Dancing Girls, Part Two

We're exploring the history of a building in downtown Los Angeles. A small yet elegant brick five-story building, the building at 833 South Spring Street sits between two empty parking lots. A tall vertical neon sign, faded and dilapidated, remains on its facade, advertising "Dancing Girls."

At the Los Angeles Public Library I found the souvenir bulletin of the Los Angeles City Club that commemorated the opening of the building, and praised its location:

"A better location for our building could hardly have been chosen than that which we now occupy at 833 South Spring Street. It is easily accessible from all parts of the downtown business district, and as the trend of building is southward from this point, the site will be come increasingly valuable."

Historically, Spring Street was Los Angeles' financial district, and from 4th to 7th Street, over a dozen banks and stock exchange buildings arose between 1910 and 1930.

Broadway, with its magnificent movie palaces, is one block to the west of Spring Street, Main Street, one block to the east. At 9th Street, Main and Spring converge in a triangle.

In this photo from the USC Digital Archives, taken in the 1920s, you can see the City Club building on the right. South of the club are retail and automotive establishments. At the center of the picture, you can see the back of the rooftop sign for the Orpheum Theatre, in the next block on Broadway. Click on the image to enlarge the photo in a new frame.

The City Club had been founded by Meyer Lissner, a leading progressive politician, in 1907. He identified four founding principles of the club's philosophy:

1) To provide a forum of "citizens who are willing, regardless of parties and factions, to lend a hand in the betterment of the City's political, social, and economic conditions," where they could gather and "exchange views, obtain accurate information, and cooperate intelligently and effectively for the public good."

2) To publicize matters of civic importance.

3) To arouse a sense of civic duty

4) To encourage public officials who are trying to carry out their duties.

That first year "five hundred men, representing the various professions and business interests of the community " joined the club. By the time the new Club headquarters was built, there were 2500 members.

Sketch from the City Club 1924 souvenir bulletin - LA Public Library CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

The club included leaders of government, academia, and business. It sponsored lectures by speakers representing a wide range of political views - from Upton Sinclair to waterworks magnate William Mulholland, to a speaker touting eugenics and the leader of the Anti-Saloon League. Its members were lawyers, bankers, stock brokers and other civic leaders, but its membership fees were affordable even for small businessmen.

The new building was designed by architect Loy L. Smith. The club bulletin describes the decor as "modified medieval baronial," with concrete chemically tinted to resemble antique stone blocks.

Sketch of Dining Room from Souvenir Bulletin, City Club of Los Angeles, 1924 - Los Angeles Public Library- CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

The club occupied the third, fourth and fifth floors. The main dining room on the fourth floor was gracious and beautiful, with large arched windows draped in green hangings. The space was open to an upper gallery that ran around it. With the galleries and adjoining lounge, the space could seat up to 700. Its acoustics were said to be "excellent."

Such lectures were an important part of the club's mission. From political issues to discussions on race; candidates' debates to musical recitals, the bulletin lists over 50 speakers that had appeared before the members in just the last two years alone. The club valued the free exchange of ideas. "All forums that promote general discussion are good, for it is only by the clash of ideas that we get the best."

The club was available for other civic organizations to use, too. As one writer wrote:

"Due to its central location in the business section and because its private dining rooms will be used to so great an extent by civic and commercial organizations for midday meetings, the City Club will undoubtedly be....the center of noon luncheon activities among business and professional men."

There was a more casual grill room, with cafeteria-style service, and private dining rooms that members could reserve. Ladies were welcome as guests of members, and were allowed a private ladies' dining room on the fifth floor mezzanine.

Grill Room, from the City Club's souvenir bulletin - LA Public Library - CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

A billiard room, library, and men's lounge were located on the third floor where the club administrative offices were.

The ground floor housed the Morris Plan Company, a lending institution for people who otherwise couldn't get loans from a bank. Second floor tenants included a Certified Public Accountant, the Municipal League, and the Engineers' Club. The meeting rooms were used by respected and professional organizations, among them the Paleontology Society, the Dental Association, and the Illuminating Engineering Society.

