1950-1960(1950)(1940-1950)(1960)(1960-1970)Table of Contents
Fred E. Basten Santa Monica Bay: The First 100 Years, A pictorial history of Santa Monica, Venice, Ocean Park, Pacific Palisades, Topanga and Malibu, Douglas-West Publishers: Los Angeles, CA, 1974, 227 pp., 1974, 1956, 1953, 1950s, 1926, 1921, See Text
Donald M. Cleland A History of the Santa Monica Schools 1876-1951, Santa Monica Unified School District, February 1952 (Copied for the Santa Monica Library, July 22, 1963). 140 pp., 1950s See Text
Color, Myth, and Music: Stanton Macdonald-Wright and Synchromism, LACMA Press Release 2001 August 5 through October 28, 2001, 1973, 1950s See Text
Malcolm Gladwell Annals of Commerce: The Terrazzo Jungle, 15 March 2004, The New Yorker, pages 120 to 127, 2004, 1961, 1960, 1954, 1950s See Text
Alan Hess Googie: Fifties Coffee Shop Architecture, Chronicle Books: San Francisco, CA, 1985, 1950s See Text
Mark E. Kann Middle Class Radicalism in Santa Monica, Temple University Press: Philadelphia, 1986. 322pp., 1960s, 1950s, 1940s, 1930s See Text
Paul J. Karlstrom and Susan Ehrlich Turning the Tide: Early Los Angeles Modernists 1920-1956, Barry M. Heisler Introduction Santa Barbara Museum of Art 1990, 1950s See Text
Lawrence Mace* Journal Entry (Deforest "Moe" Most*) September 2006 See Text
Eric Mankin Strategies: You Can Win City Hall, Mother Jones, VI, no. X, December, 1981. p. 66. 1981, 1950s, See Text
John Arthur Maynard Venice West: The Beat Generation in Southern California, Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick, NJ, 1991. 242pp., 1963, 1960, 1959, 1953, 1950s See Text
Tom Moran and Tom Sewell Fantasy by the Sea Peace Press: Culver City, CA, 1980 (1979) (Originally published by Beyond Baroque Foundation with a grant from the Visual Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts), 1950s See Text
J. J. O'Connor and E. F. Robertson George Dantzig* Biographies of Mathematicians http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Dantzig_George.html , 2005, 1952, 1950s See Text
Myrna Oliver Alphonzo Bell Jr., 89: GOP Congressman Often Won Bipartisan Support, Los Angeles Times, 27 April 2004, B11, 1977, 1950, 1950s See Text
Jim Ohlschmidt Liner Notes The Genius of Joe Pass*, Vestapol 13073 Video, 2001, 1950s See Text
Horst Schmidt-Brümmer Venice, California: An Urban Fantasy, Grossman Publishers: NY, (English trans., Feelie Lee) 1973 (Original German Text Verlag Ernst Wasmuth: Tubingen, 1972), 108pp., 1950s See Text
Jeffrey Stanton* Santa Monica Pier A History from 1875 to 1990, Donahue Publishing: Los Angeles, CA, 1990, 1950s, 1935, 1930s See Text
Jeffrey Stanton* Venice of America: 'Coney Island of the Pacific,' Donahue Publishing: Los Angeles, CA, 1987, 176 pp., 1958, 1957, 1951, 1846, 1941 See Text
Les Storrs Santa Monica Portrait of a City Yesterday and Today, Santa Monica Bank: Santa Monica, CA, 1974, 67 pp.,, 1950, 1950s See Text
Betty Lou Young Our First Century: The Los Angeles Athletic Club 1880-1980, LAAC Press: Los Angeles, California 1979, 176pp., 1950s See Text
Betty Lou Young and Randy Young Santa Monica Canyon: A Walk Through History Casa Vieja Press: Pacific Palisades, CA, 1997, 182pp., 1950s See Text
Notes:
" . . . Santa Monica . . . general plan which the city adopted in 1956 . . . a concept which was picked up enthusiastically by the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce, and especially by Paul Priolo, later an Assemblyman and then leader in the mercantile community. " Storrs, 1974
" . . ."
Documents
Fred E. Basten Santa Monica Bay: The First 100 Years, A pictorial history of Santa Monica, Venice, Ocean Park, Pacific Palisades, Topanga and Malibu, Douglas-West Publishers: Los Angeles, CA, 1974, 227 pp., 1974, 1956, 1953, 1950s, 1926, 1921,
"The Crystal Beach Bath House and Plunge, an open-air attraction located at the foot of Hollister Avenue, was removed in the '50s."
Page 183 shows a aerial view of the coastline from Ocean Park to Malibu.
"Santa Monica Municipal Auditorium, 1953. Dedicated on October 25, 1921, the auditorium opened with a performance of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado by the Los Angeles Opera Company, featuring Lawrence Tibbett. The huge hall was used for community programs until the late 1950s when it was remodeled for the General Electric exhibit and Administrative Offices as part of Pacific Ocean Park. It was destroyed by fire on July 12, 1974." p. 184
pp. 188 and 189 Muscle Beach 1956.
P. 190 Santa Monica Municipal and Newcomb piers, mid-1950s.
p. 191: "Expanding and remodeling the Ocean Park Pier in the late '50s prior to reopening as Pacific Ocean Park (POP). Until the new amusement center opened, the pier's carnival atmosphere, complete with fun houses and arcades, was the main attraction."
Myrna Oliver Alphonzo Bell Jr., 89: GOP Congressman Often Won Bipartisan Support, Los Angeles Times, 27 April 2004, B11, 1977, 1950, 1950s
"Alphonzo Bell Jr., who represented Los Angeles' influential Westside in Congress for eight terms and was a scion of the pioneering ranching, oil and development family that give its name to the Southern California communities of Bell, Bell Gardens and Bel-Air, has died. He was 89.
" . . .
"From 1950 to 1977, Bell represented a vast congressional district-the 28th and, after redistricting, the 27th-running along the coast from Malibu to the Palos Verdes Peninsula and encompassing all or part of Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, Bel-Air, and West L.A. Then considered a Republican stronghold, the district nevertheless had only 40% GOP voter registration, and bipartisan approval was necessary.
" . . ."
Donald M. Cleland A History of the Santa Monica Schools 1876-1951, Santa Monica Unified School District, February 1952 (Copied for the Santa Monica Library, July 22, 1963). 140 pp., 1950s
Summary
Thus by the beginning of the twentieth century, the scope of the Santa Monica schools had encompassed the full twelve grades. The board of trustees and the patrons of the district had been able to provide adequately for all the children who desired to attend the schools. The original Santa Monica School had had so many changes due to the early growth of the community, that the original section was hardly recognizable to the very early pioneers. From a humble beginning in two rooms, it had virtually burst at the seams on subsequent occasions so that at one time four rooms were added in one wing and later another wing, containing two rooms, was built.
As the town continued to grow and little children, especially, were required to walk long distances to school, the parents petitioned the board for the establishment of small schools in outlying area. In turn, the board had established the South Side School in Ocean Park, the Canyon School in Santa Monica Canyon, the Calabasas School and the Garripatas Canyon School. As new schools were added, they were established first in rented buildings and, as the need became apparent, the board purchased property and erected permanent buildings thereon. Almost identical one-room schoolhouses were built in the South Side and Canyon areas. The original Canyon schoolhouse is still in use as part of the present school, now associated with the Los Angeles City Schools.
