Photo Essay: A Station Master's Tour of LA's Monumental Train Terminal

After nearly 15 years of living in Los Angeles, you'd think I've seen everything there is to see. But I'm constantly reminded of how much more there is, hiding beneath all those layers. 

Take Union Station, for instance. I thought my "holy grail" was getting back into the bar space that had become the Streamliner Lounge—which I finally got to do during this year's TrainFest in September.

But as it turns out, this great train station had even more in store for me—revealed to me during a recent tour I took with Los Angeles Railroad Heritage Foundation (LARHF). 

 

Now, all I knew was that it was going to be led my a former station master—so it certainly would be different than the architecturally-focused Los Angeles Conservancy tour I took all the way back in 2012.

Photo Essay: 85 Years of The Walt Disney Studios in Burbank

There are five main movie production studios in Los Angeles, and only four of them give studio tours: Warner Brothers, Paramount, Sony, and Universal. I'd visited them all (plus some smaller ones like the Fox lot, which didn't allow photos) except one—and the one holdout was the one that provides extremely limited public access.

Walt Disney Studios in Burbank. 

Photo: The Hollywood Palladium—A Palace for Big Bands, Roller Disco, and More

Many theaters over the last 100 years (or more?) have been named the "Palace" to evoke grandeur and cultural sophistication. 

Photo: 2023

But there's another moniker that brings that idea of glamour to new heights: Palladium, which comes from the Greek goddess of the arts, Pallas Athena.

Photo Essay: A Long-Awaited Celebration for Long Beach Airport's Historic Streamline Moderne Terminal

It had been the year 2010 since I'd flown in or out of Long Beach Airport—LA's oldest municipal airport, originally known as Daugherty Field, established in 1923. 

It's just not convenient to where I currently live. 

But I love it so much, I arranged to tour its Streamline Moderne-style terminal building (by architects William Horace Austin and Kenneth Smith Wing, circa 1941) back in 2016. 

And then in February 2023, it ceased operations as LGB's main passenger terminal and closed for a renovation that would last over a year. At the time, I thought, "Aw, too bad"—because it had been such a delight to travel through there, I was sad for the passengers who'd never get to experience it.

 

Photo Essay: Saturday Night at the Los Angeles County Fair

For some reason, I let 10 years go by after my first visit to the Los Angeles County Fair in 2012. (That year, I actually went twice—for the fair itself and then for the Demolition Derby.)

And when I went back to Fairplex in Pomona a decade later—in 2022, after the event had shifted from September to May—it rained. And I didn't have a great time. 

This year, I returned to the fair because I had a ticket to Pat Benatar's Grandstand concert—and that gave me the chance to explore the grounds for the first time at night.

Photo Essay: The Egyptian Theatre Rises From Its Restoration Tomb

In May 2020, a deal was finalized to transfer ownership of the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood (a.k.a. Grauman's Egyptian) from the non-profit American Cinematheque to the very much for-profit streaming service (and now film studio) Netflix. 

And it caused quite an uproar.

Because when the City of LA's Community Redevelopment Agency sold the Egyptian to American Cinematheque in 1996—for just $1, a symbolic transaction—it was so that the historic property could be made accessible for the public good. 

To complicate matters, one of the American Cinematheque board members at the time worked for Netflix. 

Now, I don't know what American Cinemetheque's bylaws state in reference to potential conflicts of interest. It may be that the board reviewed the situation and decided that the possible interested person didn't stand to gain anything financially by the transaction, and so it wasn't an actual conflict of interest.

But it seems as though A.C. may not have even had the right to sell the property at all—much less transfer it to a corporation that would use it for private gain. 

Sure, the streamer will still allow the non-profit to occasionally screen repertory cinema and festivals; but it will primarily use the theatre as a screening room for its original productions. 

How did Netflix get around the Supreme Court decision of 1948 (known as the "Paramount Act," the "Paramount Decision," and the "Paramount Decree") that forbade movie studios from owning their own movie theatres and booking their own films there, as a violation of anti-trust laws? 