Los Angeles was a boom town during the 1920s and downtown land values and rents rose as the number of people and businesses increased. The city expanded into the suburbs, due at first to Los Angeles' streetcar system, which was among the widest in the nation, but also by the rising popularity of the automobile, which allowed for convenient travel between suburbs.

1931 view of Spring between 8th & 9th. The lamp-post in the foreground is in front of the City Club building - USC Digital Archives - CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

By the 1920s, downtown traffic was becoming increasingly congested and trolley service - sharing the same roads as cars - began to suffer. A 1925 study recommended an ambitious and comprehensive new rapid transit plan, with subways and elevated trains replacing the on-street trolleys.

Spring and Main come together at 9th Street, taken in 1939 - LA Public Library photo - CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

The leaders of the City Club opposed the plan. They objected to the cost, and doubted its financial soundness, noting that the existing trolley system was losing money. Several club leaders were proponents of "decentralization" as a concept of city planning. They argued that the idea of a central downtown surrounded by suburbs, accessed by rail, was outdated. A centralized rail system, fanning out from the center like spokes of a wheel, would even increase congestion, forcing travelers into the city to make their connections to other suburbs.

The automobile, they argued, made it possible to travel as one chose. Clarence E. Dykstra, Club Secretary and future Chancellor of UCLA, published an article calling the rapid transit scheme "Congestion Deluxe."

As the '20s became the '30s, cars were even more popular. By 1931, ridership on the Red Line had dropped 24% from its mid-'20s high. The commercial core of the city moved to the Mid-Wilshire area, and retail sales in downtown plummeted. The depression dealt the final blow to the expensive transit plan.

As businesses moved west, real estate values dropped. New zoning regulations downtown that required parking linked to occupancy made it less attractive for developers to build. As 19th century buildings fell into disrepair, they were replaced by parking lots.

Another social and cultural change was taking place. In 1919, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, and in the same year Congress passed the Volstead Act. Both measures outlawed the manufacture, sale, and transport of alcoholic beverages.

Saloon, 1933- LA Public Library photo

Supporters of Prohibition did not foresee its consequences. During the 1920s, bootlegging, smuggling and illegal drinking soared. "Speakeasies" were popular. The public disregard for the law led to the rise of other illegal enterprises, including gambling houses, where you could break two laws for the price of one. The by product of all this was crime, violence, and police corruption.

By the early '30s most Americans wanted to repeal Prohibition. At the City Club, however, temperance leaders praised its success and morality. In June 1932 a debate between pro and anti-repealers took place in front of a large audience in the City Club's impressive dining room.

The repealers won, in the end. In February of 1933, Congress voted to repeal the 18th Amendment. Californians approved ratification in May. Beginning in April of '33, it was legal to sell beer in Los Angeles. Beerhalls opened all over the city.

Although the city was changing, you would think that, of all places the City Club on South Spring Street would maintain its status. An anchor for the block, the wealth, prosperity and leadership of its respectable and powerful members keeping it from declining like the rest of downtown.

But instead it just disappeared.

By October of 1932, even before the repeal of Prohibition, the City Club was gone from 833 South Spring Street.

In its place - in the elegant dining room with its high-arched windows - was an exclusive "members only" club called the 833 Club. It was a swank joint, with a live jazz band and a hopping dance floor. On the evening of July 14, 1933 - just nine months after it opened, it was raided by the police. The cops, acting on tips from undercover agents, battered down the steel doors to a hidden vault while hundred of rich patrons looked on, uncovering illegal gambling equipment - roulette wheels, blackjack tables, and thousands of dollars in currency.

Gambling equipment confiscated by police - LA Public Library photo

Seventeen people were taken to jail, charged with illegal gambling and liquor violations. They included the club's manager, a man named George Distel. He had only recently gotten out of jail, from an earlier conviction of similar violations in connection with another club.

I'm not sure what happened to George, but the 833 Club reopened, only to be raided again in September, its new manager and four others charged with violations of the newly instituted liquor laws.

The City Club Building, once the home of LA's most powerful civic organization, was now a regular target of the Vice Squad.

