October 2018 Photography
At Halloween: The black cat gives it away – a local parking lot at Halloween. But this parking lot, on Melrose Avenue across the street from Fairfax High School, looks like this all the time. It’s always Halloween on Melrose Avenue. ~ Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Someplace Else: Los Angeles isn’t Boston but this is Fenway Hall on Grammercy Place, just off Wilshire Boulevard, where, in the twenties and thirties, Los Angeles was always someplace else. In the distance there’s a bit of Art Deco, the 1929 Wilshire Professional Building at Manhattan Place, and between the two, the Koreans are giving the staid and stately Episcopalians a run for their money. And on Wilshire there are odd posters everywhere. This can’t be Los Angeles. This must be someplace else. ~ Monday, October 29, 2018
Burning Bright: The end of October burns bright all along Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. ~ Saturday, October 27, 2018
City Theaters: In the center of the oldest part of downtown Los Angeles, the Theater District, on Broadway between Grand Central Market and Pershing Square, is slowly being restored – very slowly. ~ Friday, October 26, 2018
City Classics: Broadway, the center of Los Angeles, contains the past – from 1912 through the thirties. ~ Friday, October 26, 2018
City Colors: Downtown Los Angeles walls catching the autumn light – Friday, October 26, 2018
Autumn West: Griffith Park in late October isn’t Vermont with its amazing autumn leaves. Griffith Park is, however, at the top of Vermont Avenue, at the edge of Hollywood, and has its own autumn light. Autumn is different in the west. Not better – just different. ~ Thursday, October 25, 2018
Flower Walls: Two flower walls in West Los Angeles – whimsy on Beverly Boulevard – exaggerated realism on Third Street – and surrealism everywhere. ~ Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Feel Free: The week’s street art is about movement and about freedom. There were new words high on a wall – “Feel Free to Feel Free” – and that was the motto for the week. ~ Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Catching the Light: The days are shorter. The light is longer. The local gardens exist to capture and hold the available October light. ~ Saturday, October 20, 2018
Western Gold: This black and gold terra cotta building at Third Street and Western Avenue, built in 1931 as the Selig Clothing Store, was designed by Arthur E. Harvey and is one of only two black and gold glazed terra cotta Art Deco buildings left in Los Angeles. This one was declared a Cultural-Historic Monument (#289) on September 20, 1985 and once housed a Crocker Bank branch, but times change. Now, in the middle of Koreatown, it’s the home of Dolly Llama – ice cream and waffles – along with a psychic and a Korean “exotic pets” shop. But it’s still golden, and across the street, in an Italianate apartment building from the twenties, it’s Honduras – a sad little market – and there’s the post office on the corner – Nat King Cole Station. This is one of the odder corners of Los Angeles. It’s golden, in its way. ~ Friday, October 19, 2018
The Age of Aquarius: It’s always 1968 somewhere. The Earl Carroll Theater on Sunset Boulevard, directly across the street from the Hollywood Palladium, opened on December 26, 1938 – a glamorous supper club designed by Gordon B. Kauffman for Earl Carroll, the New York theater producer and director – and then it became other things. In 1968 it became the Aquarius Theater, the home of the long-running Los Angeles production of the Broadway musical Hair – and used for rock concerts on Mondays, when the theater company had its day off. And then those days were over too, but in 2016 the building won landmark status as a Historic-Cultural Monument and will be protected from demolition and restored under an agreement among owner Essex Property Trust, Hollywood Heritage and the Los Angeles Conservancy – and they’ve decided to make it 1968 again. The Earl Carroll Theater is the Aquarius Theater once again. It’s 1968 again – and of course Jimi Hendrix is just down the street too. ~ Thursday, October 18, 2018
Quite White: At the east end of Beverly Hills, the bright white grid of a new office building, next to a white stucco Spanish Revival market from the late twenties, restored, and now turned into something else entirely, and across the street, the Wilshire Theater, 8440 Wilshire Boulevard, originally the Fox Wilshire when it opened on September 19, 1930, and now the Saban Theater – from the architect S. Charles Lee. That theater used to be quite white too. This is the white corner. ~ Wednesday, October 17, 2018
Made You Look: There’s a lot of alienation in the streets these days. And there are those words on that wall – “Made You Look” – which is what happens with all street art. ~ Tuesday, October 16, 2018