The South Side School is the only one remaining of these early schools operating as an elementary school in Santa Monica. In 1904, the name of the school was changed to the Washington School. The school still serves the Ocean Park area and provides for kindergarten and grades one to six. The building, then an eight-room structure, was destroyed by fire in 1908, but was rebuilt as a twelve-room school. This, in turn, was seriously damaged during the earthquake of 1933, so that again, in 1934, it was rebuilt with a new four-room primary unit and modern upper grade rooms. It continues as a fourteen-room unit today. p. 55
The present enrollment at John Adams, like that at Lincoln Junior High School, is slightly less than 1000 students, and it is expected that within a period of five or six years the pupil population will have increased to over 1300. As John Adams is located in the faster growing section of Santa Monica, it is anticipated that additional classrooms, a new cafeteria, and library will be needed to accommodate the added student enrollment. With these additions, the campus will have a thoroughly complete instructional unit. [26. Financial Plan for the Operation, Maintenance, Expansion, and Modernization of the Santa Monica City Schools, 1949-56, unpublished report in the files of Santa Monica Board of Education, p. 42.]
At the present time, most of the maintenance departments of the Santa Monica City Schools are located on the former campus of John Adams Junior High School [Sixth and Ocean Park Blvd.] Some of the newer structures were rebuilt after the earthquake and these, together with the basement of the main building, provide quite adequate facilities for the maintenance shops.
" . . .
" . . . an account of the establishment of the Santa Monica High School in 1911 and 1912. The early course of study . . . was . . . the foundation upon which the present program is based. The selection of Prospect Hill, midway between Ocean Park and Santa Monica, as the site for the new high school was a large factor in eliminating the cross-town rivalry which had existed between the two communities. Today, with community interest vested in one high school, the educational program at the secondary level is more nearly meeting the needs of all students. Not only does it prepare them for work in colleges and universities, but it provides also terminal courses in business, homemaking, and mechanical arts, as well as scholastic and cultural experiences that better equip the high school graduate for his role as an adult member of the community
" . . .
Santa Monica High School, 1950-51, p. 30] today is considered to have one of the best high school auditoriums in the state. Among the outstanding features of the interior are its 1500 comfortable opera chairs, the rich carpeting, the concealed lighting, and the very adequate stage equipment. The size of the stage and the extensive equipment permit the production of almost all types of dramatic or musical performance. In addition to the plays and musicals presented by the high school, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra each year presents a series of concerts, two opera companies stage productions there regularly, and other theatrical and musical organizations make use of the auditorium for civic events.
" . . .
The Curriculum
" . . .
The general courses of the curriculum in Santa Monica High School have always been maintained at a high standard. The subjects first taught on the new campus were: modern and classic languages, history, English, science, commercial subjects, manual training, domestic science, and physical education. The library of the high school has an exceptionally large number of titles and provides the students with reference material, fiction, and nonfiction books to supplement the textbooks used in their regular studies
" . . .
An agricultural program was introduced into the course of study in 1914 with work in propagation and horticulture for those interested in this field as a career or for home use. The program reached a peak during World War I, when food production became a vital factor in winning the war. [68. Pearl, op. cit., p. 94.]
" . . .
As the school grew, more subjects were added to the course of study. In 1916, a course in dramatics was instituted and later was made part of the regular English program. During the years debating and forensics have in part been replaced by classes in public speaking. The greatest changes, however, have taken place in the business department where course in shorthand, salesmanship, business law, business practice, office practice, and secretarial training have been added to the program of bookkeeping, accounting, and typing that traditionally had been offered.
" . . .
[At the new Santa Monica City College site] Plans for the science buildings have been approved and when bids are received, it is anticipated that construction will begin before the end of 1951. Plans are under way on the other buildings, and as the Board of Education approves them and conditions seem favorable, construction will proceed. When completed, the total City College plant will represent an estimated investment of $4,000,000 in site, buildings, and improvements. [86. Personal interview with Elmer C. Sandmeyer, May 22, 1951; Santa Monica, California.]
The students, faculty, and administration are eagerly awaiting the time when they can make the move to the new campus. Construction is progressing ahead of schedule on the first group of buildings, and they are expected to be ready for occupancy early in 1952.
Color, Myth, and Music: Stanton Macdonald-Wright and Synchromism, LACMA Press Release 2001 August 5 through October 28, 2001, 1973, 1950s
Modernist to Ancient Sage
"In the final decades of his life, Stanton Macdonald-Wright revisited his beloved Synchromism, incorporating his life experience, his belief in Eastern philosophy, and a deep understanding of Japanese and Chinese art. These later synchromies, such as Liaison intime (Intimacy), 1955, reveal the subtle influence of Asian aesthetics on the design and color harmonies of his by now famous abstractions. Until his death in 1973 he continued to paint, exhibit, and write prolifically. In fact, Macdonald-Wright insisted that his later synchromies were imbued with a more vital, spiritual life than his more recognized early masterpieces. He traveled extensively, often to Asia. During these years, Macdonald-Wright transformed his self-image from maverick modernist to ancient sage.
"He lived in Santa Monica for much of his life, though he decamped to an apartment on Pontius Avenue in Westwood for a while, and later bought a house in Pacific Palisades. Until his death in 1973 he continued to paint, exhibit, and write prolifically and traveled frequently, usually to Asia.
"Always an iconoclast, Macdonald-Wright set out on a singular road as a boy and never wavered. Self-educated, astonishingly self-confident, contrary, he not only created a diverse, singular and influential body of work, he changed the course of American art.
"Although Macdonald-Wright's place in the history of American art was secure and remained recorded in histories about early modernism, the full breadth of his work has been virtually ignored. Three earlier retrospectives have been devoted to the artist (1956, Los Angeles County Museum; 1967, National Collection of Fine Arts; and 1970, Wight Gallery, UCLA); however, this exhibition will present the first balanced and comprehensive examination of his life's work. It will demonstrate not only the creativity of Synchromism, but also Macdonald-Wright's crucial role in the dissemination of modernism in Los Angeles. Featuring more than 50 important oil paintings, a wealth of archival material including an original copy of Macdonald-Wright's 1924 Treatise on Color (of which only 60 copies were published), catalogues from important exhibitions featuring and organized by Macdonald-Wright, rare photographs of the artist and contemporaries, and a selection of rare prints and works on paper, this exhibition presents a long-overdue acknowledgment of an artist whose achievements and aspirations established him as an early modern master and inspired several generations of artists."
J. J. O'Connor and E. F. Robertson George Dantzig* Biographies of Mathematicians http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Dantzig_George.html , 2005, 1952, 1950s
"Dantzig became a research mathematician with the RAND Corporation in 1952 and during this period led the work on implementing linear programming on computers. Orchard-Hays writes . . . :-
"The systematic development of practical computing methods for linear programming began in 1952 at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, under the direction of George B Dantzig. The author worked intensively on this project there until late 1956, by which time great progress had been made on first-generation computers."
Malcolm Gladwell Annals of Commerce: The Terrazzo Jungle, 15 March 2004, The New Yorker, pages 120 to127, 2004, 1961, 1960, 1954, 1950s
" . . . Then in the mid-fifties, something happened that turned the dismal economics of the mall upside down: Congress made a radical change in the tax rules governing depreciation.