In the souvenir bulletin commemorating the building's 1924 opening, Clarence E. Dykstra wrote that the principles of the Club are

"amply proved by the fact that our City Club is now housed in a building which we may call our own for years to come. .... the City Club is here to stay... we are a permanent institution and one to be reckoned with in the city's civic life in the future... For all time our community is assured that there is at least one place in the city where all public questions may be discussed from every angle if only the proponents are sincere and have the public good in mind."

But it had lasted less than ten years. Even Dykstra was gone - he left Los Angeles in 1930 to become president of a university back east.

In June of 1935, the 833 Club lost its liquor permit again, this time for the illegal service of rum to minors. Now the Los Angeles Times described the building as a "so-called club[s] where ...various classes of hoodlums meet."

How could the place have come so low in so short a time? What happened?

All I know is that at some point in the second half of 1932, the City Club stopped being active in the civic life of downtown Los Angeles. I know what took place in the building next, but I don't know why, or how.

There's more to the story.

And we haven't even gotten to the dancing girls yet.

Stayed tuned for Dancing Girls, Part Three

Dancing Girls, Part One

Last time I was in downtown L.A., I saw this neon sign on a building on South Spring Street. "Dancing Girls." A seedy reminder of downtown Los Angeles' past.

It was a weekend, and the building was deserted. The metal gates were down over the street-level windows and doors, and the entrance was locked.

The building itself was charming; pretty patterned brick, pleasing proportions. Magnificent banks of windows jutting out in a central bay on the third and fourth floors. That central gable, with its gracefully shaped window.

It was certainly an older building, but recently renovated, with new, modern, wood-framed windows, and new glass doors at the street. Yet they'd saved the old sign, with its faded paint and pentimento, and fragile neon tubes.

I walked around the building. It stands alone, between two empty surface parking lots. The parking lot to the north connects through to a parking lot on Broadway, north of the Orpheum Theatre. As I walked toward the alley between the Orpheum and this building, I saw this sign:

Designed to be visible from the Broadway parking lot. What, I wondered, was the history of this building?

I have a pretty good eye for old theatres, and this one didn't strike me as an old theatre, not even a very early one. For one things, there were too many windows on both walls. Theatres have blank walls, because auditoriums are supposed to be dark.

This building had windows - and on the upper floor, high arched windows. No theatre, this. What could it have been, and why the girly-joint signs?

Here was another clue. The arched entryway has letters carved into the stone, "City Club." I put my face close to the locked glass door.

A small entry hall, marble floors in a stepped checkerboard, a small reception desk, a potted plant. An ornate black iron lantern and chandelier.

The realtors' banners advertised it as being available for showrooms and offices, "and more." Like most historic properties in L.A., it also advertised its availability as a filming location. I went home and, curious, I started to investigate.

The real estate office's website calls it The Primrose Design building, and at a link called "History" is a reprint of an article from the Los Angeles Times dated September, 1924.

This was the headquarters of the Los Angeles City Club. The headline touts it as among the best example of its kind in the nation. Its cost, excluding furnishings, is estimated at $180,000. The article describes the impressive 4th floor dining room with its "baronial medieval" decor, high arched windows, and large-scale checkerboard floor of concrete fashioned to resemble rough stone. The lobby, it notes, is in keeping with this style, with its marble-tiled floor. A tile mural, depicting a California landscape scene, is mentioned.

The fifth floor contained a ladies' dining room and a balcony overlooking the main dining room below. The third floor housed the Club's offices, a library, and a private dining room. The second floor was to be leased out for commercial offices, and the first floor for retail.

There's even a blurry photo of the building - looking almost exactly the same as today - except for the sign.

Libraries, offices, ladies' dining rooms - none of this explains the sign for Dancing Girls.

Well, you know me, by now. This made me even more curious. So come along with me as I discover the history of this building.

Next up - Part Two of "Dancing Girls"

Pink Saturday - Guava blossom

Pink Saturday - Beverly, at the blog "How Sweet the Sound" hosts Pink Saturday. Let the color pink inspire you!

