This is the city – Los Angeles, California.
Los Angeles is a city whose name is known in many corners of the planet, a city having an abundance of offerings typically not seen in great frequency, some of which are compacted into relatively small geographic areas.
A market providing, in bulk, nearly every type of chili pepper known to mankind is situated across a walkway from…
…a restaurant serving a delightfully wide variety of meats is directly across the street from…
…the world’s shortest railway line which takes roughly 45 seconds to travel from end to end.
Los Angeles provides an eclectic mixture of sights and sounds to experience. Enjoy music? Try the L.A. Philharmonic which plays inside the Walt Disney Theatre.
Or if you enjoy modern art, cross the street and visit The Broad.
This museum has what is likely the world’s largest balloon dog – made of stainless steel.
There are 88 municipalities within Los Angeles County. Anything within the county and outside those other 87 municipalities falls into the city limits of Los Angeles.
How do I know all this? My name is Jason. I am a tourist.
The weather was uncomfortably cool and overcast the last few days of May and the first few in June, providing an outlet for residents to use the apt and descriptive terms of “May Gray” and “June Gloom”. Yet none of this directly interfered with what brought us to Los Angeles.
The occasion was a convention of the American Harp Society.
As a quick aside, the harp is a phenomenally versatile instrument.
However, we aren’t concerned about harp conventions and the virtues of a Lyon & Healy versus a Salvi. Nor are we concerned with art museums, chili peppers, or balloon dogs. The facts are we are here to discuss cars and other forms of transportation (and some architecture) found in this auto-centric metropolis.
So here’s what was found around Los Angeles County…
Seen from the vantage point of our hotel balcony in Hollywood, this Chrysler Sebring convertible was still plying the streets.
The Fiats around there were so plentiful as to make one wonder if they traveled in pairs.
These Porsche sedans quickly became invisible due to their ubiquity.
The gentleman in the black Toyota on the left side of the screen is holding up two fingers, not one. Peace, brother.
Mercedes vans outnumbered all the other Mercedes; one that was spotted was for a mobile dog grooming service.
This G-Wagen was unique among Mercedes sightings, odd as that seems.
Dodge Chargers of all varieties were rather plentiful. Only one was seen that said “Highway Patrol” on the door.
These pictures were taken from the balcony of our hotel room, with our room being on the upper left. A former apartment building built in the 1940s, being there made me wonder about who had found great success while living there – plus who had endured soul-crushing rejection and disappointment.
The courtyard was almost a colorized version of film-noir.
Discounting for Uber and Lyft, typical taxis were almost exclusively of the Prius variety. A robust car that is ideal for such use, they heavily flirt with being too small when hauling three people and their ample luggage.
We made use of this very Prius a few hours after this picture was taken. Alexander, the driver, was from Russia and lamented about having taken German instead of English when in high school. A lot of very useful information about an area can be learned from taxi drivers. A couple of our other drivers were Feliks from Armenia and Umid from Pakistan. Both were very shrewd with a great sense of humor.
The Los Feliz neighborhood is adjacent to Griffith Park and not far from Hollywood. The trees are amazing and of a species not identified…
…while some of the streets in residential areas are profoundly narrow in spots with negligible sight distance…
…and a few of the homes in the area purportedly helped inspire Walt Disney in how to present buildings in his Snow White movie. The roof is the big giveaway here.
Going west from Los Feliz, one quickly realizes the change in the automotive environment. The shift was pronounced and quickly desensitizes a person.
While a Bentley isn’t an everyday sighting for many of us, seeing about five in ten minutes erodes the statement they seek to make.
Similar could be said about Lamborghinis. Earlier, on Hollywood Boulevard alongside the Walk of Fame, it was seen where one could rent a Lamborghini just like this for $129.
As our tour guide said, Lamborghinis in this particular area are like Toyotas everywhere else. She wasn’t wrong.
What was attention getting, due to its relative rarity, was this all electric FedEx delivery vehicle.
Some owners were successful in making their pride and joy stand out among the competition. This Audi is one such example.
Similarly standing out among the visual competition, although the competition here was billboards, is this railcar converted into a restaurant.
For reasons not readily discernible, a statue of Rocky and Bullwinkle is also vying for attention. It got it.
It would be negligent to not include this Volkswagen.
As this particular journey continued, we were greeted with a sign taking strong civic pride in what it offered. Such civic pride has never been so memorably displayed elsewhere in which similar services were offered.
