Pricks

[rejectomorph]

I've spent quite a bit of time recently plucking nettles out of the back yard. When their seed pods dry, they leap onto any passing creature and cling. They are especially fond of hitching rides on cats, so I want to get them out of the yard before the kittens get covered with them. The kittens will still get them if they venture outside the yard, which I'm sure they soon will, but I want to minimize the hazard. I doubt they'd let me comb the nettles out of their fur as Alger used to do. Poor Alger, if he is still alive, won't have anybody to do that for him this summer. Anyway, I've gotten lots of the little stickers in my hands, and they hurt. I should have plucked them when they were smaller.

A few of summer's dry clouds have been drifting over today, but with evening the haze is returning. The only distinct clouds remaining are those piled against the mountains. At least we got a few intermittent minutes of shade out of them this afternoon before they decamped. Any shade is welcome on such a day— nettle shade excepted, of course, but only crawling insects would miss that.

The Palace Theatre in downtown Los Angeles will be 100 years old tomorrow. It was about half that age when I used to go there, but already seemed ancient. There's going to be a special screening of "Sunset Boulevard" (the theater isn't regularly open, but it's still largely intact and usable.) I'd go, but it's several hundred miles away. Lots more pictures and some mostly accurate text here.

Comments

Re: There's More

[rejectomorph]

I didn't see the Chrysler commercial, but I've seen plenty of old photos of downtown Detroit, and it was a splendid place. It's ironic that the automobile industry financed the building of so much of downtown Detroit, but also facilitated the suburbanization that led to the dismantling of most of the downtowns in the United States, including Detroit's. The when the American automobile industry declined, all of Detroit declined with it.

Los Angeles was fortunate in three ways. First, it wasn't a company town dominated by a single industry as Detroit was, so when one or another of its industries went into decline, there were other businesses on which the city could still thrive.

Second, the main freeway downtown was built several blocks west of Broadway, so when the bankers and other financial businesses (which had long been centered on Spring Street, one block east of Broadway) expanded their operations, they didn't build their new buildings on Broadway, but leapfrogged west to Flower Street or Figueroa Street, leaving the main stretch of Broadway largely unchanged for decades.

Third, when the anglo population largely abandoned downtown for outlying shopping districts, a huge influx of immigrants from Mexico who moved into surrounding neighborhoods began patronizing Broadway's businesses. Those theaters survived as long as they did largely because they were able to switch to Spanish language movies. And as late as the 1980s, Broadway still had the highest retail sales per square foot of any shopping district in Southern California except for one: pricey Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

The theaters were able to prosper with Spanish language movies because, before cable came along, Los Angeles had only one or two television stations with programming in Spanish, so Spanish speakers who wanted to see movies in their native language had to go to theaters. Even though there were dozens of outlying neighborhood theaters showing movies in Spanish, the Broadway houses got the best movies first, and it was not unusual for the houses to be packed on weekends.

A couple of the theaters continued to show movies in English, catering largely to the younger Mexican Americans who still lived with their parents in the old neighborhoods. But in the 1980s, the Mexican population began moving to suburban neighborhoods in large numbers, and they were displaced mostly by immigrants from Asia and Central America. The Asians built new multiplexes in neighborhoods near downtown, and Central Americans never seemed to have the appetite for movies that Mexicans have— plus the area was gradually being wired for cable, and there were now many choices for Spanish language viewers.

Several of the downtown theaters closed in the 1980s, and most of the rest were closed by the end of the 1990s, but the Spanish speakers had extended the lives of the theaters by at least two decades. Most American downtowns had lost most or all of their movie palaces by the end of the 1960s. Those in Los Angeles survived long enough to become the objects of the preservation movement.

Re: There's More

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

here's the ad, which knocked me out: imported from detroit.

that's very interesting about the influx of mexicans and so on. it surprises me that the central americans aren't as movie-mad. here near DC & Baltimore, we have a diverse latino population, mexican, south and central american. i've talked to salvadorans, mexicans, hondurans, costa ricans, venezuelans, etc. the radio stations have designated time slots for the individual countries, with old-home news and musical styles. i haven't noticed any spanish-language movie places, but nowadays there's cable tv, plus all the little stores that rent movies and such.

i need to learn more about architecture. on trips into DC or Baltimore, i've been oblivious, mostly worried about the crowds. :D

Re: There's More

[rejectomorph]

Speaking of architecture, C. Howard Crane, who designed the Fox Theatre in the commercial, was alsto the architect of the United Artists Theatre in Los Angeles. His office was in Detroit, and a majority of his theaters were in or near Michigan, but he did a number of them in more distant places, including a few in the UK, and quite a few scattered around Canada.

The Detroit Fox still has a fucntioning Wurlitzer theater organ.

Re: There's More

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

wow! what a gorgeous place! and that organ, my stars. it sounded like there was a huge chorus singing with him, but the theater was almost empty.