The same year that Netflix bought the Egyptian, the U.S. Department of Justice motioned to lift the ban—and a judge granted the motion. 

The anti-trust regulation of movie theatres was terminated—which means studios can once again legally own their own movie houses and monopolize the market, potentially edging out smaller chains and independent-run cinemas. 

It's a funny thing, a digital-first platform turning to brick-and-mortar—much like Amazon.com opening real-life grocery stores. (Or Amazon Studios taking over the Pacific Culver City multiplex for Prime screenings last December.)

They've both already cannibalized mom-and-pop retail by shifting consumer behavioral patterns online—so moving to physical locations feels a little like they're turning the knife. 

 

I appreciate that Netflix wanted to take over and preserve an existing, historic theatre rather than building something anew (or, gasp, tearing something down in the process). So, I had to put all this drama aside for myself—because in the end, no matter who owns it, the Egyptian is a 101-year-old Hollywood landmark. I want to support it; I want to help it stay open and active; I want to experience it. 

The Crest Has Transformed Into UCLA's New Nimoy Theater, With 1980s Art Deco Elements Preserved

I don't remember why I never saw a movie at the Crest Theatre in Westwood, Los Angeles before it closed for good in 2016. To be honest, I don't really remember it being open or having heard about it hosting any screenings.

 circa 2022

I only really took notice of it when it was closed, and then upon the announcement that UCLA was converting it into the "Nimoy Theater" (named after Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy) for live shows presented by the Center for the Art of Performance. At which point, I became desperate to get in. 

Photo Essay: Streamline Modernity in Silver Lake, Los Angeles

I'm a looky-loo, but I don't always like to be in people's homes while they're still living there. I'll make an occasional exception for a rare public tour—or if the house is listed for sale and lots of people are wandering through anyway. 

 

The "Silver Ridge" estate recently fit the bill on both marks—at the time, listed for $3.5 MM for five bedrooms, three baths, and a two-car garage below on a 13,900-square-foot lot. 

Photo Essay: Hollywood Post 43, A World War I Memorial Built By the Movies and Boxing Matches

It's been nicknamed the "Post of the Stars." 

 

Originally chartered in 1919 by Hollywood luminaries who'd returned from World War I, American Legion Hollywood Post 43 can count such luminaries as Clark Gable, Gene Autry, Mickey Rooney, Ronald Reagan, and Charlton Heston as its past members.

The Wrigleys' Timeless Gift of Timekeeping on Catalina Island: The Chimes Tower

In my last couple of visits to Catalina Island—the only developed tourist attraction in the Channel Islands archipelago off the coast of California—I've been trying to trace some of the remnants of the Wrigleys' time there.

But for all the looking I've done, there's been another clue to the Wrigley history on the island—and that can be found simply by listening. 

Every 15 minutes, you can hear the Westminster chimes of the Catalina Chimes Tower—a set of "cathedral chimes" (like those found at Westminster Abbey) ringing out from atop a hill. (They originally sounded four times an hour from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. — but now they're only between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.)

circa 2021, with some Photoshop magic

Photo Essay: Riverside's Historic Weber House, Hiding In Plain Sight In a Hotel Parking Lot

Riverside, California has got plenty of historic architecture—from Victorian to Mid-Century Modern—but one of its most intriguing historic homes defies definition when it comes to architectural style. 

 

And what's more, it's located in the most unexpected of places: in the parking lot of the Courtyard by Marriott Riverside UCR/Moreno Valley Area hotel on University Avenue (a.k.a. Old Highway 395), in a former orange grove.

Photo Essay: Oviatt Penthouse, Continuing to Return to Its Original Art Deco Glory

Anyone can visit the Oviatt Building and gawk at its ornate Art Deco cornice from across the street or examine the lovely Lalique glasswork from the front entrance. 

But if you enter the building—probably through Cicada, the restaurant that now lays claim to the ground floor once occupied by Oviatt's men's clothing store—you lose nearly all sense of Art Deco.

That's because the building itself is Italian Romanesque, and the interior was designed in the style of English Jacobian.

