Pig vs. Chicken ’98

The Pig ‘N Whistle – renovated on Hollywood Blvd or rather reconstituted a few years back into something resembling what it looked like back in the 1920’s when it was neighbor to the Egyptian Theater – itself now reconstituted into something resembling what it looked like back in the 1920s.  But one day in 1998 – years  before both reconstitutions had taken place, I was walking Broadway Blvd in downtown Los Angeles when I saw an old Pig ‘N Whistle sign fighting to reassert itself behind a coverup job by KFC.  I like to think that for a moment the pig was stronger than the chicken and pushed the half-baked bird off its perch, showing off to anyone who might have noticed  the location of one of the many old & long deceased P ‘N W restaurants.

For more details on the history and locations of this chain of pig joints – which apparently started in downtown San Fran – check out this blog: http://restaurant-ingthroughhistory.com/2011/05/26/famous-in-its-day-pign-whistle/

There Is A Lesson Here

ImageThere is a lesson in this chef’s smiling face that I found baking and peeling in the hot summer sun some 20 years ago.  The chef and his female counterpart were painted on the back wall of the parking lot of a boarded up drive through somewhere near Crenshaw in South LA.  Only later did I connect the face to Stevie’s On The Strip, a southern soul food fried chicken/catfish/smothered everything restaurant nearby. Guess this was Stevie #1 or Stevie’s owners traded him in for something better.  Whatever…

I read his face to be saying –  “take my picture NOW cause tomorrow I may be gone.”  Yep, it’s true.  That painted sofa on the side of a furniture store that amused you for year with its whacky unnatural perspective is just about to be painted over and you never took a photo of it.  Stevie’s was gone a week later so I preach the truth here.  RayCo down below never survived the urban clean up wars on Sepulveda Blvd.  So let Stevie and Sofa be a lesson for you all – get that photo portrait of street side art while you can because tomorrow it or you may be gone.  Peace brothers.

ImageAwesome, clever and spiffy Comet laundry sign meant to display the energy it takes to get your dirty clothes white was later updated with something plastic and dull.

ImageSwat & Thangs – from a generation of plastic signage back when plastic signage was cool looking, not tacky.

ImageThese last two signs are gone.  Webers Bakery might be a charter school by now,  and I recall being yelled at by a security guard when I took shots of the deserted Trailer Court that once housed folks across the road from the Burbank Airport.  No worries dude, no one ever bid on a photo of that precious signage you let the bull dozer mangle and load in the back of truck headed to the dump.

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Rayco

Business Lesson: Put a C and an O after your name and you’re instantly a credible business.  That’s what Ray did when he create RayCo but he went a step further and ordered a cool spinning sign with tubes of neon and a design out of 7th grade geometry.  This sign was on Sepulveda in WLA about 35 years ago.

Motel Bobo

On a day full of photography you can bet that someone will yell at you.  People don’t want to be photographed even when you’re not photographing them.  Just the hint of a camera aimed in their general vicinity can trip the wire of a crazy person.  This happened years ago when me and a friend were walking down Pico near Papa Cristo’s.  We had cameras in hand, snapping shots of signs and the occasional interesting street drama.   Then we saw something that seemed better suited for an old cartoon: the Bobo Motel.  It’s an old motor inn with an arched driveway into a center court.  The words Bobo Motel were prominent, nicely titled and attracted our lenses like a magnet.  My friend got out in front and snapped a few choice shots but as  I raised my telephoto a loud, angry yell rang out that nearly cracked the glass in my lens.  The gist of the rant was that he had a shotgun and was ready to use it if we were daring enough to photograph his precious Bobo.  Damn.  I dropped my telephoto downward and marched away.  My friend had scattered in another direction and we met up down Pico somewheres to compare notes.  I was rattled and came away with nothing.  She was amused and later showed me several shots of the Bobo that I wished I had been brave enough to call my own.

Several years later there was a similar incident.  This time it was east LA on Olympic near Soto, a street with comic book murals on the sides of bars & photogenic signage of every description.  It had been a colorful walk with lenses when the Paramount Mattress company building appeared.  What struck me about Paramount was the bold type face and square cut mattress that looked more like a slab of cheese than something you’d wanna sleep on.  I had my 2 1/4 and it took some adjusting to find the right angle to balance type face, cheese cut mattress and manicured tree. As soon as I tripped the shutter I heard the angry attack of a crazy person.  As I recall he actually stormed out of the building with overblown ire like I had insulted his family, mocked his lineage and spat on his mother’s grave with my shutter.  I tried for a moment to reason with him, to explain my reasons for photography and my interest in the side of building, thinking I was being complimentary, but I just incited more threats.  There was nothing else to do but skulk away like a simpering coward.  Later I found this shot when I developed the film in the camera.

Missing Links In The Memory

I must have known they would disappear from the landscape because my early fascination with signs led to the purchase of a camera to snap photos of them.  Sometimes I took careful symmetrical aim like with Jack & Hy which in my memory was a small juice bar with awning, four chairs and a counter.  A straightforward joint that squeezed juices in place of grilling burgers.  I pictured it on a small garment district street south of the downtown center.  An internet search references such a juice joint on 754 S Olive Street & 8th.  It was last inspected by the city health department in 2009 when the lack of hot water and a parade of rats and roaches closed it down.

