September, 2008

Local / OldStuff — No Comments
29
Sep 08

Santa Monica's Avenue's Original Names

The “state” namesake avenues in Santa Monica start at Montana and end at Colorado, which, confusingly enough, was originally named “Railroad.” Most of the street names, Idaho, Arizona, et cetera, have not changed. The exceptions seem to be Santa Monica Blvd (originally named Orgeon Avenue), Broadway (originally named Utah Avenue), and Wislhire Blvd. (originally named Nevada Avenue).

I have a hunch that Senator Jones named the street Nevada because the thoroughfare ran in front of his “Miramar” home on Ocean Avenue (Jones had made his fortune in and was a US senator representing Nevada).

Local / OldStuff — No Comments
29
Sep 08

Crystal Pier

Ha!

There used to be a pier at Hollister Ave! There is, of course, nothing there now to indicate that. The Crystal Pier seems to have been an amusement pier. I found this great photo print at the Library of Congress of a “Bathing Beauty Contest,” and I think you can see the pier in the background.

This is a great high res panorama photo from 1925. Click on the fragment below to go to the high res version.

The Market — No Comments
29
Sep 08

Unbelievable

Ten votes behind.

Nine.
Twelve.
Time’s up.
Sixteen votes behind and counting.
Fifteen.
Sixteen, with forty-two not voting
Nineteen behind, with thirty-seven not voting.

It’s not going to pass.

CurrentEvents / The Market — No Comments
29
Sep 08

Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008

It appears all eyes are on the House right now, waiting to see if HR 3997 (“Financial Markets Bill”) passes. It’s surprisingly close right now, 153 – 146.

I’m just thinking about lunch.

Now the Nays have taken the lead with 163 for and 167 against. Unbelievable.

Whatever the true substance of this legislation, with 60 seconds left in the vote, I can’t believe this thing isn’t going to pass.

It’s definitely going to be close.

Uncategorized — No Comments
26
Sep 08

Black or Pinto Beans?

Why don’t I ever know the answer to this question?

Uncategorized — No Comments
16
Sep 08

At what point do we look at the post- New Deal deregulation of the financial sector and say, “Maybe we went too far?”

The fact that the livelihood of an insurance company like AIG is threatened by the credit crisis forces me to consider the wisdom of the “one stop shop” financial business.

Well, at least oil is heading down. 

Local / OldStuff — No Comments
10
Sep 08

Orgeon and Utah Avenues in Santa Monica

Examining the original street layout of Santa Monica, many of the east-west streets bare the names of US states. Of the lower ten, the prominent exceptions are Broadway, Santa Monica Boulevard, Wilshire Boulevard, and Palisades Avenue. As Wilshire and Santa Monica adopted the names of the Los Angeles thoroughfares with which they later connected, they were originally called something else. I’ve just discovered that the street that is now named Santa Monica Boulevard was originally named Oregon Avenue, and Broadway was called Utah Avenue.

This is according to the LA Public Library:

http://catalog1.lapl.org/cgi-bin/cw_cgi?fullRecord+4190+968+32495+108+0

Now to determine the original name of Wilshire!

Local / OldStuff — No Comments
10
Sep 08

The Westside in the 1920s

I just found this amazing set of historical maps of the southland: The David Rumsey Map Collection.

I’m still looking over all of these, but so far this is my favorite.

This map is titled, “Map of Los Angeles, California. Copyright, by E.F. Hill. (inset map) City of Inglewood.” The degree of detail is astounding. Looking at the Ocean Park area of Santa Monica, I can see the Pickering Pier at the end of Pier Avenue, the Municipal Pier at the end of Colorado, and something I’ve never seen before: The Crystal Pier at the end of Hollister Avenue?!? By the Urth Caffe?

And apparently the Pacific Electric trolley used to have a route down Santa Monica Blvd. I’d known about the route through Brentwood down San Vicente Blvd. The Coral Tree cafe restaurant has photographs of San Vicente with railroad tracks running down the parkway.

I love how this map shows “old” Brentwood, calling it Westgate. I suppose it is an appropriate name. I you were coming from Los Angeles, heading west, this area was the “gate” to the west. The nieghborhood that today is called “West Los Angeles” was known, in 1928, as Sawtelle. According to this article in Wikipedia, Sawtelle was an independent city until Los Angeles City Officials forcibly (seriously?) annexed Sawtelle. Now I have to go and try to track down the Westside section of the LA Times from 1/10/63 to verify an article written by George Garrigues. Dammit!

Damn, city politics used to be cray-zay!

What is left of Sawtelle that was not incorporated directly Los Angeles city property is today composed of several facilities used by various parts of the federal government. It includes the Los Angeles National Cemetary, the facility known locally as “The V.A.” and the Federal Building.

PS: According to this document, Sawtelle was not annexed, but “consolidated” into Los Angeles City. It’s really weird to try to assimilate all this information. When you look at that document you can see how the original city layouts on the westside were kind of a mess (I’m looking at you, Palms), and it’s kind of amazing that Culver, Inglewood, Beverly Hills, and Santa Monica were not subsumed into the conglomeration. Or, in the case of West Hollywood, were able to break away after annexation.

At what point, if ever, did the citizens of these formerly sovereign soutland cities say, “We changed out minds. We don’t want to be part of LA any more. It’s not you, it’s us.”

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