Beautiful pink blossoms on a guava plant growing in my friend F.'s garden this spring. Isn't it pretty?

Guavas originated in Mexico and Central America, but now they grow throughout the tropics, having spread there naturally, and by humans who found them so delicious.

Guava paste is very popular in Caribbean and Latin American culture, and because we have family in Tampa, Florida, we often receive round, flat tins of guava paste in care packages for the holidays. Guava paste and cream cheese is a nice combination to spread on a cracker. Or you can layer them between two tortillas and heat in a hot frying pan. It's a guava quesadilla!

Comfort food indeed - and it's pink!

Spell check?

OK, I believe you, but....who's your sign-painter?

This small place - which probably has quite acceptable food - is on South Broadway just north of the Orpheum Theatre, in downtown Los Angeles.

Lucky Star

"When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you"

"If your heart is in your dreams
No request is to extreme
When you wish upon a star
As dreamers do"

I came upon this electrified star - in central Los Angeles, at an architectural salvage yard.

Magical, isn't it?

Smoke in the air

Yesterday morning, I stepped out on the deck and this is what the air looked like.

That's not fog, that's smoke.

The fires burning in the Los Angeles National Forest above La Canada Flintridge have been out of control since they began last week. 120,000 acres have been burned as of this morning. Homes have been lost and two firefighters have died. Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes, and thousands others are affected by the smoke. Good friends live close to the fire - we've heard from them and so far they are safe.

Topanga's about 30 miles from the big Station fire that's burning in the hills above La Canada Flintridge. Although wild fires always make us nervous, living as we do in a fire-prone area, we are not in any danger from the Station fire.

Yet it is so huge, and burning so fiercely that its smoke filled our Canyon yesterday morning, brought by the shifting winds.

Being in the Canyon as we are, tucked under the hills on the eastern slope, we have no view of Los Angeles basin or the valley, so I've missed the sight of the huge billows of smoke hanging over the city. And of course, when the air is so bad, you don't go venturing outside.

It has been hot - the last five days in the 100's. Here's our shady carport thermometer, Sunday at 6:30 p.m.

Today's supposed to be hot, too, but a tropical storm off the coast of Baja may bring us some needed moisture - but with it also the danger of high winds, lightning strikes - all of which is not good news for the firefighters.

Thank you all for your concerns and kind thoughts about us Californians.

Treasures revealed

Sometimes you stumble onto something all unawares. In May I posted some pictures of signs for Carmi's Thematic Photographic. They were a set of art deco bronze letters, signs, embedded in the concrete sidewalk at the entrance to a parking garage on 6th Street in downtown Los Angeles.

The letters are beautiful, but mysterious. The building at 610 S. Broadway housing the garage, the landmark W. P. Story building, had been built in 1908 - far earlier than the development of Art Deco style. The opening to the garage today is unadorned, drab, dark, and boring, disguised by a dirty canvas awning.


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Yet there are these stylish letters, right beneath our feet. How did they come to be?

Today I was browsing around on one of my favorite online digital photo sites, the Library of Congress Print and Photograph Collection. And in the Historic American Building Survey collection, I happened upon these photos.

A project of the Department of the Interior, the Historic American Building Survey's purpose is to record significant historic structures. In many cases, the photographers got there just before the structures were destroyed. This collection is fascinating and heartbreaking to browse, if you love old buildings.

But sometimes, you find treasure. In 1934, the W. P. Story building was remodeled to include a parking garage. The designer was the architectural firm Morgan, Walls and Clements, designers of other iconic Los Angeles examples of Art Deco.

And it was, indeed, the most beautiful parking garage you could imagine.

Here's how the notes accompanying the record put it:

"Significance: Designed by a firm equally skillful with the Zigzag or Streamlined modes (not to mention the Aztec Assyrian Revivals), the Story Garage is Los Angeles' purest example of Zigzag Moderne (Art Deco) as first defined at the 1925 Paris Exposition. The stylized floral motifs and female faces of the bronze gates appear to be indebted to that exposition as the direct source of their design. The signs embedded in the driveway itself are careful versions of the typical graphics of the period."

