New photography has become difficult. Health issues. Limited mobility. The only thing new will be the Saturday botanical galleries, at least for a bit longer. But here is how July looked this last week, but from 2015 to 2020, from the archives.
Stepping into the Past (40 images): Chapman Market, designed by the firm of Morgan, Walls and Clements, opened in 1929 – and it’s typical of the Churrigueresque Spanish Colonial Revival architecture popular at the time, with a bit of Moorish mixed in, along with some Gothic and Rococo touches. It’s a glorious nightmare of a place, on West 6th Street at Alexandria Avenue in the Wilshire District of Los Angeles. But Stiles O. Clements was on a roll – three years earlier he had given us the exterior of the El Capitan Theater on Hollywood Boulevard – so everyone should have seen this coming. The Chapman Market was designed as the first-ever drive-in market, but now it’s “the” Koreatown hotspot – all the hot clubs and amazing restaurants are here – but it’s a very strange place. It has a past. ~ Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Hollywood Patterns (25 images): Hollywood in the abstract, Friday, July 15, 2016
The Strongest Sun (45 images): The play of light at the Los Angeles County Art Museum complex on Wilshire Boulevard on a brutally hot summer day – Thursday, July 13, 2017
A Jungle Out There: (35 images): It’s a jungle out there. Or it’s just another summer afternoon on Melrose Avenue. ~ Friday, July 13, 2018
The Lotus Festival (35 images): Every year it’s the same thing – odd food and live music and ethnic dances and dragon-boat races – at the Los Angeles Lotus Festival at Echo Park Lake, with the largest lotus bed in the United States. This is about the people and culture of the islands of Asia and the Pacific – loud and crowded and a lot of fun – this year on July 14 and 15, Bastille Day weekend. But the Lotus is a Zen thing. This was Tuesday, July 16, 2019 – without the crowds. This was more like it.
At Harmony Gold (30 images): Sunset Boulevard at Stanley Avenue – the light was good and there was an open parking space in front of the offices of Harmony Gold, the film and television production company, and just around the corner from the fancy Moroccan restaurant. The light is always good here in Hollywood – harmonious and golden. That’s why they make movies here. ~ Tuesday, July 14, 2020
Just Above Sunset 