It puts one in mind of a certain Eddie Murphy film from the mid-1980s.
Rest assured, we have that covered also.
It would be erroneous to think the City of Beverly Hills would have a Chevrolet Colorado in top-tier Denali trim for parking enforcement. Despite the relative wealth of the city, the citizens of Beverly Hills are taxpayers also.
The restrooms above were located at the Greystone Mansion. Built in 1928 for an oil tycoon’s son, the mansion has been open to the public since 1971.
If memory serves, the house is 55,000 square feet; thinking of it another way, the house itself is about 1.25 acres of the entire 18.3 acre parcel.
Many films and television shows have been filmed here. The entrance to the estate gives a listing, which includes The Big Lebowski and Spider-man.
This is the garden used by ABC’s soap opera General Hospital in the early 1980s for filming the marriage of characters Luke and Laura.
A wedding had just finished when we arrived (on a Wednesday). The rental rates for the grounds aren’t cheap but one is likely not going to get anything comparable for a special event.
Elsewhere in Beverly Hills, one could find the Ford van belonging to the hired help…
…a Mitsubishi of some variety parked on the street and appearing to be lonely amid all the foliage…
…plus a Toyota SUV cohabitating with a BMW something or other.
Naturally, there was yet another Bentley parked on Rodeo Drive…
…as well as a cheerful, taxi colored Rolls-Royce.
Upon seeing this Alfa-Romeo I remarked about having seen yet another one. Daughter observed how the front makes the vehicle look like a modern Edsel. She has a point.
This pairing was found at the intersection in front of the Beverly Hills Hotel. I was uncertain about my thoughts…respect for the Chrysler owner who aspires to have something more Rolls like? Or, pity for the Rolls owner who paid a boatload of money for something that looks like a Chrysler.
The possibilities of what to think are endless.
Chartering another two-tone Prius to transition downtown, many illuminated brake lights, the seeming trademark of Los Angeles, greeted us.
While the automotive sightings during our time downtown were skimpy, it was more of the type of sightings.
That yellow Ford F-250 was there intermittently for five days.
This Mercedes was not.
During our second night street racers made good use of Olive Street.
On our third night, different things happened.
The Leons, a football (or soccer for those in the U.S.) team from Mexico were staying in our hotel. None were familiar due to not being a sports fan. What was familiar, and unwelcome, was a few of them eyeballing my daughter.
As an aside, we heard nearly ten different languages being spoken while in the Los Angeles area. Any language barrier is less insurmountable these days as the Spanish speaking maid and I conversed using Google translate on her iPhone.
On the last full day of our stay, this now vintage, and still in service, Ford Crown Victoria crossed my path. It was a great sighting with all current such use being fulfilled by Ford Explorers.
That afternoon we headed south to Long Beach. The Queen Mary entered service in 1936. At 118′ longer than the Titanic, it is a huge ship that is currently serving in the Long Beach Harbor as a hotel and museum.
During World War II, it was converted into being the “Gray Ghost”, used to transport approximately 810,000 Allied troops to various locations throughout the course of the war. During one voyage in 1943, the Queen Mary carried 16,000 American soldiers in one trip.
It was during this time frame, and perhaps the same voyage, in which the Queen Mary carried my late-maternal grandfather from New York to England at 30 knots. Serving in the Army Air Force, his initial assignment was “between Liverpool and Blackpool” although it was near the town of Freckleton.
His journey aboard the Queen Mary included a rather vicious storm. He said on the way there the waves were so tall one could hear the propellers spinning in the open air as the ship rode the waves. More about that voyage can be found here.
It also seems during this voyage he was assigned to guard several coolers of milk meant for officers. Being enlisted, and not having seen milk in months, he sold the milk to fellow GIs for $3 per coffee cup. Somehow he evaded trouble with his having done so, but he could fabricate a very convincing story when needed.
The pictures of the Queen Mary were taken from this vessel.
It triumphantly took us around the harbor, the size of which is hard to fully appreciate when looking at Google. By necessity it needs to be huge.
Cargo vessels such as this one dotted the horizon.
All appeared to be waiting to unload. For whatever reason, there was no unloading taking place on this particular Sunday.
Back on shore, the sight of the Marina reminded me of the opening shot from Gilligan’s Island.
Walking (and also renting a pedal-powered surrey) found our two last treasures.