"Under tax law, if you build an office building, or buy a piece of machinery for your factory, or make any capital purchase for your business, that investment is assumed to deteriorate and lose some part of its value from wear and tear every year. As a result, a business is allowed to set aside some of its income, tax-free, to pay for the eventual cost of replacing capital investments. For tax purposes, in the early fifties the useful life of a building was held to be forty years, so a developer could deduct one-fortieth of the value of his building from his income each year. A new forty-million-dollar mall, then, had an annual depreciation deduction of a million dollars. What Congress did in 1954, in an attempt to stimulate investment in manufacturing was to "accelerate" the depreciation processes for new construction. Now, using this and other tax loopholes, a mall developer could recoup the cost of his investment in a fraction of the time. As the historian Thomas Hanchett argues . . . in The American Historical Review, the result was a "bonanza" for developers. In the first few years after a shopping center was built, the depreciation deductions were so large that the mall was almost certainly losing money, at least on paper - which brought with it enormous tax benefits. For instance, in a front-page article in 1961 on the effect of the depreciation changes, the Wall Street Journal described the finances of a real-estate investment company called Kratter Corp. Kratter's revenue from its real-estate investment operations in 1960 was $9,997,043. Deductions from operating expenses and mortgage interest came to $4,836,671, which left a healty income of $5.16 million. Then came depreciation, which came to $6.9 million, so now Kratter's healthy profit had been magically turned into a "loss" of $1.76 million. . . . The company's policy was to distribute nearly all of its pre-depreciation revenue to its investors . . .(which if it were income would be taxable.) . . . After depreciation, Kratter didn't make any money. That (distributed) money was "return on capital," and it was tax-free." p.125
Alan Hess Googie: Fifties Coffee Shop Architecture, Chronicle Books: San Francisco, CA, 1985, 1950s
The '50s:
"Does Atomic Radiation Promise a Building Revolution?" -Architectural Forum, 1954
" . . . the Wichstand coffee shop stands . . . since 1957 . . . Through its tilting roof plunges a large slanting dart. It seems frozen in an instant of centrifuge, whirling out of control, forever about to topple. Only the palpable momentum of the space age seems to hold it in place . . . the antigravity architecture of the atomic age. (The Wichstand's pylon was a separate structure, supported by guy wires dropped through a hole in the jutting roof.) p. 31
" . . .
"The Streamline style had served well as the style of technology before the war, but a new architecture of wonder would now have to be invented. The Arroyo Seco freeway, begun in 1936 and one of the first in the world, was two lanes in each direction from Pasadena to downtown Los Angeles; in the fifties work began on the Los Angeles freeway system with six lanes each way, climbing to multiple-storied cloverleaf interchanges. Bulbous zeppelins promised to rule future transcontinental travel . . . but the war had produced the jet plane and the sound barrier was broken in 1947 . . . " p. 33
" . . .
"During the twenties and thirties, Giant Object architecture had reflected the public's sense of wonder and delight about Southern California as a classic Eden, the land of sunshine. . . . The public's interest in fantasy switched gears from oversized fruits, doughnuts, hats, and pets to the power and wonder of atomic energy, television, and space travel. . . . The future was a natural theme that the public was ripe to experience . . . with the climate of technological optimism." p. 34
"Plastics were one such product: their moldability and physical properties had made them perfect for the special requirements of electronic gear and plane windshields during the war. In 1945, plastics factories with no war to supply looked to the consumer market. By the mid-fifites, the synthetic plastics industry was the fourth largest basic industry in the country, after steel, lumber, and glass.
" . . . the fifties [produced] freeways, transisters, computers, station wagons. . . . Joseph McCarthy, but also Martin Luther King.
"New recording techniques, transister radios, electric guitars, the long playing record, . . . youth mass market. . . The old living room cabinet radio of the thirties was now small enough to fit into a pocket.
"The money had started to roll in during the war itself, feeding the car culture on the home front, spearheaded by teenagers. Hot rodding-putting together junk cars . . .and customizing became fashions . . .
" . . .The underlying assumption of the designs is that the world could be brought to perfection and all experience controlled through modern design. . . ." p. 34
" . . . the images of rockets and jets . . . populated the visual landscape of the fifties . . .
"The machine assumed a character of benevolence, strength and progress . . . ." p. 36
LA in the '50s:
"God made Southern California-and made it on Purpose." Charles Fletcher Lummis
("Norm's . . . Reflected light off the upswept ceiling created a three-dimensional billboard of activity and color; the restaurant was its own advertisement.")
"Throughout Southern California in the postwar years, business travelers and young families . . . were lured down the strip by roofs shaped like colossal undulating clouds by day, and by incandescent oases of cleanliness, color, and cheer by night.
"The jutting silhouettes of the coffee shops dominated the strip, counterpointing the rhythmic cadence of power lines and speeding cars.At night, by careful intent, these solid volumes transmuted into the nighttime media of light, color, and shadows.
" . . . Norm's is a three-dimensional billboard behind gem-clear plate glass to attract the customer's eye. The upswept ceiling reveals a lighted interior of gleaming stainless steel, modern spun-glass light fixtures, and highly colored decorations. . . . Neon pennants overhead, waving in the electronic breeze, spell out Norm's and rhyme with the diamond-shape roof truss.
"Los Angeles in the 1950s was a modern city. The opportunities of the postwar boom in the freedom of Los Angeles allowed architects ranging from John Lautner to Richard Neutra full rein in a new phase of Modernism. The optimistic exploration of materials and structures . . . continued. But as widely publicized as were Lautner's Silvertop or the series of Case Study houses sponsored by Arts and Architecture magazine, or other high art buildings, they were only a fraction . . ." p. 39
" . . .
"Los Angeles took advantage of its prospering economy, it talent, its burgeoning population, and its laissez-faire tradition to develop an architecture appropriate to the times and the needs of the day . . .
"The modern landscape was made up of buildings used by a broad section of the public: supermarkets, motels, car dealerships, bowling alleys, car washes, gas stations, stucco box apartment houses, laundries, and coffee shops. Together they offered a panorama of the future stretching to the rims of the Los Angeles basin. Here were the Eichler Home tracts that brought modern outdoor living to all; here were the great linear shopping strips that made every commodity from doughnuts to banking available from your car. There were the great amusement palaces . . , with their vast halos of asphalt parking lots, a challenging new architectural element with which no previous generation had to cope. . . .' p. 40
" . . .
"Bowling alleys, dating from the thirties, became palaces of sport in the fifties, with entries rivaling the portals and triumphal arches of Classical and Renaissance architecture.
"Water was as important to a desert city like Los Angles as its cars, and car washes celebrated it in a way it had only rarely been honored since Bernini's fountain in Piazza Navona. Fountainlike steel pylons sprayed into the sky, melding and pulling apart as the car passed, sculpting space." p. 41
" . . .
"The strip environment was as thoroughly shaped to the requirements of car transportation as the piazzas of Italy responded to the needs of the pedestrians. . . .
"The strip was scaled to the vision of a person in a car traveling at thirty or forty miles per hour with a number of distractions. . . .
"The White Towers back East had pioneered the strategy of repetition, which influenced the look of the strip . . . . McDonald's would use the same technique, as would Holiday Inns . . . .single story and mostly sign: a six-foot-wide yellow fascia sign . . . spelled out in the familiar script was the entire architecture . . . The roadside sign . . . featured a great boomerang arrow and a radiating star . . .