On the Rocks: The Pacific isn’t exactly pacific – the Santa Ana winds were howling and the waves crashing here along Pacific Coast Highway just south of Malibu. It was a fine day. ~ Monday, October 15, 2018
Saturday Rain: The first rain in Los Angeles in five months made the neighborhood gardens somewhat magical. The city needed a quiet subdued Saturday for a change. ~ Saturday, October 13, 2018
Hiding Out: This is the best escape from Hollywood and Los Angeles and freeways and noise – Heavenly Pond in the Franklin Hills – hidden off Coldwater Canyon. Don’t tell anyone about this place. This is a place to hide from the world. It’s a secret. ~ Friday, October 12, 2018
Sunlight on Walls: These are old walls – on the corner of Wilshire and Cloverdale the Art Deco walls of the old Sontag Drug Store – quite the place in 1939 – and on Cloverdale itself the fantasy apartment buildings from the thirties – also the place to be back then – eighty years ago. The bright sunlight is new. The bright sunlight makes the walls new again. ~ Thursday, October 11, 2018
Psycho Street: It’s just another place. Psycho Films – 7621 (and ½) Melrose Avenue – “a production and management company creating provocative content for the film and television, music video, and commercial spheres” – and of course it’s on Melrose Avenue. Where else would it be? Melrose Avenue is psycho. Melrose Avenue has always been psycho. ~ Wednesday, October 10, 2018
Urban Sunshine: The light was good down on Wilshire Boulevard. There is no other reason for these photographs. The light was good. ~ Tuesday, October 9, 2018
Hollywood Monday Morning: Ivar Avenue and Cosmo Street in Hollywood on just another Hollywood Monday morning – this is not like Monday morning anywhere else. ~ Monday, October 8, 2018
The October Collection: This is October in Hollywood – a public garden on Sunset Boulevard – looking somewhat autumnal. ~ Saturday, October 6, 2018
Imaginary Cactus: Something new on the corner down on Santa Monica Boulevard at the Troubadour, where Elton John, Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, the Eagles, the Byrds, Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Van Morrison, Buffalo Springfield, and others, established themselves – next door to Dan Tana’s where Frank Sinatra used to hang out and where the Eagles wrote “Lyin’ Eyes” over dinner one night – “Cacti” by James Peterson – dichroic film and tinted resin with tiny embedded LED lights – for nighttime down there – when all these cacti glow. This is a strange town. ~ Friday, October 5, 2018
The Proper Walls: The Earl Carroll Theater on Sunset Boulevard, directly across the street from the Hollywood Palladium, opened on December 26, 1938 – a glamorous supper club-theater with a massive stage with a sixty-foot wide double revolving turntable and staircase and swings that could be lowered from the ceiling – and then it became other things. It ended up as “Nickelodeon on Sunset” – Nickelodeon’s West Coast live-action television production center – and then they moved out. In 2016 the building won landmark status as a Historic-Cultural Monument and will be protected from demolition and restored under an agreement among owner Essex Property Trust, Hollywood Heritage and the Los Angeles Conservancy – and the exterior painting just began. It’s 1938 again. And further west on Sunset there’s the Guitar Center, which started out here in 1959 as The Organ Center, a retailer of electronic organs for home and church use, and then it was amps and guitars, and now they’re a giant national chain – and they’ve recovered from being bought out by Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital in 2007 and nearly dismantled and sold off in pieces. In April 2014, Ares Management bought them and fixed everything – and now the flagship store on Sunset is being rebuilt with a new proper rock and roll mural out front. These are the proper walls. ~ Thursday, October 4, 2018
Rain in Malibu: Standing in Santa Monica watching the rain in Malibu – an odd day – this hasn’t happened in five months. But this is a storm, and Southern California hardly ever looks like this, so here’s proof that the sunshine is not endless out here. Sometimes, very rarely, Southern California looks like this. ~ Wednesday, October 3, 2018
Catching Clouds: On the Sunset Strip – “Dream Catcher” – Janet Echelman – between the two towers of the new James West Hollywood Sunset Hotel at La Cienega – but this day it’s catching clouds. Rain on the way – finally – maybe. The last rain was five months ago. But the clouds are a good sign. ~ Tuesday, October 2, 2018
The Chosen Few: There’s a story about America here. The Chosen Few is a Los Angeles street art collective, but there’s more to it than that. The images tell the story. Who are the chosen few here? ~ Monday, October 1, 2018
Just Above Sunset 