The first is this approximately 1971 or 1972 Ford F-250. She was a sweetie.
She looks stout enough to pull the Queen Mary.
While in the Los Angeles area, I saw many fine automotive specimens I was unable to photograph. The BMW Kammback (whatever its official name), several Japanese domestic market vehicles (one of which had been converted into a food truck), a pristine base model Ford Fairmont, several Falcons, and others I no longer remember.
However, this last one is special. It is a car model of some notoriety yet we’ve never covered one. This one almost didn’t happen due to said surrey ride being longer than anticipated. But here it is, in all its exposure adjusted curbside glory:
A 1949 Mercury. Better, it appears the top has not been lowered.
This was first spotted in daylight, but we stopped on the beach and did other various fun things. Thankfully, it was still present upon our return.
This was the city – Los Angeles, California. It and the surrounding area was a lot of fun. Like any other trip, there were highs and lows but the highs vastly outweighed the rest. Also like any other trip, there are things you seek to do but time does not allow, such as the Petersen Museum.
My wife has already mentioned what to do upon any return trip. That alone indicates a high degree of success.
Your hotel looks really cool. What is the name of it? I may want to stay there next time I go to LA.
Did you find the people (natives) there to be friendly? I guess sometimes it’s hard to tell since there are also so many tourists in that city.
We stayed at two different hotels while there – which was by design. The yellow one is the Magic Castle Hotel on Franklin in Hollywood. I would highly recommend it. Customer service is outstanding and they have kept the apartments intact, thus living room, kitchen, bedroom are all separate.
The second hotel was the Omni on Olive Street in downtown LA. I joked it’s a good place for Dodge fans such as myself.
Yes, the natives were friendly. It was a great visit.
Thanks, Jason. Looks like a fun hotel at which to stay. I looked up their website. I need to stay there the next time I’m in LA.
It’s been a while, but I stayed at the Beverly Terraces. Believe it has been expanded and updated. Vintage Hollywood look and very convenient.
It’s fun for this California native to read your observations and perspective. I think you can see how easy (lazy) it is for me to focus my own posts on Curbside Outtakes; they’re everywhere. As a northern (really central) California native and lifelong resident, LA is fascinating and rather foreign to me in many ways though. Sorry you had to deal with Gray May and June Gloom, and hopefully your return visit won’t be in Fogtober.
The car spotting was almost like fishing in a bathtub it was so easy to do. I had anticipated as such, but hadn’t fully anticipated the difficulty in catching them while moving.
I had been to California previously, but it was around 30 years ago. What I saw then was Sacramento, part of Davis, and a snippet of San Francisco then north along the coast. There was no similarity between the two locations even when considering the time differential.
The temperature only broke 70 twice (briefly) in being there nearly a week. Things did briefly clear up briefly one afternoon, when the allure finally made its presence known.
Wow, what a fabulous, pre-long weekend post to enjoy. 🙂
I can’t tell, if there is smog in the first photo? But it is a bit reminiscent of my city (Ottawa), the past several weeks. With intermittent wildfire smoke from Northern Ontario forest fires, occasionally filling the city. With no factories or major industry here, sky is normally very clear. The slight haze in some LA pics, lends an ’80s feel to the photos. Lots to enjoy here! Thank you.
The first picture was taken the last Wednesday in May at around 2 pm. It was taken from the grounds at the Griffith Observatory. While not keeping up with any news during that time, I don’t believe any smoke had arrived yet.
I think it was just old overcast that day and around 62 degrees Fahrenheit.
I’ve been lucky enough to attend 3 conventions in the LA area. From Uruguay, it’s quite a long way, as most flights from South America enter the US from Miami or NYC or DC.
While being in Hollywood, I got my lifetime worth of seeing ultra expensive cars. Probably not all of them, but even though I am interested by anything on wheels, they quickly lost their appeal. And of course, upon seeing a very old E10 530i BMW with a yellow lettering on a blue background license, I felt at home reading my Road & Tracks.
When you can, give the Petersen a chance. It’s a really interesting place.
The expensive cars don’t do much for me, which is part of what drive my joking about the Rolls next to the Chrysler.
Since Los Angeles we have also been to Fort Worth, Texas. There were ultra expensive cars there also and they just sort of fall out of the collective memory banks. The pink Camry in Fort Worth? It stuck.