"The landscape of Pop Art was developing. The bright colors, bold delineations, popular symbolism . . . were being produced by commercial and vernacular processes. This . . . style was created for recreation, entertainment, and business, but it also had the ability to impress artists with its excess, palm trees, aggressive commercialism, freedom, and crude and vital architecture. The wild forms, glinting surfaces, overscaled hot dogs, clusters of gigantic billboards, private and public fantasies, and neon districts rivaling the most garish sunsets showed a heedless disregard of good taste . . . Moreover, Los Angeles proved that a city planned on the basis of abandoning most of the rules could work in ways unimagined. The large scale helped create a visually cohesive aesthetic . . ." p. 43
"This commercial vernacular is a style of action, of movement, of direction. It is an aesthetic of articulation and contrasts, each element given its own weight, its own style, its own shape. Disjointed, hanging in midair, combining cursive script with print, its collage design threw together bubbling circles and out-of-whack squares and unexpected angles to pile on all the spontaneity, enery, and tension possible, surrounded by an aura of dingbats (that starburst motif borrowed from printing) and sparkles. . . ." p. 44
"Even the names were kinetic: Biff's Tip's, Ship's, Chip's, Bob's, Norm's, Rae's." p. 45
" . . .
"At the Santa Monica Auditorium, the entry canopy hangs from tapering pylons that rise to extraordinary heights to create a car wash at a civic scale. . . ." p. 46
" . . .
("Jack-in-the-Box, Mark II, c. 1958. logo came from the imaginative disguise Robert Peterson . . . . invented for the exhaust fan on the roof. Mark II's two story design was an imaginative circumvention of sign ordinances; by putting four billboards together in a cube, they got the same scale and graphic vitality of a sign in a building. "The towns never caught on," says Peterson. The architect was Wayne Williams and Whitney Smith who contributed to the Case Study Houses. The Mark II graphics were designed by John Whitney.) p. 47
'50s houses:
" . . .
" . . . the Eichler Homes of California brought the indoors-outdoors spaces and structural expression of modern architecture to the mass housing market.
". . .
"Inside, partition and cabinet walls rise short of the ceiling, defining living, cooking and dining areas. With natural-finish wood veneer, up-to-date appliances, and built-in counters and tables, the open kitchen is designed to be seen and to be part of the living area, carrying over the idea of exhibition cooking from the coffee shop. The broad sweep of the plank ceiling and exposed beams unifies the informal spaces. The bedroom in contrast is private.
" . . . Eichler architects (Anshen and Allen, A. Quincy Jones and Frederick Emmons and Claude Oakland) helped develop a popular modern vocabulary to communicate the idea of the modern house. In the fifties people not only dreamed of the future, they also lived in it . . ." p. 53
'50s cars:
" . . .
The Coffee Shops:
"Googie Canons: It could look organic, but it had to be abstract; it had to ignore gravity; pluralism in all aspects; any material at all would do including steel, concrete, glass, asbestos, cement, glass block, plastics, plywood; expect strangeness;
" . . .
" (Biff's, 1950, Douglas Honnold . . . Santa Monica, remodeled or demolished. With exposed neon tubing, steel channel decking, and glistening metallic reflections, the Biff's seem austerely high tech today. But the horizontal and vertical slabs, pinned together with oblique steel beams, created an elegant composition.)" p. 67
" . . . Edgardo Contini, who engineered buildings for Charles Eames and [John] Lautner as well as Honnold, engineered Biff's."
" . . . Biff's introduced this strategy known as exhibition cooking as part of the restaurant's architecture and marketing. . . . p. 68
"The cooking grill, for instance, was a raised surface surrounded by a trough for easy cleaning; . . . Drawers were sized for specific pans. Even the cooks were trained to appear and to cook presentably; they were instructed to use fresh pans with butter for each new egg order, so the customer, looking over the cook's shoulder, could see it. Plates were stacked on spring-loaded devices that kept the supply neatly stored but easily accessible.
"All fixtures were stainless steel, which, though expensive, was used for cleanliness. The shimmering image of silver surfaces was clean and modern. In later coffee shops Formica surfaces, bonded to stainless steel, allowed color and pattern . . ." p. 69
". . . Honnold's reputation [was such] in the restaurant business, that the McDonald Brothers came to him with a sketch, and he suggested that if they knew what they wanted they could design it themselves. They turned to architect Stanley Meston. p. 69
" . . .
"Louis Armét and Eldon Davis established the Coffee Shop Modern as a major popular style. . . . including Bob's Big Boy and Denny's. USC School of Architecture graduates . . ." p. 71
" . . . in association with equipment designer Stan Abrams, designed their first Norm's . . . The bold roof was an elongated diamond shape derived from a structural truss. It was seated on a rough artificial stone wall, its tapering end cantilevered out over the seating and planting. A lightened web steel I beam rose through the roof to carry the sign. A strip of seating edged in glass wrapped around a solid kitchen core at the rear. Space was divided into distinct areas, with angled booths, suggested by Stan Abrams, along an accordian glass wall stretching along the front; at the side, a separate area clustered booths. There was a rear entry from the parking lot Norm's had semiexhibition cooking: the cooks stood behind a low wall along the counter that hid the grills from view." p. 72
"Abrams favored Charles Eames* wire shell chairs with fabric covers for the restaurants he designed because they combined a contemporary look with low maintenance. Their legs would not trip waitresses. In his own home he had Herman Miller and Eames furniture. These chairs became standard in coffee shops, though they were often replaced with fiber glass versions because of wire fatigue over time." p. 74
" . . .
"Coffee Shop Modern balances the dramatic imagery of both mesozoic nature and twentieth-century technology. Daring cantilever roofs poise on rough-hewn stone pylons or battered walls rising out of luxuriant vegetation. Spaceage plastic fixtures ornament natural stone walls." p. 75
" . . .
". . . early modern architects began borrowing from the industrial vernacular world as a source for their own shapes: steel trusses, gantries, water tanks, glass curtain walls, concrete silos each had a different form responding to their use. . . . The rough surface of unfinshed concrete became a new texture. Broad unbroken walls of glass united an entire facade. The rational geometries of steel skeletons created simple boxes and cylinders . . ." p. 79
" . . .
"The first roadside signs in the teens were ad hoc placards on poles outside a simple shed. Slowly the sign was integrated into the architecture. The impact of this simplification would help a motorist get the message more quickly and easily. Giant Object architiecture grabbed the eye and often told you the menu in an instant; the signs of Stream-line drive-ins were designed as a part of the architecture.
"The signs of coffee shops and car washes of the fifties also echoed the design motifs of the architecture, but went a step further to make the building's roof a sign, too. At night the interior, visible through gem-clear plate glass windows, became a living billboard itself. The angle required to make the interior visible, the scale and illumination of the roof at night, the simplicity of its shape by day were all worked out in practice . . ." p. 79
" . . .
("Penguin, 1959, Armét and Davis. Lincoln at Olympic, Santa Monica. Indoor planters, glowing orbs, and original artwork, often in plastic, were integral to many coffee shop designs. Rather than add ornament to the architectural structure, Davis believed in incorporating contemporary art work by artists and crafts people. Then the structure, left simply expressive of its structure would not date.) p. 84 and 93
" . . .