The photographs are dated 1975. In that year, someone decided to remove the incredible bronze grilles, the terra-cotta portal, the proud lettering over the entry. Why? did they dislike the look? Was it a practical reason, to widen the entrance? Was it too hard to maintain, or to secure the garage? Did someone recognize the value of the artifacts, and con them away?

Who knows? But the HABS preserved what had been there. And the letters in the sidewalk left a clue that told the tale.

Yet another example of the hidden layers of richness that our own cities and homes hold for us to find. Let's never stop looking - Okay?

Bottle tree

We were driving through the small town of Hillsborough, North Carolina this August when we saw this blue-glass bottle tree in the front yard of a small bungalow.

Bottle trees are an African-American folk tradition in the South, that evolved from West and Central African belief that malevolant spirits can be trapped inside empty bottles. People put empty bottles on the branches of trees or even dead branches propped up to resemble trees. The bottle tree is kept in the yard near the house, to draw the spirits away from the dwelling place.

The spirits enter the bottles at night, the belief goes, and then, trappped, they are burned up by the heat of the morning sun.

It's so much the better if the bottles are pretty colored glass, to be more attractive to those wicked and mischievous spirits. Milk of magnesia bottles in deep cobalt blue were prized for bottle trees. Sometimes other pretty, shiny objects like pie tins, ribbons and bits of glass also decorate the bottle tree.

Mississippian Eudora Welty worked as a publicity agent for the Works Progress Administration between 1933 and 1936. In her travels around the state, she took photos of rural life. Those images led to her storytelling, and her career as one of Mississippi's best known fiction writers. She wrote "Livvie," a short story published in 1943 in the collection "The Wide Net," where a young black woman marries an older man who keeps her isolated from the rest of the world, for fear she will be drawn away from him. He keeps a bottle tree in the yard, which Livvie recognizes because she

"...knew that there could be a spell put in trees, and she was familiar from the time she was born with the way bottle trees kept evil spirits from coming into the house - by luring them inside the colored bottles, where they cannot get out again."

Welty wrote about the real bottle tree that inspired the story, in her book "One Writer's Beginnings":

"Along Mississippi roads you'd now and then see bottle trees; you'd see them alone or in crowds in the front yards of remote farmhouses. I photographed one - a bare crape myrtle with every branch of it ending in the mouth of a colored glass bottle - a blue Milk of Magnesia or and orange or green pop bottle; reflecting the light, flashing its colors in the sun, it stood as the centerpiece in a little thicket of peach trees in bloom."

Art historian/anthropologist Robert Farris Thompson says the tradition comes from Central African Bakongo people, who attached broken pots and containers called nkisi to the trees around their homes, to drive away evil spirits and thieves. "Bottle trees are an important element of African-American visual culture," Thompson wrote in his 1983 book "Flash of the Spirit - African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy" - "They will always be with us, like okra, hominy and black-eyed peas."

While I was looking for information about bottle trees, I found Felder Rushing's website, with a page devoted to bottle trees. Go visit and view his wonderful photos of all the creative variations of this folk tradition.

Something to consider

I don't usually get political on this blog, but how could any reasonable person ignore the fact that there is a huge debate going on in this country about reforming our health care system?

I'm not going to lecture you, but what I strongly advise everyone to do is to learn as much as you can about health care issues. And don't just listen to the media, or the politicians, or to the people who are part of organized advocacy on one side or another.

Listen to real people. If you're wondering what the system is like in other countries - go listen to people who've had experience in those countries. If you've got great insurance and you're worried about changes that may affect your privileges - go listen to people who have less than you. If you have no insurance, or an inadequate policy - go listen to people who've found something that works for them.

One way you can find out other people's stories is by reading a blog called "Tome of the Unknown Writer", published by Bill Campbell, from Washington D.C. Bill posts health care stories from people who send them in to him. The stories come from people all over the U.S. and all over the world.

Go read stories about real families and their experiences. Don't let yourself be manipulated by politicians, organizations that have something to lose or gain, or the media. It's not about ideology - it's what works for real people. Make your own decisions.

He published my story. If you write him, I bet he'll publish yours.