It’s interesting to see what LA looks like now. My images mostly come from Columbo reruns (available on Peacock) which make great car spotting over a 20 year run. Admittedly I describe La as “there’s no there” because as an Oregonian I have to harsh on California, compounded by being from New York.
I’ve also enjoyed various old TV series for the car spotting.
Thank you for this good tourist review .
I live here and love it, don’t want to live anywhere else and yes, I’ve lived elsewhere .
I often find tourists or folks from other places seem to appreciate Los Angeles and So. Cal. in general more than do the jaded folks who grew up here .
You’re quite right about the over abundance of super cars being used as daily transport here .
Lots of regular old beaters too, I wish I’d known you were here ~ you could have taken some snaps of my old ’59 VW doing it’s yeoman duty .
I also know where there are often street parked a few vintage cars (1940’s) almost every day .
I too liked that yellow hotel and at first glace identified it as apartments .
I enjoyed the musical link too .
-Nate
My hope had been to have a mini-meet somewhere in Los Angeles while there. However, by the time we determined our schedule, there simply wasn’t time for it.
I did appreciate my time in Los Angeles and it’s good to hear it’s a good fit for you.
So nice see a travelogue regarding LA that stays positive!
My first visit to LA was 1980. Living in the rustbelt, I was awestruck by older daily drivers that remained in beautiful condition. Car conscious California adds to the car spotting fun!
The car moment I most recall from that first visit was outside a slightly upscale restaurant (in West Covina?). A perfect double white 1972 Dodge Monaco coupe pulled up behind a brand new two-tone blue 1980 Cadillac Seville. Both cars may be considered a little freaky by some, but I could have spent an hour looking at them in the waning daylight. I think we also went to Disney in Anaheim, but it slips my mind 🙂 .
Griffith Park Observatory is also a fun visit – mostly because you’ll then be unable to unsee it in a multitude of TV shows, ads and movies.
I stayed at the Hotel Maya in Long Beach a few years ago, a cool atmosphere at a price that won’t break the bank. Very near the QE II – where I wanted to eat dinner but we weren’t able to make it that trip.
Thank you for sharing!
Thank you. There were two not-so-positive events that bookended our time there but there’s no point in letting that overshadow the rest of the trip.
The Griffith Observatory was fun – that’s where the lead picture was taken.
Too bad you didn’t see the ‘49 Merc at Griffith Park. Both featured pretty significantly in Rebel Without a Cause with James Dean and Natalie Wood.
This is the city – Los Angeles, California. Most people here are just trying to live their lives and play by the rules. When some people break the rules, that’s were I come in. I carry a Badge. (Insert Dragnet Theme Here!)
The story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.
It’s good to see you also picked up on the Dragnet references.
In the early fifties I remember listening to the show after I went to bed. I don’t think that I ever got to see it, but my parents were big fans and I could hear the TV in my bedroom.
The marina and your hotel both look familiar, but for different reasons. The marina looks like a marina outside the Golden Sails Hotel, on the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) we stayed at in October, 2019, when my Dad took my younger brother and me to his crew reunion at the USS Iowa in San Pedro.
Your hotel looks like something I saw on an episode of “Adam-12” once, since we’re in Jack Webb mode.
Absolutely love the harp playing Dire Straits; never saw one like that.
But where did you get the Al Bundy Dragnet intro?
Everyone over the age of 75 knows there is only one Joe Friday and he is not married to Peggy.
And the intro must have the almost painful-to-watch shaky hand film focused on badge 714.
https://youtu.be/Hj-qhIGTXdU
There was a Dragnet remake in 2003; this was the intro to that. It lasted two seasons but the second was pretty bad from what I’ve heard. The first season is on Roku and is quite good. It’s not exactly like the original, it’s more police procedural, but still entertaining.
The linked video is a mediocre quality clip from YouTube. Since I wasn’t going hardcore Joe Friday, this intro seemed appropriate.
I also enjoyed the harp video. Incidentally, I asked my wife (a musician) to give a listen and guess what the instrument was. She didn’t guess harp… in order to avoid offending any harpists, I won’t say what she DID guess, but she was very impressed. As was I. Thanks for including it here.
Any car guy or gal who doesn’t visit the Petersen Museum will regret it. I visited in October, 2019, with Dad and my younger brother, and we saw it about a month after Jessi Combs died in a crash at Bonneville, UT, and the entire top floor of the Petersen was dedicated to an exhibit in her memory.