Glossary:
("Bowling Alley, Pico near Third, Santa Monica)
"The dingbat, the starburst, the sputnik, the frozen sparkler are all descriptions for a symbol widely used in signs and ornaments in the fifties. It depicted energy caught in the act of explosive release, like a corruscating diamond. The space imagery inherent in the shape reflected the optimism of an age that topped itself by going from amazing feat to unparalleled wonder." p. 130
"An earlier version of this spiky ball was seen at the 1939 New York World's Fair. It was used to depict electricity in the Star Pylon by architects Francis Keally and Leonard Dean.
"The spiky balll was a variation on the atomic symbol, four electons in a symmetric orbit around a nucleus. Spencer Weart's research has revealed that Nils Bohr first used the symbol as a diagram of the atom in 1912. It was commonly used in scientific journals, but caught on popularly after World War II when atomic energy was suddenly center stage . . . Like the sputnik shape, it contrasted a solid volume with the pure geometry of lines. The same aesthetic concept was seen in some Eames chairs, which contrasted molded plywood planes with thin metal legs. George Nelson designed wall clocks in the starburst shape in the late forties, which showed up in many homes. p. 131
Guided Tour of Googie:
Mark E. Kann Middle Class Radicalism in Santa Monica, Temple University Press: Philadelphia, 1986. 322pp., 1960s, 1950s, 1949, 1940s, 1930s
" . . . Between 1940 and 1944 . . . Santa Monica . . . experienced a 40 percent population growth during the decade.
"Southern California was also on the brink of the Automobile Age. In the 1930s, General Motors bought up the Pacific Electric Railway system to scrap it. The corporation replaced trains with diesel buses that it manufactured. The buses did not carry freight, so merchants were forced to buy or rent trucks that General Motors also manufactured. The buses were uncomfortable and unreliable, which encouraged Southern Californians to purchase automobiles that General Motors gladly sold to them. The corporation was convicted in 1949 of having conspired to replace municipal transit systems with products that it monopolized. The $5,000 fine, however, did not deter General Motors from continuing its practices or from putting its considerable weight behind the $70 billion Interstate Highway Act that reinforced consumer demand for automobiles by underwriting massive highway construction throughout the United States."
Paul J. Karlstrom and Susan Ehrlich Turning the Tide: Early Los Angeles Modernists 1920-1956, Barry M. Heisler Introduction Santa Barbara Museum of Art 1990
Paul J. Karlstrom Modernism in Southern California, 1920-1956, Reflections on the Art and the Times
" . . . it was at the Otis Art Institute where, from 1954 to 1958, Peter Voulkos's abstract expressionist ceramics destroyed one barrier between art and craft. . . . "
Lawrence Mace* Journal Entry (Deforest "Moe" Most*) September 2006
"Greatly missed Moe* and Muscle Beach '50-'53: two years Hawaii as Navy antenna rigger, one year Korea aboard ship. Tried to export Moe's teaching and Muscle Beach spirit to Waikiki. Oahu provided opportunity for part-time vaudeville-type show business: circus, military service clubs, night clubs, two or three person acrobatic acts with hand-balancing, adagio, all first learned through Moe.
"'53 left Navy, began college in Santa Monica. Great to be with Moe* again living at Muscle Beach, '53 -'59 were glory days for Muscle Beach life, as always friend Moe* integral. For me semi-professional show business supplemented GI Bill, sometimes with Moe*. Muscle Beach helped me get four college letters in gymnastics at SMC/UCLA.
"Muscle Beach was closed in '59, Moe* fired as director returned to studios working as set carpenter. Shack/platform area next to pier became new life-guard headquarters, acrobatics activity was allowed on beachfront grass area without platform. Years later metal rings, bars were installed again one block south along beach front. Evidently Santa Monica city officials looked forward to lavish profitable beach hotels with large parking lots, decided to spread out beach activities thinking clustered exhibitionistic Muscle Beach participants would not contribute. Wrong! Name identity was stolen by phony Venice Muscle Beach."
Eric Mankin Strategies: You Can Win City Hall, Mother Jones, VI, no. X, December, 1981. p. 66. 1981, 1950s,
"In the 1950s, the city fathers ran a freeway through the bungalows and rezoned for apartments with an abandon unusual even in Southern California. The result was a city that came to be about 80 percent renters, the highest proportion of any city in the state."
John Arthur Maynard Venice West: The Beat Generation in Southern California, Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick, NJ, 1991. 242pp., 1963, 1960, 1959, 1953, 1950s
" . . . if the beats had merely been eccentric, they might have slid along. The Southern California "nut," with a bottle of goat's milk and sign predicting the end of the world, was already a well-established stock figure, and the Los Angeles basin had a long tradition of congenialtiy to the odd and uncoventional. Vedanta, Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, spiritualism, New Thought, and the Self-Realization Fellowship had all found homes there, right along with Krishnamurti, Paramanhansa Yogananda, Ernest Holmes, and Aimee Semple MacPherson. Nudism, spiritualism, body building, ethical vegetarianism, Theocracy, and homeopathy all coexisted more or less amiably with circus-tent revivalism, militant atheism, the Nation of Islam, and the Church of Wicca. The city's older, pre-Forest Lawn-era cemeteries were studded with crypts bearing the sun disk, wings, and cobras of ancient Egypt, while the vast industrial complex collectively known as "Hollywood" housed three of the most powerful crypto-religions of modern times, the American motion picture, television, and record industries.
"For more than fifty years, Hollywood had been the world's great channeler and shaper of mass fantasy, with its own inscrutable doctrines of beauty, perfection, reward, punishment and deification. Though not particularly systematic about it, the industry tended to emphasize the marks of virtue that showed in pictures-material goods were easy to photograph, inner peace somewhat trickier-and because of its presence, the fabrication of dreams and beliefs was as calmly accepted in Los Angeles as the harvesting of cotton in Fresno County.
"Paradoxically, none of this made Los Angels a really tolerant city. It was not an easy place to defy convention; it simply tolerated a great many odd conventions. As late as 1959, local authorities were still trying to root communist teachers out of the public schools, and the police department had acquired a national reputation for persecuting homosexuals. . . .
"The gates slammed hard on the Venice beats. It was one thing to harbor strange ideas; it was another, in the language of theater, to "kid the show." In Southern California, the show was economic growth-and the unquestioning belief in its goodness. From 1953 to 1963, the Los Angeles metropolitan area added 300,000 new residents a year, or not quite one thousand per day-and there was a reason why people were coming. . . . By 1960, the "Southland" held seven and a half million people, and there was no reason for most people to think it would ever end. . . . " pp. 10 - 12
". . .
" . . . a new branch of popular culture dedicated to the rejection of popular culture. . . . " p. 13
" . . .They lived on subsistence incomes in the shabbiest part of Southern California's tackiest beach town, held jobs no longer than they had to, and considered the sacirifices worth it if it freed them from the false values and phony satisfactions of conventional life. . . ." p.14
" . . . {circa 1950}the Ocean Front . . . ran north all the way through Ocean Park, still known in some circles as "O'Sheeny Park," with its battered but still profitable amusement pier, its solid brick apartment houses, and its community of refugees from East Coast winters, the Germans and the Tsar. During the tourist season, the half-mile from Venice Boulevard to the Santa Monica line was a natural place for families to lose sight of the city, for suckers to lose their money, for drug users to score in relative safety. Now that the bingo parlors had finally been shut down, the beachfront arcades featured skee-ball, pinball, miniature bowling, pop-up baseball, electric shooting galleries, dart throws, ring tosses, mechanical contraptions for winning worthless prizes, and, carefully guarded from minors, "art shows"-viewing boxes with still or moving pictures of naked women, posed with a timid lasciviousness that approached real innocence. Above all, the Ocean Front offered outsiders a mildly titillating seediness, a sense of risk without much risk, in the same way that bingo had offered the opportunity to gamble-not for the money, really, but for the feeling of getting away with something." pp. 34 - 35.
