He was 82 years old and he stood and spoke without notes. On May 12, 1952, General Douglas MacArthur accepted the Thayer award at West Point. The old lion roared Duty, Honor, Country for the last time. Rest in peace eloquent patriot. Your genius shines brighter than ever.
Sowden House, 1926, Lloyd Wright, HOLLYWOOD TOUR, photo courtesy of Architecture Tours L.A.
Awhile ago, a friend from London and I were meeting in L.A. and we discovered fabulous Architecture Tours L.A. We loved owner/operator Laura Massino’s tours so much we took two! With a Master’s degree in Architectural History, Laura had the innovative idea of offering historic architectural tours in Los Angeles. I was delighted to catch up with Laura again and ask her about two of my favorite topics: 20s and Architecture.
Mary: It seems like Art Deco’s experimentation with geometric style fits 20s ingenuity perfectly. I know the term Art Deco comes from the 1925 Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes. Were L.A.’s 20s architects inspired by the 1925 Paris Exposition?
Laura: Yes, the architects/designers in Los Angeles were inspired by the exposition in Paris. This was considered an international design style and some of the architects of the day might have traveled to Europe in the 20s and they may also have seen publications, magazines, books, etc. on the subject. Moreover, there was a general fascination with machinery, mechanization, movement, modernity and speed and this was also an influence.
Mary: When we were on your downtown L.A. tour, we saw beautiful Art Deco buildings. I remember Cicada, the restaurant featured in two movies: The Artist and Pretty Woman. Does downtown have the most Art Deco style architecture in L.A.?
Laura: I would say it may be a “toss-up” between the Miracle Mile and Downtown, although I’ve never done an actual count of buildings. There are also other Art Deco style buildings in other places-The Pantages Theater on Hollywood Blvd., just east of Vine Street, The Sunset Tower Hotel (www.sunsettowerhotel.com) on Sunset Blvd. on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood is one of the best in the area and of course, the Bullock’s Wilshire Department Store on Wilshire Blvd. in Koreatown is also in the Top 5 in the area.
Mary: Do you have a favorite amidst the 20s Art Deco theaters built for the emerging motion picture industry in L.A.?
Laura: Yes, the Tower Theater (www.towertheaterla.com) on Broadway from 1927 is my favorite and the first one that could accommodate “talkies”! I especially LOVE the vertical “pre-neon” sign that is made of individual lightbulbs and the recessed panels near the top on the side of the structure that would have had painted-on advertisements.
Mary: Looking at 20s L.A. Architecture, what would be your choice for best illuminating Art Deco Style? And feel free to make more than one choice!
Laura: OK, here’s my Top 5 in no particular order:
-The Oviatt Building on Olive Street
-The Coca-Cola Building on Central Avenue
-The Eastern Columbia Building on Broadway
-The Sunset Tower Building on Broadway
-Bullock’s Wilshire Department Store (now Southwestern Law School) on Wilshire Blvd.
Mary: If you could live in the 20s, where would you live and why?
Laura: If I could live in the 20s I would definitely live in Hollywood. It would have been VERY glamourous with the film industry in full swing, fashionable people living there and lots of open spaces in the Hollywood Hills, in particular.
For someone especially interested in 20s L.A., do you recommend any of your tours in particular?
Laura: Yes, the DOWNTOWN tour and the HANCOCK PARK/MIRACLE MILE tour are the best for seeing excellent examples of architecture from the 1920s.
Mary: I know that you’re also a prodigious author! Among your books, do you recommend one in particular for showcasing 20s L.A. Art Deco style?
Laura: Also, the same books that go with the tours mentioned above,ARCHITECTURE TOURS L.A. GUIDEBOOK – DOWNTOWN, but in particular the ARCHITECTURE TOURS L.A.GUIDEBOOK – HANCOCK PARK/MIRACLE MILE would be best for the Art Deco style.
Click on the image above to see Architecture Tours L.A.’s Miracle Mile book on Amazon.
Thank you Laura! I hope to be enjoying one of your tours again soon:)
When two diners collapse, convulsing, minutes after eating, Coronado Tent City Cafeteria may close. Magical cats Tatania and Zeus are on the scene immediately. While Tatania and Zeus offer clues without missing a nap, romantic Roaring Twenties Detectives Grace and Jack solve their most unusual mystery yet.
Grace spies a copy of Modern Priscilla while investigating two nearly simultaneous deaths in the upcoming release, Cher Ami.
Modern Priscilla embraced Roaring Twenties vitality. By soliciting stories and letters from readers, it created a community.