The Petersen collection is heavy with movie cars, but that’s to be expected, since LA is a company town, and the movie companies pay the bills, so the museum helps promote the movie business.
I tried to see if Jay Leno gives tours of his garage, but he only auctions off tours of his garage for charity.
While wanting to visit the Petersen not doing so hasn’t caused any profound regret. That’s just how things go.
That said, it’s not off my bucket list.
Nice take on “Sultans of Swing.”
I lived in Los Angeles from June ’77 to June ’81. One thing I regret not visiting is Catalina Island. As you might expect, I saw a number of interesting cars.
One day I was walking around the Toluca Lake district and saw a house with the garage door open and a Jowett Jupiter, the only one I’ve ever seen, minus its engine and transmission, in the garage. In hindsight I should have knocked on the door and asked the owner about it.
I saw a group of 2 or 3 Panhards in Venice and a Panhard, which was known to the local French car buffs as the Laurel Canyon Panhard. One night a flash flood came down Laurel Canyon, swept it away, and smashed it. I also saw a 3-wheel Morgan at a used-collector-car lot.
For a while my morning commute took me eastward along the non-glamorous part of Santa Monica Boulevard in east Hollywood, and every day at the same point, give or take a few blocks, I’d see a 4-wheel flat-radiator Morgan coming the other way. I saw this Morgan at the 2021 All British Field Meet in Kenmore, WA:
https://flic.kr/p/2miw6uA
I told the owner about the Morgan I’d seen in L.A., he asked what color it had been, I told him, and he said it might have been the same one.
Great story and photos. We visited Los Angeles in early 2006. What struck me was how many BMW cars and SUVs there were on the road…they were as common as Hondas and Fords here in Pennsylvania.
The most memorable car was a 1957 Plymouth Fury that was parked at a gas station near Century City. It looked like a daily driver. It was most definitely not a pristine show car.
The only visit I had to LA was in August of 1966, visiting my best friend who’d moved from Towson to Palos Verdes Estates. He went to Jr High with me but then went to Loyola, just down the street, however he hated it and managed to talk his parents into public high school when he moved. His Dad was an aeronautical engineer who drove a SAAB 2 stroke. While visiting I saw a Porsche 911, the first I’d ever seen, in a pumpkin orange color. I guess in respect to cars nothing has changed, but I bet LA itself has in that intervening 57 years!
Oh, jeeze ~ you’re bringing back the memories .
Pops bought a new SAAB two-smoker wagon in 1966, it had some sort of running issues and was wrecked by the Mechanic at Gaston Andre, the selling dealer .
Yes, L.A. has changed a _LOT_ since 1966, I came here in ’69 and so much has changed but at the same time our car – centric culture is still going strong .
Let’s not forget Baxter Street, the steepest hill in L.A., recently made (in)famous by some really stupid (as opposed to just ignorant) kids and a Tesla .
-Nate
We always enjoyed passing Rocky and Bullwinkle on our Friday or Saturday night jaunts down Sunset, one way or the other, and usually in my ’56 Chevy 150 2 dr. sedan with the ’66 327/PG I installed. Decades ago when gas was in the .33-.39/gal. range! BTW, at that time they were outside their cartoon “home” studio.
How much is ga$ out there now??! 🙂 DFO
My 2010 Infiniti G37 demands premium for which I routinely pay around $5.50 a gallon (Chevron Supreme) out here in Santa Monica. There may be cheaper prices around but you would lose money driving to find them given the heavy traffic that Jason notes.
I’m with Nate – I came here in 1972 for graduate school and quickly made a decision to stay – with no regrets; love SoCal.
Did you make it out to Santa Monica or the West Side? Old and new car spotting here is insane. I’m still in lust with this Porsche GT3 Touring model parked at my local library last month. And then there were the multiple sightings of a 300SL gullwing in traffic and the Mercedes pagoda and…
I’m a tour guide at the Wright house in Barnsdall Park (on Olive Hill across the way from Griffith Observatory and Mount Hollywood) – would be happy to take you through on the next visit.
Given the time constraints due to the conference (which was held downtown at the Colburn School, across from The Broad) we had the choice of either Santa Monica or Long Beach; we chose Long Beach.
Not having navigated myself, I’m thinking Beverly Hills was about as far west as we went.
