At the end of last year, it was reported that the The Cork bar on West Adams quietly ceased to be. However due to a long history of disturbances the establishment and its patrons created in the nearby residential neighborhood, perhaps the quiet is much needed.
Nonetheless, another LA dive bar becomes history.
Constructed in 1933, the building at the corner of West Adams and South Palm Grove operated for years as a retail space housing a plumbing shop and then carpet store. In 1947 The Cork Bar and Grill was established by a character named Big John Collins.
Back then it hashed soul food and highballs to athletes, jazz musicians, and professionals. It went through a couple more owners and several other changes before finally seeing its final days.
The awesome arrow style neon sign beckoned us in back in the late ’90’s. At the time, there was not much else in the way of nightlife nearby. Ducking in the Cork had a pleasant neighborhood feel. As memory serves, the dark inside was largely illuminated by large rectangle backlit bar where locals and regulars nursed their drinks. The cocktails were stiff, the music was prominent, and there was a bit of dancing among the high top tables.
In the cyclical pattern of history, the space will be folded into commercial units, prime real estate in a district swiftly succumbing to gentrification. And the Cork will soon be a distant memory.
But if you’re lucky, you end up as just a wink in a camera bug’s eye and nary a mention on the internet like the Dog House, a rundown bar across the street from MacArthur Park that disappeared without comment sometime in the 1980s. Besides this shot taken from the window of a passing car, the Dog House’s only other appearance is in the background of a scene in some obscure low budget flick that dropped out a sight a few years ago. The Dog House would belong in the Bar Hall of Fame, if there were such an institution. There is a Drinkers Hall of Fame for those who care for such places. You can chance upon it if you drive east out of LA on the old Route 66 though the bar signage got the modernization treatment mentioned above. Inside it’s as nondescript as a striped down ranch house in the Valley but the painted sign that once attracted drinkers on the side of the bar is still something to admire in old photos like the one snapped on an escape from the city several decades ago.
Even before digital shutters made spending $$ on film obsolete, fools like myself took as many shots as our fingers could tap out in the hope and prayer that out of several rolls of 36 at least one brilliant shot would surface. That’s one of several reasons why I don’t remember taking many of these photos, that is the where, when, why, who and whatever. Like DL’s Beef & Beer. What was this simple storefront? A precursor to Wurstkuche where instead of Belgium brew and artisan sausage they served Bud and ground beef? 
The Zimba Room. Now here’s a sign I pass nearly everyday on Beverly Blvd in Echo Park but you’d never recognize it. The white letters were painted over long ago so now it’s just a huge chunk of blue metal hanging on the side of a true flop house called the Lafayette Hotel. The Lafayette is a dump that no hipster would ever consider giving the gentrification make over. Any fumigation would involve torching it to the ground. But imagine if you can the bar that was once accessible from the front, a place called the Zimba Room. Zimba…the imagination is rich with visuals…
Step back in time with some photo 
stripeycity 