LA

Art Deco

Security Trust & Savings Bank.: Map of the city of Los Angeles, California ( with the red cars lines); LA, 1914

Gerald A. Eddy: Lines of the Pacific Electric Railway and Motor Transit Company in Southern California; Los Angeles, 1933

This walking tour would take you around the streets of Downtown LA where churches, theaters, banks, and office buildings got built during the roaring twenties; and where the largest network of public transportation got built connecting the different towns of SoCal and creating the metropolitan area of Los Angeles. The area is characterized by: Art Deco architecture, steep streets and cool shops of all kind. After the completion of the LA aqueduct 1913 the LA County would transition for the 3rd time from white-industrial to mix-suburban thanks to real state speculation and the massive migration thanks to the Great Depression. Since there was more water in the city, more people could live in it so residential projects got built by the Industrial Elite: the mansions of Beverly Hills and the gated community of Hollywoodland got built for the new niche (and very jewish) film industry; Pasadena and Santa Monica got filled with bungalow houses that embraced the post industrial arts & crafts movement; and living far from the city center became easier thanks to the vast network of red-cars that grew through the 1910s. Commuting to work on a trolley and having your own back and front yard with a palm and a pine tree became the new luxury. Then in 1921 the oil field of Long Beach got discovered; that same year The Douglas Aircraft Company got stablished on Wilshire and 25th street (but latter moved to Santa Monica); film studios got consolidated on massive lots around Hollywood/CulverCity; and in 1928 the Lockheed brothers opened an airplane factory in Burbank: all of the sudden towns that used to be considered appart from LA were all one urban sprawl. The downtown factories were replaced by department stores or office towers, and grand theaters opened up on Broadway during the roaring 20s turning LA into a glamourous city. The Stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression destroyed much of the wealth created during the early industrial days; but in those dark days is when LA started shinning nation wide. The city didn’t got affected by it instead it benefited since Hollywood movies became the new form of entertainment during the miserable times; plus the aviation and oil industry expanded providing thousands jobs. World War II helped even more thanks to: the alliances between the Masonic government and Hollywood (owned by Masonic Jews) who promoted the war; the Air Force moved to California and more oil was needed for the war effort. But after the war the city, or I should say the county of LA would transition again, when the rest of SoCal got residential through the new highways. The tour suggests an art deco walking tour through Wilshire Ave, breakfast and the Griffith Observatory in the morning; a book store, an alley way full of restaurants plus an art deco walking tour around downtown in the afternoon; and latter dinner at the Clifton plus checking out the neon lights of the Theaters District at night.

Stops:

1 Churches of Wilshire

2 Breakfast at Bakery I Do

3 Griffith observatory

4 The Last Book Store

5 Lunch at Saint Vincent Court

6 Art Deco Towers of Downtown

7 A drink at Clifton Cabinet of Curiosities

8 Theaters of Broadway

Edward Withers: Los Angeles, California vintage travel poster; LA, 1929

Ben Messick: Chic in LA; Los Angeles, 1935