I will happily take you up on the offer during our next visit. A fair number of the Beverly Hills pictures (such as the mansion) were taken during a private tour. We had found a few people who gave private tours in ’70s era Cadillac convertibles but given the weather we are glad we went with a different private tour guide.
I’m trying to remember the name of a docent there, black lady kinda weird, she’d be in her 70’s now I think .
That’s a lovely house and so nice it wasn’t torn down like so many were .
-Nate
Nicely done travelogue and photos. We spent Memorial Day weekend in LA this year and covered some of the same ground. While I have been to LA many times for business, my wife had only been there a few times, once to go to Disneyland as a teen and twice to attend business conferences, where, in her words, she saw little outside of the airport and a hotel ballroom. So, we made this trip all about visiting family and friends and doing the touristy stuff, and had a great time, the May Gray and June Gloom notwithstanding.
On your next trip, I would highly recommend the Petersen Museum. We met a very enthusiastic young docent who showed us around and knew all the details about 1960s-1980s cars, which films they were in, who starred in those movies, and how the cars came to be part of the museum collection. It’s fun to be in the presence of someone who really enjoys his job.
Across the street from the Petersen is the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and nearby are the La Brea tarpits, plus the LA County Museum of Art, so there’s lots to see and do within a short walking distance.
We may have crossed paths as we flew out the day after Memorial Day. For simplicity, we flew into Burbank.
The Petersen is still on my to-do list and there are still several different places we’d ultimately like to see.
We did take a tour of Paramount – and navigated the picket line due to the writer’s strike at the front gate.
A familiar place, although it’s changed a fair bit since we moved away in 1987. I haven’t been back there since our trip south to Baja in like 2003 or so. I’m sure it’s changed more since then, but of course its essential character hasn’t changed.
I love the Rolls-Royce and Chrysler picture. To be honest, when I first glanced at that photo, I thought it showed two Chryslers. I’ll never look at one of those Rolls-Royces again without seeing this image.
Regarding your LA observations, I enjoy studying the automotive fingerprint of places I visit, but I seem not to have the wherewithal to document it in pictures, so I’m glad you did. This was an enjoyable automotive tour.
Incidentally, today I’m concluding a two-week vacation to Wisconsin and Michigan. The two most notable automotive here features seem to be:
1) Buick Roadmasters. Not quite like Bentleys in LA, but close. I’ve never seen so many, even in the 1990s.
2) Vehicles with extensive rust. Wow. Back home in Virginia, such cars are almost unknown. It was almost like a macabre game to find cars with the worst rust.
The winners of these week’s Extensive Rust competition:
Wow, is right. Highly likely, carbon monoxide enters the interiors every time the engines are running.
Haven’t see this here in Ontario. It was very rare to see rust like that back in the ’70s. They’d be taken off the road.
First trip to LA was 1977. Toured with a friend in his gold 69 Buick Wildcat convert. Beverly Hills, Disneyland, Venice Beach 💪, clubs, and so much more! At that time there were NO SUVS, few compacts,and only foreign cars seemed to be ROLLS-ROYCE, Mercedes, and Jaguar. Oh how vehicles have changed 😟. Saw Film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, bringing back many memories. Thanks for sharing this great post.
People in LA are friendly, except when they are behind the wheel!
Speak for your self Sir .
I make a point of allowing side traffic in when it’s all backed up, not like I’m going anywhere fast anyway .
Everyplace has it’s jerks and angry by default drivers .
-Nate
Tom Waits once said he liked living in L.A. because he could eat in a restaurant shaped like a hot dog.
https://www.tailothepup.com
The restaurant in the railcars is Carney’s, on Sunset Blvd. It is a diner-type restaurant but instead of a prefabricated structure made to resemble a railcar, its owner bought two real Union Pacific passenger cars and installed them there in 1978. “Pulitzer-prize-winning LA restaurant critic Jonathan Gold put Carney’s on his list of 99 essential Los Angeles restaurants.” -Wikipedia
Unless they are newer ones or moved the Rocky and Bullwinkle statues are in front of the former Jay Ward studio where all those cartoons were produced.
Michael, it’s the same statue, but in a new location. It was taken down in 2013 for restoration. In 2014, the restored statue was part of a Jay Ward Legacy exhibit at the Paley Center for Broadcast Media in Beverly Hills.
The Ward family donated the statue to the City of West Hollywood the following year, and it was on display in the lobby of City Hall for a time.