 

 

However, perched atop the roof of the Oviatt Building, in the form of the penthouse where James Oviatt himself lived until his death, you'll find an Art Deco masterpiece. 

Photo Essay: A Real Estate Heir-Turned-Recluse Kept His Lake Tahoe Compound To Himself (And Accidentally Conserved Much of the Shoreline)

On my way from California to farther east in Nevada, I stopped along the eastern shore of Lake Tahoe (technically in the town of Incline Village, NV) to take a tour of a historic estate known as Thunderbird Lodge.  

 

Locals seem to call it "the old Whittell estate"—named after the eccentric millionaire from San Francisco who built it, George Whittell, Jr.

Photo Essay: How Macy's Lake Avenue Preserves the History of Bullock's Pasadena, 'The Store of Tomorrow'

Most people wouldn't give a Macy's department store a second glance—but I'm not most people. 

Besides, even  though it happened long before I arrived in California, I know how Macy's took over some of the historic Robinson's department stores (like in Woodland Hills and Newport Beach).

I can only assume there are more historic treasures hiding behind a Macy's logo elsewhere in SoCal.

Which brings me to the Macy's on Lake Avenue in Pasadena, California.

Every time I'd drive past it, I'd marvel at what I assumed—but didn't really know—to be a landmark shopping destination. It dominates Lake Avenue, with its wide, low profile—and its Streamline Moderne elements on the north wing catching the eyes of passerby drivers like me.

I'd always wondered what it was like inside, but I'd always be on my way to something else—and wouldn't make time to stop and go in. 

That changed when Pasadena Heritage recently offered a tour of Macy's Lake Avenue—which turns out to be the former Pasadena location of Bullock's department store. 

Photo: "Dick" Whittington Photography Collection, USC Digital Library

 

Photo Essay: The 91-Year-Old Bakersfield Fox Theatre Glitters Just As Brightly As In 1953

It really says something about the city of Bakersfield, California that it was, at one time, on the radar enough to receive one of the Fox theatre chain's movie palaces...

   

 ...and also that it fell off the radar enough for that palace to be left alone for over 90 years and be spared from the wrecking ball and development.

I'd Like to Thank the Academy For Finally Opening Its Long-Awaited Museum on L.A.'s Miracle Mile

The long-anticipated Academy Museum—in the works at least since 2012—opened to the public on my birthday this year, after about a decade of waiting. Not having any other plans, I figured that was a good way to spend the day.

   

Photo Essay: The Former Fox Movie Palace in UCLA's Backyard [Updated for 2024—Temporarily Closed]

[Last updated 7/26/24 10:22 AM PT—The Regency Village has been purchased by a consortium of Hollywood directors and producers, including Jason Reitman, Steven Spielberg, and Bradley Cooper. It closed in July 2024 for a renovation and expansion under its new ownership.]

It's one of those LA places I'd passed by all the time—but never made enough of an effort to go inside. 

 

Citizen Public Market Serves New Food Hall Fare In Historic Digs

One of the first landmarked buildings of Culver City, California has just gotten new life as a trendy new food hall. 

 

Photo Essay: Hollywood's Newest Historic Movie Theatre, at the American Legion (Updated)

[Last updated 6/12/21 9:40 PM PT—projection booth photos added at bottom]

The American Legion Hollywood Post 43 has been nicknamed the "Post of the Stars." 

That's not just because of its current Tinseltown location—but also because it was originally chartered in 1919 by Hollywood luminaries who'd returned from World War I. 

Past post members have included stars like Clark Gable, Gene Autry, Mickey Rooney, Ronald Reagan, Charlton Heston, and more.

Photo Essay: The Agricultural Beginnings of a Classic Car Collection

The Motte Historical Museum in Menifee, California had its grand opening in 2013, after being founded by John Victor and Evelyn Motte through their estate.   

 

The Mottes are one of the oldest pioneering families in Riverside County's Perris Valley, not too far from Temecula. They established Motte's Romola Farms in 1910—and in the 1940s, Frank, Charles, and John Victor partnered up to create the Motte Brothers agricultural enterprise.