"Now thoroughly established in Venice, {the Liptons} lived an essentially middle-class life on Park Avenue, a kind of elongated court lined with homes of a type still found all over Southern California-deep, high-roofed, generous with wood and space. . . sandy lawns, wooden baffles, bougainvillias, railroad ties, climbing plants, porch railings fashioned from steel pipe, and everywhere, as might be expected, cats. . . " p. 46
" . . . The year-round Venice economy, with its tiny corner markets, warehouses, liquor stores, fleabag hotels, strange little factories, and old-fashioned Jewish bakeries, was essentially a skid row proposition. . . . It was still possible, in 1953, to rent a storefront apartment for forty dollars a month . . . Venice was not the only slum in Los Angeles, but it was probably the only one that was not a good investment.
". . . With its benches, chess tables, archways, empty buildings, and broad expanses of lawn and sand, it was a playground for the idle poor. A man who slept in the doorway could literally awaken to his own private beach; as the day wore on, he might find himself sharing it with Charles Eames*, the architect, Stan Laurel*, the actor, Mickey Cohen*, the gangster, and a strolling party of great-grandmothers from Lublin.
"While Lipton's term, "voluntary poverty," might have been an overblown way to describe it, Venice was also home to a distinctive way of doing without. Its practitioners, most of them young, a fair number of them artists had ended up there . . . They lived in cottages, sheds, garages, warehouses, and empty stores . . . Many were "students" on the GI Bill, and some were veterans of Korea or even World War II. . . . " p.47
Tom Moran and Tom Sewell Fantasy by the Sea Peace Press: Culver City, CA, 1980 (1979) (Originally published by Beyond Baroque Foundation with a grant from the Visual Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts), 1950s,
Venice West
"In the late 1950s . . . a lifestyle . . . in favor of a Bohemian life with a background of poetry, art and jazz. . . . the Beat Generation.
"The Beats . . . wote poetry about disenchantment and nuclear overkill. Visual artists experimented with the limits of abstraction and new forms of assemblage works . . . low rents and toleration settled into Venice. Lawrence Lipton chronicled the coffee houses, personal searches, artists and ennui of "Venice West" in his book The Holy Barbarians.
" . . . included painters John Altoon, Ben Talbert, Mike Angeleno, Fowad Magdalani, and Tony Landreau. Poets included Lipton, John Thomas, Frankie Rios, James Ryan Morris and Stuart Perkoff* . . . . folksinger Julie Meredith, light-show impressario Jimmy Alonzi, sculptor Tai, ex-fighter Joe Greb and [others] . . .Ole, Nico and Tamoo."
[photo page 96 artist Wallace Berman, 1955]
" . . . Stan Roberts, leader of the (Venice) Civic Union, vowed to end Bohemianism in Venice and urged his supporters to "get on your feet and scream and get these people out of here."
" . . .
"Stuart Perkoff* founded the Venice West Cafe on Dudley Avenue. Proprietorship was eventually taken over by John and Anna Haag. Haag, a Harvard honors graduate and one-time technical writer had dropped out of a promising career to write poetry and struggle making ends meet at the small coffee house.
" . . .
""Big Daddy" Nord left town, bound for Hawaii. Frank Rios and Stuart Perkoff* eventually found themselves incarcerated. Mike Angeleno . . . committed suicide. . . .the Beats were being replaced by a new generation of "flower children," "hippies" and counter-culturists."
Slum By The Sea
"Lawrence Lipton had called Venice a "jerry-built slum by the sea." . . . .
" . . . Pawnshops and liquor stores had replaced the bingo parlors and souvenir shops . . . Drug addicts and motorcycle gangs had replaced the tourists.
"A theme amusement pier called Pacific Ocean Park was opened that same year. It attracted large crowds at first but after several years of operation the pier began to quickly deteriorate. The rest of Venice joined it on a downhiill slide.
"Los Angeles City Councilman Karl Rundberg formed a Venice Planning Committee in 1961 in hopes of checking the blight. . ."
Jim Ohlschmidt Liner Notes The Genius of Joe Pass*, Vestapol 13073
(Back to Sources)
Horst Schmidt-Brümmer Venice, California: An Urban Fantasy, Grossman Publishers: NY, (English trans., Feelie Lee) 1973 (Original German Text Verlag Ernst Wasmuth: Tubingen, 1972), 108pp., 1950s
"It was only in the early fifties when the oil sources stopped-and Venice for the first time was going dry-that the first indications of a new life, of a growing neighborhood, appeared and developed into a community that offered an alternative way of life to that of Los Angeles."
Jeffrey Stanton Santa Monica Pier A History from 1875 to 1990, Donahue Publishing: Los Angeles, CA, 1990, 1950s
Santa Monica Pier on the Skids (1941-1974)
"Spade Cooley "King of Western Swing" and his country-western dance band, which performed in the La Monica Ballroom on weekend evenings, had grown to enormous popularity. KTLA, Channel 5, began broadcasting the band in 1948 on Saturday night at 8 p.m. and by 1950 the show was the second most popular Los Angeles television program."p. 111
" . . . His theme song was Shame, Shame on You. Spade's television guests included Tex Owens, Sons of the Pioneers, Roy Rodgers, Tex Williams, Frank Sinatra, Frankie Lane, Count Basie, Dezi Arnez, Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis and Jo Stafford.
" . . .
" . . . additional attractions were . . . . indefinitely postponed because of a Korean War imposed amusement building ban.
"The Department of Recreatiuon in the fall launched a two phase program for harbor improvement . . . .
"The city . . . even considered transferring its lifeguard service to Los Angeles County control. It seemed the right thing to do since title to its beaches was transferred to the state in Fall 1949, but the City Council voted against 4-3 on July 26, 1950. The seventeen man fulltime lifeguard corps, which was founded in 1932 and remained under the control of the police department, was put under direct control of the City Council." p. 113
"But by January 4, 1951, the policies of Supervisor Frank Holborrow created a serious morale problem. He had set up an internal spy system. Captain George Watkins was asked to return to full command of the lifeguards to head off a threatened lifeguard 'revolt.' Three weeks later the city [asked] for the ouster of Holborrow, threatened to shift them to county control.
"Sane heads prevailed and instead a complete reorganization of lifeguard duties was effected. In addition to their guard duty, members of the corps were assigned equipment maintenance tasks and were required to teach classes on surf safety. Actually that was nothing new since they always assisted the Department of Recreation and the Red Cross in their summer water safety classes. Those nine week, weekday morning classes taught over 400 people aged 5-55 each summer how to swim and to protect themselves and others from water hazards.
" . . .