In 2020, two weeks before the pandemic shutdown, it was unveiled in a new location, a mile west of its original spot (likely a piece of land the city owns—the Ward family has had no connection to the original spot since the Dudley Do-Right Emporium gift shop closed in 2005.
https://deadline.com/2020/02/rocky-bullwinkle-statue-returns-to-sunset-strip-home-1202871293/
Jay Ward, the creator of Rocky and Bullwinkle, was raised in my hometown of Berkeley, California (way before me). He named Bullwinkle after a local Ford dealer, Bullwinkel Ford (note slight spelling difference). The dealership was actually just across the Berkeley-Oakland line in Oakland. Before setting up his dealership, Clarence Bullwinkel worked for Ford for many years. His memoirs are online at Ford’s archives and make for fascinating reading. https://cdm15889.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/api/collection/p15889coll2/id/3593/download
I’m pretty sure Alfa were not aiming for “modern Edsel” with the Stelvio or any other model!
But at least you saw one, even if it was white.
I first went to SoCal in 1989, to Long Beach for work and went several times over the next 11 years. I got to tour the Queen Mary about 30 years ago – it semed to be being looked after well and the tour guide was good, even if he did refer to the “lifts” as “elevators”.
SoCal is a great place to visit. We visited a couple of times maybe 15 years or so ago. The thing that struck me as a midwestern kid who had watched many movies and television shows over the decades, was how familiar so many names of places and streets were. Thanks for this updated tour!
Our visits had involved flying into LA and driving south to San Diego. We did so on the Pacific Coast Highway, and had some great classic car spotting. I remember how relatively common VW bugs still were even then.
And the harp doing Sultans of Swing was really great! There is clearly much effort involved in getting a bit of a vibrato effect from a harp!
Great post Jason. I really enjoyed the tour. I’ve only been to California twice, in 1974 and 1991, and both times it was in Northern California. We flew into San Francisco both times.
My great uncle and aunt flew out there in the early seventies and we got to see the Kodachrome slide shows of their visit and I remember being very impressed as a kid.
That video you linked of the harpist playing Mark Knopfler’s famous lead did him proud. Wow, just wow. “Sultans of Swing” is one of my favorite pieces of music. That was a real treat for the ears!
I never actually tried it, but there’s an L.A. joke: Stand on a street corner and ask passersby, “How’s your screenplay coming along?” See how many people you have to ask before someone says, “Huh? Whaddaya mean, my screenplay?”
The “Sultans of Swing” video reminded me of a scene in the movie Hilary and Jackie, about the cellist Jacqueline du Pré. She and her husband, pianist Daniel Barenboim, play the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me.” I was like, I didn’t know classical musicians ever did that!
L.A. is a wonderful place. We were last there in December of 2005 — sunny and warm with flowers in bloom everywhere, and of course the iconic palm trees. If I recall correctly, we took this photo in Hollywood or nearby.
That’s the iconic Beverly Hills Hotel on Sunset.
Thank you, good to know! I remember our younger son having us drive on the famed Sunset Boulevard.
Yep ;
Lotsa places like that to enjoy .
I don’t get to the high rent neighborhoods much, better car spotting in The Ghetto or Barrio .
I was checking out a flat top (hard top) 1959 Chevy Impala four door today, unrestored and quiet as a church mouse, V8 & slushbox, it’d load up the plugs and smoke a bit at every stop light but by two blocks the exhaust was clear again .
-Nate
There was once a jazz harpist, Dorothy Ashby.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Ashby
My L.A. by Matt Weinstock, published in 1947, is a really good take on L.A. as it was back in the day.
https://ladailymirror.com/2018/10/01/oct-1-1947-meet-matt-weinstock-author-of-my-l-a/
If you like noir and can get past the fact that he’s the polar opposite of a sensitive new age guy, Charles Bukowski was a great Los Angeles writer.
I loved Charles Bukowski and bought all his books .
I never did get to see the movie about him : ‘Barfly” .
-Nate
Also check out John Fante, who inspired Bukowski. Bukowski played a key role in getting Fante’s books back into print decades after they were first published.
https://culturedvultures.com/john-fante-bukowski/
https://gen.medium.com/how-hitler-nearly-destroyed-the-great-american-novel-ed5f7bb77aeb
I recommend Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life, the biography of him by Howard Sounes.