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April 2013
Trois Mec: Ludo Lefebvre Goes Brick & Mortar- New Bike Racks at Capitol Records!
- Frank Gehry & The Hollywood Public Library
- Helen Bernstein Robotics Team Update
- See You at CicLAvia!
- Bike-In Movie Night: The Big Lebowski
- Hollywood Community Housing Corporation
- CicLAvia To-The-Sea This Sunday!
- Help Secure $100K Grant for City College Students
- The Oaks Is Gourmet To Go
- May 2013
Paul Delongpré’s Gardens
May 9, 2013
Long before Hollywood & Highland, the Walk of Fame, the Chinese Theatre, and the clubs of Hollywood Boulevard, or the Capitol Records Building, Hollywood’s biggest attraction was the estate of French painter Paul DeLongpré (1855 – 1911). If you’re from Hollywood, you surely know the name already–DeLongpre Avenue is the quiet residential street just north of Fountain, that also happens to be home to the Jim Henson Studios. After many up-and-down years painting in Paris and Spain, an 1896 New York exhibition of DeLongpré’s flower paintings was a runaway success. Soon, in 1899, he moved to California. Daeida ...
Discover Hollywood
April 9, 2013
It’s a classic Hollywood story: from humble origins as a tabloid newspaper insert called Hollywood: A Festival of the Arts to the current, colorful 5-times-a-year glossy with a readership of 375,000, Discover Hollywood has grown into an institution in the glamorous community it covers. For 26 years, Discover Hollywood has been educating locals and visitors alike about the unique culture and lore of Hollywood. For more on what makes Hollywood great, we talked to Discover‘s publisher, Oscar Arslanian: If you enjoy our articles on Hollywood history and culture, we urge you to check out all the ...
The Glen-Holly Hotel
April 8, 2013
Pictured is Hollywood’s very first hotel, built at the corner of Yucca and Ivar in 1895. Charles M. Pierce, who went on to manage the famous Balloon Route tours, managed the Glen-Holly Hotel, which was built by artist Joakim Berg. The hotel had 20 guest rooms and only one bathroom, but was famous for its 75-cent chicken dinners, according to historian Kevin Starr’s Inventing the Dream: California Through the Progressive Era. The hotel was one of Hollywood’s first big tourist attractions, along with Paul DeLongpre’s gardens. Initially, Pierce liked to pick up tourists at the trolley in his ...
RED’s Carol on Hollywood
March 26, 2013
We had so much fun interviewing the fine folks over at RED Studios, one post just wasn’t enough. Nor was one video, for that matter. After speaking with RED’s first employee, Ted, we sat down with RED’s self-described “Den Mother,” Carol Cassella, for a wide-ranging discussion about RED, the current challenges of the local film industry, and the history of Hollywood. We couldn’t help but bring you a couple bonus videos this week. Here’s Carol with the story of D.W. Griffith’s arrival to Hollywood: Just like us, Carol sees a very bright future ahead for Hollywood: ...
Saddle Up at Sunset Ranch in Griffith Park
March 19, 2013
Want to see Hollywood? No, I mean, do you really want to SEE Hollywood? Then ride on over to Sunset Ranch at Griffith Park (parking located at 3400 N Beachwood Dr, Hollywood, CA 90068)! I recently made the trip myself and took a trail ride on one of the historic Hollywood ranch’s 60 horses, and it was incredible. Housed on a private plot of land completely surrounded by one of the United States’ largest urban parks, the ranch has been around for nearly a hundred years, and has been offering trail rides to the public since the ‘70s. ...
Paul R. Williams
March 4, 2013
As we mentioned in our post on the Hollywood YMCA, Los Angeles was home to Paul Revere Williams, one of American history’s most significant architects. Born in Memphis and raised in Los Angeles at the turn of the 20th century, Williams was a pioneer among African-American architects and designed over 3,000 buildings in his lifetime, from Los Angeles civic buildings to the homes of Hollywood royalty. But Williams almost never became an architect at all–as a precocious student at LA Polytechnic High School, his passion for architecture was discouraged by his teacher, who told Paul that whites would never ...
LA’s Red Cars and the Hollywood Subway
February 18, 2013
What California city is depicted here? If you said San Francisco, congratulations, you ignored the headline of this blog! No, it’s Los Angeles, where streetcars used to run on 1,500 miles of track. In the 1920s, Los Angeles Railway’s “yellow cars” ran internally throughout Los Angeles, while Pacific Electric ran its “red cars” as far out as San Bernardino and Orange County. Long before the Red Line, there was even a “Hollywood Subway” (actually, a one-mile tunnel located in Downtown, built to service the trains from Hollywood and the Valley). Henry Huntington (of Library/Beach fame) and the Pacific ...
The Mystery of The Snow White Café
February 11, 2013
I’d like to tell you about Hollywood’s best-kept secret, a bar so low-key that it took six years in LA for me to stumble upon it. And when I finally did discover The Snow White Cafe, amongst the tourists, tour-hawkers, and superheroes roaming Hollywood Boulevard, I still wasn’t even sure if I believed it was real: a dive bar, decorated head-to-toe with murals paying tribute to the animated Disney classic, Snow White & The Seven Dwarves. That quiet Saturday afternoon, I decided to investigate. I grabbed a stool and hoped to get some answers out of the friendly bartender, ...
Keeping Hollywood Healthy: The Hollywood Y
February 7, 2013
Housed in a building designed by pioneering African-American architect Paul Williams, on Schrader Boulevard just South of Hollywood Boulevard, the Hollywood-Wilshire YMCA’s mission is “to make Hollywood a healthy community.” So says Director of Development Kitty Gordillo, who explains that the Hollywood Y targets “everyone in the community: youth, families, adults, seniors, anyone who is living in the area or works in the area.” Indeed, our local Y has a staggering breadth of programs, which you can learn more about in this video interview: Many of the Y’s current programs are youth-oriented, including dozens of ...
Meyer & Holler: Design Build in Hollywood
February 4, 2013
To appreciate the historic and cultural landmarks of Hollywood is to appreciate the work of Meyer & Holler. Run by Gabriel S. Meyer (1874 – 1955) and Philip W. Holler (1869 – 1942), Meyer & Holler was one of the leading Los Angeles architectural firms of the 1920s. They began with mostly residential properties, but their commercial projects went on to become some of the most legendary sites in Hollywood, including Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and the Hollywood First National Bank Building. From the beginning, Meyer & Holler subscribed to the “design build” philosophy—with their construction arm The Milwaukee Building ...