"An unusual attraction opened on the pier in March 1953 when Henry and Mary Freedman leased the former penny arcade building for the summer season. Henry Freedman, who looked like a balding, bespectacled college professor, had recently returned from the Amazon River in South America where he caught electric eels and piranha fish. Their tropical Fish Show and Electric Eel Aquarium featured six electric eels, one nearly five feet in length, displayed in large tanks.
"Henry would invite the audience to hold hands in a broken circle and would give the two participants on each end the wires from the end of two electric terminals. Then, using a pair of protective gloves, he would remove one of the larger eels from the tank, place it on a table and touch the two terminals against the creature. The audience often gasped as they received a shock when the current passed through them. Henry, to satisfy those in the crowd, who were still skeptical, then used the eel's current to light an electric bulb held overhead. . . ." p. 114
"The conclusion of the Korean War on July 27, 1953 . . .
" . . .
"O.J. Bennett, operator of the Sea Food Grotto, . . . Nov. 24, 1953. . .
" . . .
" . . . on June 15, 1954 the City Council by a vote of 4-3 chose the Civic Center site [for a new Civic Auditorium.] . . .
" . . . Walter Newcomb died . . . in Paris of a heart attack on June 12, 1954, . . . 63 years old. His widow, Mrs. Enid Newcomb, continued to run the pier, and her daughters Elizabeth and Betty helped her with the gift shop.
"That summer was Spade Cooley's last year at the La Monica Ballroom. With his popularity waning, he moved to Ocean Park's Casino Gardens for his last year on television. After several years of inactivity in Southern California he achieved notoriety in 1961 when he went on trial for the brutal torture killing of his 37 year old wife in the presence of his daughter. He was sentenced to life imprisonment at Chino prison and died there in 1969.
"George Gordon and his brother Eugene began doing business on the Santa Monica Pier in 1954. They leased the vacant arcade building where the Eel Aquarium had been the previous summer and installed a new penny arcade with extensive skee ball equipment. It was called Playland Arcade. They also began managing the carousel for Mrs. Newcomb.
"The Gordon brothers had grown up in Atlantic City, New Jersey where their father, until George was thirteen, operated a carousel at Rendzvous Amusement Park. They came to California in 1944 and after the war operated several game concessions on the Ocean Park Pier. The relatively undeveloped state of the Newcomb Pier after Walter Newcomb's death gave them the opportunity to escape from the intense competition at the Ocean Park Pier and thrive.
"Others took advantage of the business opportunities on the pier. Mrs. Newcomb's daughter Elizabeth and her husband Richard Westbrook opened Sinbad's Cafe in the old banquet hall next to the La Monica Ballroom. Al Bond and his partner Jeane Crowne began operating Al's Kitchen where Dusty's Chowder House had been, and F.J. Favares opened the Surf's View Cafe next to Mrs. Newcomb's gift shop. Edmond Friege took over Lewis Rea's boat and rental business at the end of the pier and Pete Peterson, a former lifeguard, began an aquatic supply business on the pier.
"Versal Schuler and his partner Jack Rea began operating their charter boat fishing business from the end of the Municipal Pier after Bob Lamia left. They previously operated out of the Ocean Park Pier's landing, so most of their customers were already familiar with their boats. Their company, Santa Monica Sports fishing, . . . barracuda, halibut, bass and rock cod within three miles of the pier . . .
" . . ." p. 118
"Lamia's old charter boat office next to the Playland arcade . . . was leased to Gordon and Beryle Brunkow by Mrs. Newcomb. They operated a wholesale and retail gift shop that specialized in plaster of paris statues." p. 120
". . .
"The City Council in the spring of 1956 [studied] a report by city engineer Maurice King . . . In July the Council by a vote of 5-2 (with Wellman, Mills and Rex Minter opposed) authorized the repair work [on the Municipal Pier]. Mills [questioned] "throwing good money after bad, in light of the deteriorating breakwater"; the advisability of having commercial fishing on the pier; advocated removal of the lower deck."
" . . .
"Santa Monica began fighting the state's plan to take over its beach operations in August 1956. The city had been negotiating for more than a year for a long term lease but the state had its own comprehensive plan on the drawing board. Finally, the State Parks Commission agreed in the fall to grant Santa Monica local control with a twenty-five year lease. The city on November 14, 1956 approved the lease and instructed City Manager Dorton to retain the architectural firm of Welton Becket and Associates to prepare beach parking plans between the Ocean Park Pier and Santa Monica Piers.
"Santa Monica's beach front, like many beach fronts elsewhere, attracted numerous drifers, hustlers and petty criminals. But it was the runaways and perverts that were attracted to its famed Muscle Beach that worried city officials and the police department the most. Their worst nightmare occurred on November 21, 1956 when ten year old Larry George Rice's body was found lying in a pool of blood beneath the Santa Monica Pier. He died three hours later from thirty stab wounds." p. 121
"Two teenagers identified a tall, bushy haired, toothless man with arms of a blacksmith as the man seen with the local lad shortly before the murder. When police found Stephen Nash, a thirty-three year old drifter and pervert, shortly afterwards, they discoverd the blood soaked hunting knife on the man. He confessed to the sadistic knife slaying. and ten other murders in Long Beach and Sacramento.
"When he was taken back to the scene of the crime the next day, nearly one hundred menacing people gathered and would have lynched him on the spot. Nash said that he talked to the boy for five minutes, then pulled a knife. When the boy screamed he stabbed him in the stomach, then again and again. Nash was convicted and was executed in the gas chamber in 1959. The city, in an effort to prevent similar incidents, fenced off the area under the pier.
"Welton Becket & Associates completed the master plan for Santa Monica's beach improvements in March 1957. The $724,000 project included parking for 2002 cars between the two piers, demolition of Pound's Bathhouse, and the relocation of Muscle Beach between Bay and Bicknell Streets. When the weightlifters objected and the Recreation Commission sided with them, city officials decided to let the weight lifting platforms remain near the pier.
"Workers on October 7th began demolishing the old pier harbor office that was built in 1938. They began building . . . a new eight hundred square foot building at the end of the pier that would house the harbor and harbor master's offices, sleeping quarters, and a garage. The lifeguard headquarters were placed directly beneath the new building on the lower deck. About a month later the Santa Monica Recreation Commission approved construction plans for a new lifeguard headquarters just off Seaside Terrace, south of the pier.
" . . . " p.123
" . . .
"The City Council . . . retained George F. Nicholson, a marine engineer to prepare a harbor survey . . .
" . . .
"Mrs. Enid Newcomb Winslow in the Fall of 1958 decided to form a corporation called Bay Amusement Company to manage the pier . . ." p. 125
" . . . She had recently remarried Charles Winslow. Her new husband helped her manage the company and run her gift shop, the skating rink in the La Monica Ballroom, and the parking lot. She consolidated her operations that year and sold the Philadelphia Toboggan Company carousel to George Gordon . . .
"The Gordon brothers had already expanded their operations the previous year by openig a second Playland Arcade in the old Billiard's building next to the carousel. The new arcade offered archery in addition to the usual variety of amusement devices.
"A scandal broke at Muscle Beach on December 10, 1958 when four muscle men were charged with statutory rape and having a sex orgy with two runaway Negro girls, aged twelve and fourteen. Three of the men, William G. Siddall, George C. Sheffield, and David J. Sheppard, former 1956 weight lifting champion, all lived together at an apartment on Appian Way. The fourth man, John J. Carper, was also charged with additional crimes. A warrant was also issued for a fifth man, but charges were dropped when the girls failed to implicate him.