With The Artist winning the Oscar for Best Picture, the Roaring Twenties are rocking again! It’s a tribute to the actors — including one very talented Jack Russell Terrier — that a silent film could be so mesmerizing.
George Valentin, a silent movie star, refuses to speak and vainly tries to ignore the advent of sound movies. When he hears sound in a dream, it’s a discordant experience that morphs into a nightmare. A starlet discovered by literally bumping into him becomes a major star in sound movies. Through the reedeming power of love, George Valentin at last embraces sound.
And if you like Roaring Twenties fashion and art deco style, you’ll enjoy The Artist.
A Christmas Feral is a delightful take on Dickens’ classic tale that can be enjoyed year round. Judge Scrooge won’t even heat his home for Christmas in this Roaring Twenties’ short story. Judge Scrooge says that when you pay the bill, you don’t feel the cold. When Judge Scrooge rules incorrectly in a cat dispute, Magical White Cat Tatania and her companion Zeus teach him the meaning of keeping Christmas and cats.
At a Loews Hotel, when you check in with a pet, you’re given a welcoming letter from the General Manager’s pets addressing your pet as a V.I.P. aka Very Important Pet. Loews offers pet toys, pet treats, pet placemats, and a special Pet Room Service Menu. Their welcoming letter suggests that dogs leave their humans’ cell phone number with their staff so if they get lonely or just feel like barking, their staff can let their humans know. And for pet privacy, they have a special door hanger showing the head of a dog with the tag line, “Heads, You’re In” on one side and the other side showing the Tail of a Dog with the tag line, “Tails, You’re Out”.
Loews is featured in Fancy Feast’s famous Honeymoon Planning Video here:
So it seems completely antithetical to this animal loving hotel’s values to trap and take feral cats away to shelters where they were reportedly killed. Through the power of social media, it became widely known that Loews Orlando Florida locations were trapping and taking away feral cats last week. I’ve never stayed at an Orlando, Florida Loews. I’ve stayed at another Loews with a pet and Loews lives up to their Loews Loves Pets promotions! My pet definitely felt like a Very Important Pet. To Loews credit, they’ve cared for feral cats at their Orlando, Florida locations for years and stopped trapping and taking feral cats away in response to the outraged concern expressed throughout social media venues.
Loews announced that it will welcome suggestions for its feral cats at input@loewshotels.com. I hope and pray that things will work out for the feral cats and thank Loews for listening.
Is it a flaw in the romantic imagination to believe another time period is better than one’s own?
In Midnight in Paris, a screenwriter played by Owen Wilson, and his whiny fiancee played by Rachel McAdams, accompany her parents to Paris. Her Dad says that France never did anything for America. He’s apparently unaware of the irrefutable fact that America could never have won independence without French aid. No one can write “know it alls” who don’t “know it all” as well as Woody Allen! Gil dreams of living in Paris in the 20s.
Gil gets his chance to live in 20s Paris when an antique Peugeot —just like one his friend has in Beverly Hills — picks him on a Paris corner at midnight, and takes him to the nights when Hemingway, Scott and Zelda, Picasso, and Gertrude Stein reigned over Paris. Hemingway lights up this movie! And Gil, unhappy in the present, has the option of staying in the 20s. Another character, played by Best Actress Oscar winner, Marion Cotillard, gets her chance to stay in her favorite period, Belle Epoque. They make different choices.
Before I wrote Splendid Summer, I thought about writing a contemporary romance and mystery set in Coronado. With the Navy an inherent part of Coronado, and making huge sacrifices at war, it didn’t feel right. I wanted to write about a time of joy and prosperity when no one worried about loved ones on deployment. And so I returned to the 20s.
Want a smoking hot holiday cocktail? Try a Cranberry Cosmo with a little dry ice to make it smoke. So I was chatting with a friend about Architects for Animals, a group of brilliant New York City architects, competing to build the best designed shelter for feral and stray cats in the city, when he said, Do you know some of those architects are also designing buildings where you drive your car into the elevator, and take it to your residence floor? I told him they were designing that in the Roaring Twenties.
And in the Roaring Twenties, they were designing clock radios with phonograph records. You set the clock, attached to a phonograph record, and at your desired time, the record began playing your favorite song. Roaring Twenties ingenuity is returning.
If you want to fall in love with the Roaring Twenties, try reading The Great Gatsby. F.Scott Fitzgerald reached rhapsodic heights of eloquence in The Great Gatsby. And The Great Gasby is now available on your Kindle. You can read one of the best Roaring Twenties’ tomes with a click of your Kindle “in under a minute”.
And you can instantly watch a movie version of The Great Gatsby from Amazon Instant Video:
