are the Davids themselves all for sale, but their holidays outfits, the hanging dining room table, and many other treasures of Youngwood Court will be sold off this month–including much of Norwood Young’s own wardrobe which apparently is so extensive it’s accessed via those same electric racks they use at your dry cleaner. If you looked at the pictures in Curbed’s previous post about the house you have some idea of the wonders in store for us at the estate sale.

The sale will be two weekends: October 15 & 16, and October 22 & 23. Saturdays from 9 am to 3 pm and Sundays from noon to 4 pm. Thank you Curbed for keeping us all posted about such delights.

But the company is Glendale’s no longer. It’s leaving its home and heading to its own dedicated space in Pasadena, a move that’s been more than five years in the making. And today as one of its final acts in the Jewel City before beginning its life in the Crown city, the company held a rummage sale to clear out its inventory. Everything from lighting equipment and furniture to props to costumes was priced to move.

But instead of looking for bargains, I took the opportunity to go looking around, sneaking backstage and up the stairs to explorie the 1928 building’s upper levels where I found this jaw-droppingly amazing top-floor space in mid-demolition/arrested decay (click to panoramally enlargify and/or check out this rotate-ready version of the image):

UPDATE (8.26): Where’d the picture go? Short-ish story is that a representative of the building’s owners, Frank DiPietro and Sons, contacted me the day after this post went live wanting to discuss the photograph’s publication. After some further consideration, it was politely requested of me today to remove the above image,  for several reasons. First, it was taken and published without their permission. Second, the picture shows the hall in a condition that doesn’t showcase it in the best light. Third, the company is in the midst of submitting plans and obtaining permits for a renovation/remodel of the space and the company is sensitive about photographs and information about the
building being released as that process progresses. So, basically,  I have agreed to honor their request because the simple fact is that it’s their private property and I was there on those upper floors without their knowledge. Since it’s not OK for them to sneak into my house and take pictures and put ‘em up on the internutz, down comes the pic.

I have no idea what the plans are for this hall and the rest of the building. But in the meantime I’m going to keep my fingers crossed that it doesn’t become a gym..

After the jump, a brief bio on the building’s historical significance excerpted from the Glendale Register of Historic Places.

The first beginnings of the Masonic Order in Glendale occurred in 1905. On March 15, 1905 Unity Lodge No. 368 was organized by residents with the name Unity chosen because the
membership was almost evenly distributed between Glendale and Tropico.

It was not until 1910 that the Lodge had its own permanent home at 232 S. Brand Blvd. At this location a two-story brick Masonic Temple was erected by Unity Lodge No. 368 which served as a meeting place for the Masons until 1928. Due to the increasing number of organizations using the premises such as the Order of the Eastern Star, Royal Arch Masons, Knights of Templar, White Shrine of Jerusalem, Order of de Molay, and the Shrine Club, plans were begun in the early 1920s to construct a building which would accommodate all the Masonic organizations.

The architect commissioned to design this grand new structure on S. Brand was Arthuy Lindley. It was not until 1928, however, through the combined assets of the various Masonic organizations that the structure was built. The Masonic groups remained as tenants until 1952 when the Glendale Masonic Temple Association was organized and authorized to purchase property at the southeast corner of N. Maryland Ave and E. California.

The Temple suffered from the excessive optimism of its planners. Containing five full floors and five partial floors, the structure sat nearly vacant for almost four decades after the construction of the newer, smaller facility. Historically, however, it represents one of the most ambitious building endeavors in the City’s past. In 1992 a live theater company, A Noise Within, found success there and rapidly expanded its use of several floors of the building.

Some of the RVs and campers along 3rd Avenue in Venice

Consider this a parting shot from homeless advocates who have lost the latest battle in the long-running Venice parking war: the National Coalition for the Homeless has named Venice’s “oversize” vehicle nighttime parking restriction one of The 10 Most Ridiculous Anti-Homeless Laws in America.

I disagree that the Venice overnight (actually, just four hours) parking restriction for RVs and other “oversize” vehicles is either “ridiculous” or “anti-homeless”. In addition to the RV waste dumping issue mentioned by the Coalition, it’s not unreasonable for Venice homeowners and business owners, who pay local taxes, to have some relief from being blocked by RVs permanently camped on Venice streets. Likewise, Venice  visitors should be able to compete for parking spaces.

Moreover, this isn’t just a case of heartless homeowners. The Venice parking restrictions are accompanied by a program pushed by Los Angeles City Council Member Bill Rosendahl to provide safe off-street parking for the RVs that are required to move during the night. And finally, like it or not, parking one’s vehicle on an L.A. street for 72 or more consecutive hours, regardless of the vehicle’s size, is already illegal under Sec. 80.73.2 of the Los Angeles Municipal Code.

So is the Venice vehicle parking restriction a perfect solution? Of course not. Should more be done to assist homeless people who may be forced to live in their vehicles because they have no alternative to protect them from the elements? Definitely, and I’ll bet many Venice homeowners and business owners would agree.

And once again, I expect that we’ll hear more than this parting shot from the car campers’ side in the ongoing Venice parking war.

For the unitiated, Curbed covers, for the most part, LA real estate. They do link round-ups of stories from around the blogosphere and occasional tangential news stories, as well as “rent check” posts about apartments for rent around LA, but their meat-and-potatoes posts are the ones that detail extraordinary houses/palaces/design catastrophes for sale. I’m sure my fascination with, for instance, this Versailles-lite Sunset Boulevard mansion is the same sort of engine that drives so many of those house-oriented shows on television, but somehow Curbed delivers it in a way that I find compelling instead of off-putting. Who hasn’t always wanted to see inside the House of Davids??!! I know I have. Thank you, Curbed, for making it possible. It is, in fact, more atrocious than I imagined.  

But it’s not all architectural traffic accidents on Curbed, there are also posts like this one that make me wish I had a spare $629,000 sitting around. Or this one that makes me want to organize a b.la expedition to explore the old Nazi ruins in LA.

So thanks, Curbed, for being consistently entertaining and letting me peak inside some of LA’s interior decorating travesties.

Sorry to see this little shop go – it was always such a delightful way to kill some time before catching a movie across the street.  Oh, sad foot.

Photo courtesy Lush Bunny and used under a Creative Commons license.

I realize the world will end anyway on May 21st, but The Hollywood Reporter is, well, reporting that Grauman’s Chinese Theater is being sold and we should Expect Some Changes once their deal closes on May 20th.

Bull SHIT, sez me!

There’s a Facebook page to save it but everybody knows what that’s worth.

I’m not completely clear if they’re only getting the Mann Chinese 6 at Hollywood and Highland, or if the rumor that the developers are “considering turning the theater, which has 1,152 seats, into a nightclub,” is anything more than that, but still.

Really? The Chinese Theater? It’s not IT enough for you?

The Chinese is on all the historic registries, but developers (and Samaha in particular) are notorious for moving forward with their nefarious agendas and hoping no one will notice until it’s too late (Yes I Mean You out there bulldozing Johnnie’s Broiler).

Let’s not let this get swept under the rug, Angelenos!

Apparently, the recent takesies-backsies of the Los Angeles Dodgers by Major League Baseball has quiet a few suits talking. Their discussions are starting to get interesting. Yahoo Sports takes a look at how the baseball power struggle may help L.A.’s bid for an NFL franchise.

In short, the Dodgers could move to a new baseball stadium downtown on the site of the currently proposed new NFL stadium. A new football facility would go up in place of Dodger Stadium in Chavez Ravine. Stadium swap.

It’s a fascinating idea. Football fans would now be able to tailgate outside a brand new stadium, as opposed to the downtown site. It would also provide an opportunity to correct an injustice done decades ago – a new stadium could be situated to face Downtown Los Angeles instead of turning its back on the heart of the city. The new Dodger Stadium could also boast DTLA as a dramatic backdrop. Baseball would become more a part of the urban fabric of the city.

Take the subway to a ballgame? In Los Angeles?

What do you think?

St. Louis, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, New York, and Milwaukee comprise the rest of the list. Interestingly, we are the only city in the top ten not on the east coast or in the midwest. As Salon notes, segregation may be regarded by many as part of southern history, but it’s seemingly part of northern contemporary reality. It’s worth noting that the segregation index seemingly tracks the black/white divide: “It reflects the number of people from one race — in this case black or white — who would have to move for races to be evenly distributed across a certain area. in a city.” Such a binary measure may not be adequate for any city, but particularly falls short to analyze Los Angeles, where less than 10% of the city identified as black in the last census. In fact, one thing that stands out when you click through the slide show of the ten cities is what a lovely sky blue color LA is relative to the dark blue of most of the other cities (blue being the color designating whites).

Interesting stuff in any case. The data come from a March Census Bureau release compiled by John Paul DeWitt of CensusScope.org and the University of Michigan’s Social Science Data Analysis Network–all of which was reported by Daniel Denvir on Salon. My personal hat tip, though, goes to my new favorite site I Love Charts.

Dakota took over the LA edition of the popular real estate and development blog when it was barely in the terrible 2′s. After a 4-year run, she heads to the Valley to report for the Daily News.

We look forward to reading her take on the always amusing 818. Maybe she can help us get the trains rolling.

You never know what you’ll find in the free section of Craigslist. For the first-time home buyer, this may be right up your alley. It’s a free house near 7th and Garland in City West.

You just can’t have the land that it’s on. So, bring a truck and a couple friends, ’cause this sucker’s gotta go.

FREE HOUSE!!! (Los Angeles)

Date: 2011-05-02, 3:36PM PDT
Reply to: sale-bcjfn-2358881587@craigslist.org ^{[Errors when replying to ads?]}

Yes, this is for REAL!

You can have this house for FREE, but you need to take it off our property. Or you can demo the house and salvage any material, but must take everything with you. As you can see the house is not in livable condition. It needs major renovation, if you have a piece of land to place it on, or if you are in construction and can re-use the building material.

All work must be permitted and a contract will be made for both scenarios.

Please see address and pictures below.

Please email me with any questions.

748 Hartford Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90017

Thanks,

David