Another sign in the photographic memory bank is a bar on Hollywood Blvd.  I was probably on the bus when I snapped this shot because there’s no art nor symmetrical science to the tilt and crop of the shot.  It’s just a document and barely that.  A quick check on google just now finds another reference shot of the Side Show for purchase, which never came up in countless searches before.  http://www.hollywoodphotographs.com/detail/6022/side-show-bar-and-drakes-mens-store-on-hollywood-blvd-west-of-highland-ave/

If you look closely at the sign by the left of the entrance you’ll see that the Side Show opens at 7am.  I was never smart enough to venture inside.

The other side of memory is discovering a photograph I don’t recall taking.  Maybe I was in the backseat of a car, drunk and on my way to being drunker.   How better to explain no memory of a joint with a name that describes my college years and beyond.   Perhaps in that is the loss of memory.   No book nor internet site references that any such bar ever existed in Los Angeles (or else where).

Yes We’re Open…but not for long.

TinyNaylorsI arrived in Hollywood with a camera just in time to take one of the last shots of Tiny Naylor’s Drive In at Sunset and La Brea before it was flattened.  The roof resembled an aircraft carrier and I half expected fighter jets to arrive and save this place from the destructive forces of commerce and modernization. Hell, when I was a kid modern meant cool.  Modern meant a roofline like Tiny Naylor’s, a jet-age version of a 1950’s malt-burger sci-fi flick drive in. But Tiny N’s version of modern was itself modernized into a bad stucco strip-mall.  And today you can order franchised Crazy Chicken parts and never know that at this same site modern man & modern woman once drove up in modern finned American cars and sat beneath a flying rooftop eating burgers and malts.

SunsetGrill

Sometimes you can save an old building like the Sunset Grill but then you can’t save it from itself.  There was quite some dust up over the demise of the Sunset Grill, a classic burger grill just east of Hollywood’s heartland.  Guitar Center was going in next door and may have needed a parking lot.  Or maybe they just didn’t want their cheap Japanese knock off Fenders to compete with the authentic grill and grease of a joint that probably spawned a thousand classic songs over the years.  How authentic can a 1950’s replica of a Fender Tele seem next to the reality of the Sunset Grill?  The dust up saved the Sunset Grill but today it resembles a stucco box.  Gone are the stools, the grease, the soul of the place.

Endless Entertainment

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This was my bowling alley.  A few blocks east on Pico, at Westwood and Pico, The Picwood Bowl.  I could walk there and I did.  Endless entertainment because it was open 24 hours.  Damn!  Three levels of steps & chairs down to the main floor where the balls were tossed.  A sunken cocktail lounge with trophies and forgotten odes to alcohol behind display glass.  Always felt a bit weird sitting on a bar stool in that sunken bar – tall on the chair but short to the rest of the world up on level ground bowling.

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But one day the lanes were stripped of their wood and the building flattened for one gigantic ugly hell of a shopping mall.  Some post modern monstrosity. Designed by an architect raised on junk food & profit margins.  Yes, the family who owned the lanes sold out.  I hope the hell they made a lot of money because they made a lot of folks pretty damn unhappy when the sold out.

Across the street the Apple Pan still flips out burgers and pies, some of the best in Los Angeles.

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Burgers & Huts

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The old burger stand.  I’m not talking about a Tommy’s Burger but a little stand.  The size of a roach coach.  Take off the wheels, add a few bar stools and start grilling the patties and onions.  Pass the ketchup while you’re at it.

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Back in the 1980’s, I could walk down Sawtelle in my westside neighborhood and eat a different burger at a different stand and no two burgers were the same.

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Heading East down Pico toward Fairfax, Mr. Philly was already boarded up.  By the time I reached Fairfax there was another burger joint with the deliciously misspelled but apt name Meatty Meat Burgers – what you got here was meat and a bun.  I preferred the patties back in my neighborhood but MMB was well known.  They even repainted it green after this photo was taken.

meattymeat-copy WM.jpgOne of the last to go was Jay’s Jayburgers on Virgil and Santa Monica but it’s been a memory for about 8 years now.  I hear you can still find a good burger at some classic joints like Capital Burger (also on Pico) but I stopped eating meat back when Jay’s closed. With Jay’s chili gone, it was time to pack it in.

Rehash your best burger memories in this Handmade Upcycled Burger Journal.

The Ivar – Legit Goes Strip

 

I first stumbled on the Ivar with this slide I took in the late 1970s.  Hollywood was rundown and the Ivar was a lovely shade of pink that symbolized what was left of the city of dreams.  A legit theater that opened in ’51, it had turned into a peep show and strip club a couple decades later.  Famed street photographer  Gary Winogrand left the street to photograph the show inside and why not, they even had a photo night where horny men with cameras could get their film exposed in more ways than one.  In the 1960s and into the early ’70s, rock acts like the Doors played the stage.  For more info and some great old photos, check out this website and the various links contained on its page:  http://sites.google.com/site/hollywoodtheatres/ivar