Vintage Los Angeles Postcards, Part 4
Here's PART 4 from Steve DeGaetano's scans of vintage Los Angeles postcards, purchased at the "One of a Kind" shop in New Orleans Square! As before, Steve included commentary; the card captions are in orange, and his comments are in blue.
LA-1: This card has no caption other than “Los Angeles Civic Center, Showing City Hall, State Building, Hall of Records, Hall of Justice.”
A-17: “Winter Scene in East Lake Park, Los Angeles, Cal.” Steve said, “Sure, rub it in”!
LA-18: “The World Famous Cocoanut Grove, Los Angeles Ambassador.”
LA-19 This card is nearly identical to LA-07, and appears to have been taken from the exact same location. The main differences from LA-07 are that it appears to be an actual color photograph from a later time. Notice that there are now fountains on the square. The Biltmore hotel is on the left, and still exists, I believe. (The Biltmore definitely still exists, if you ever have a chance to go inside, you should! Talk about "old world elegance").
LA-20s: This is the same card as shown in LA-04, except that I scanned it framed with the decorative cardstock frame that it came in when purchased from the One of a Kind shop.
LA-21: This is the back of the frame in LA-20.
LA-22: This has no caption other than “Ramona’s Marriage Place, Patio and Garden, San Diego, CA.”
My comments: This is the only one in the batch not featuring Los Angeles, but it’s related and is interesting because of its subject. Ramona was an 1884 serialized novel by Helen Hunt Jackson that completely romanticized Southern California’s Spanish past, turning it into a hazy, dream-like romantic myth of red tile roofs and bougainvillea, “a land of beauty and memory and sunny afternoons,” as historian Kevin Starr noted. “Well into the 1930s the Ramona myth remained one of the essential elements by which Southern California identified itself, to itself and to others” wrote Starr. This affinity for the romantic Spanish past led to the movement to restore California’s Catholic missions.
A huge THANKS to Steve DeGaetano for digging out his postcards, scanning them, and providing the card captions as well as his own commentary! I thought this was a fun series. I have binders full of random non-Disney postcards, perhaps I will delve into those someday for future posts.
3 comments:
The last postcard “Romona’s Marriage place” is in fact The Casa de Estudillo home in Old Town San Diego . The home was built in the late 1820’s and over time enlarged and updated. In the 1850’s a wooden bell tower was added to allow the sheriff , mayor or other dignitaries to make announcements to people bellow on the plaza ( Washington Square) the home became greatly dilapidated in the late 1800’s. It was completely saved and restored in 1917 by John Spreckels - the sugar magnate. The home became part of old town state park in 1968 and has had several restorations since and recently received its most accurate renovation yet and represents the home and gardens as it looked in the 1850-1872 period.
It actually is NOT Romonas Marriage place mentioned in the Jackson - Hunt Novel ( the actually marriage place is the Adobe chapel located several blocks south ) the estudillio house was marketed to tourist as the home in the novel in the teens , 20’s and 30’s when the romanticized - and Hollywood fictional early Spanish colonial period came in style . Anyone visiting old town San Diego should visit the home and its gardens - it’s a very rare surviving example of period architecture of which almost nothing still exists. I’m very familiar with the structure as I have built several variations of architectural models of the Estudillo home over the years.
My two favorite postcards today are the "Winter Scene in East Lake Park" and the Cocoanut Grove interior. (Interesting how they spell 'cocoanut' with an 'a'. I guess that used to be the common spelling?). The park scene retains its realistic appearance even with the added color.
Thanks, Steve, for sharing your collection with us. And thanks, Major for all the usual reasons. ;-p
Yay, one more vintage postcard post from Steve. For some reason, I thought the series ended with Part 3.
I never knew there were fountains in Pershing Square. I believe those were removed, even before the park's last renovation. And it looks like this was even after they had already excavated and built the parking structure below it, since we can see a car going down the ramp (far right) to the underground parking garage.
East Lake Park is called Lincoln Park, today. The name was changed back in 1917. The Selig Zoo (which has an interesting history with some of it's animals being used in early Hollywood films, including the first Tarzan movie in 1918) was located on the edge of the East Lake Park property. I have a newspaper clipping that is over 100 years old, that mentions my grandfather winning first prize in a baby contest, which was held at the park/zoo. Also, the Los Angeles Ostrich Farm used to be located across the street from the park.
Thank you, Steve and Major. Once again, I really enjoyed this series of posts!
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