"City Manager Randall Dorton closed Muscle Beach the following day pending a hearing and a decision at the next City Council meeting. Councilwoman Alys Drobnick, who was always one of the area's detractors, said, "I don't think Muscle Beach is a proper recreational facility. I've been saying this for the last five years. It attracts a bad element to the area. If the musclemen want a weight lifting club its up to them to provide their own facilities." Then she added, "the Muscle Beach crowd has been bragging about how much publicity they have brought the city. I wonder how they are enjoying the publicity now." Other Council members like Frantz and Mills felt that the area needed more control by the recreation department, and it should be given more attention by the police.
"A crowd of more than one hundred attended the two hour hearing on December 16th in the Council Chambers. Police Chief Otto Faulkner testified that Santa Monica has a "terrific sex deviate problem" and many are attracted to the city by Muscle Beach. He quoted statistics that arrests of pervert suspects each year were between 175-200. He concluded by saying, "I firmly believe that Muscle Beach is not an activity the city should provide. I also don't feel the city should provide a place for exhibitionists to show off.""p.126
"One emotionally distraught mother said that Muscle Beach had corrupted her son and that other mothers were afraid to speak out. One letter read at the meeting asked the Council to take into consideration all the thousands of people who had benefitted from Muscle Beach. "Don't close it - Think more of supervision," it implored.
"Despite the fact that the courts eventually dismissed the four statutory rape cases for lack of evidence, the City Council indicated that it wouldn't allow Muscle Beach to reopen until it was rebuilt as part of the new Beach Park #4. The city's concern was not the cost of a new weight lifting platform but the long term expense of full time supervision . . . that would be required to keep the park safe. Even the decision to install . . . adult gymnastic equipment (rings, bars, and vaulting horses) in addition to children's swings and slides was controversial. Mayor Ben Bernard and Councilwoman Alys Drobnick said that they believed the installation of the adult gym equipment in effect restored Muscle Beach without the weight lifting platform. But the new park opened in August and one lifeguard put it, "the creeps stayed away."
"Winter and spring storms during 1959 wrecked havoc in what remained of the city's harbor. The January 5, 1959 storm was the worst in eleven years. . . waves thirty feet high. The harbor master, Pat Lister, narrowly missed being tossed into the . . . waters . . . in a 70 mph wind gust . . . De Luca's Fish Market flooded . . .
" . . . Robert L. Marples was appointed acting chief. . ."
" . . ." p. 127
Jeffrey Stanton* Venice of America: 'Coney Island of the Pacific,' Donahue Publishing: Los Angeles, CA, 1987, 176 pp., 1958, 1957, 1951, 1949, 1941
Chapter 7: Dismantlling of Venice (1946-1972)
" . . . the Ocean Park Pier entered a period of renovation just after World War II and kept the area's amusement park tradition alive. First they installed a double ferris wheel near the end of the pier. Edmund Marine's huge Strat -o-liner ride was also nearing completion. He and chief designer Bob Goldworthy had started working on it in 1941 but the war had interrupted their endeavor. When its four large sleek cars were finally attached to the tower's long swivel arms in 1946, pier people predicted the cars would fly off and land in the ocean.
"The Chute the Chutes closed permanently in late summer after an accident claimed the life of a little boy. He stood up and fell out of the boat as it slid down the ramp. Four years later Harry Cooper's Kiddy Town opened at the bottom of the ramp where the pool stood. This enclosed area had a miniature roller coaster, an airplane ride and several small kiddie car rides.
"But even these changes did little to increase business or the waning popularity of the old-fashioned amusement pier. Teenagers and young adults with families were indoors watching television or driving their cars to outdoor movie theaters for entertainment. Also, the closing of the bingo games in 1949 deprived the pier, especially the Lick Pier side, of much of its income. Pacific Electric's decision to shut down 'red car' service to the Venice/ Ocean Park area on September 15, 1970{?} didn't help either.
"By 1951 Lick Pier's Aragon Ballroom had fallen on hard times. The most recent orchestra to play there only drew eight couples, and KTLA television dropped its weekly telecasts. Its manager, Gordon 'Pops' Sadrup, in one last effort to salvage his declining dance business, hired band leader Lawrence Welk to perform a miracle. Welk's brand of light popular danceable music had drawn crowds at the Aragon back in 1946 despite the competition of Tommy Dorsey at the nearby Casino Gardens.
"Welk played at the Aragon and KTLA was persuaded to resume the telecasts. His first televised show on May 2, 1951 drew numerous viewers despite the late midnight hour. Before long the Dodge dealers of Southern California became sponsors, and Welk's 'Champagne music', live from the Aragon Ballroom, became a popular national television show.
"The Venice area continued to deteriorate physically throughout the fifties. Pawnshops and liquor stores replaced the souvenir shops and bingo parlors. Tourist were replaced by derelicts, drug addicts and motorcycle gangs, and winos passed out laid beneath the sheltered colonnaded archways on Windward Avenue. Property values. far from rising, dropped dramatically.
"On June 23, 1957, the Urban Renewal Agency in Los Angeles announced that a portion of the city's $100 million in federally allocated funds would be available for redevelopment in the Venice area. . . . The majority of Venice's property owners were against relinquishing title to their property. . . . In March, 1958, they voted against it . . .
"In the late fifties a new group of people began to settle in the Venice area. They adopted a new lifestyle that rejected the bland contemporary values of work and success in favor of a Bohemian life centered on poetry, jazz and art. Jack Kerouac's novel called them the 'Beat Generation'.
"The Beats were lured by Venice's low rent, mid climate and toleration of their lifestyle. They included painters like John Altoon, Ben Talbert, Tony Landreau, George Herms {and Wallace Berman} and Fowad Magdalani - 'the mad artist of Venice West' who experimented with the limits of abstraction and new forms of assemblage works. . . . The poets included Stuart Perkoff, Frank Rios,Tony Scibella, Lawrence Lipton and James Ryan Morris. They wrote about disenchantment and nuclear overkill. Others included folksinger Julie Meredith, light show impresario Jimmy Alonzi and sculptor Tati.
" . . .
"Lawrence Lipton chronicled the coffee houses, personal searches, artists, poets and others of 'Venice West' in his book 'The Holy Barbarians'. He called Venice the 'slum-by-the sea'. . . ." p.142
[p.143 photo of OP Pier concession Felix the Cat.]
[p.144 photo of the OP Pier Midway, 1950]
{p. 145 photos of the Skooter ride and the Loof carousel on the OP Pier, 1952]
Les Storrs Santa Monica Portrait of a City Yesterday and Today, Santa Monica Bank: Santa Monica, CA, 1974, 67 pp., 1950, 1950s
"Not too long after the end of World War II, in 1950 to be specific, the City Council began a very tentative consideration of the possibility of redevelopment of parts of Ocean Park, a section of the city in which lots ranged from 11 to 25 feet in width, and from about 90 to 105 feet in depth, hardly adequate for substantial development without the necessity of consolidating several such properties.
"Even when that was possible, and such assembling of lots usually encounters great difficulties, street widths were inadequate indeed.
"The then City Council therefore asked for, and received a summary of the manner in which the area could be improved under the provisions of the Housing Act of 1949, but many years were to pass before anything was actually accomplished [who benefitted by the delay?]"
" . . .
"George Bundy, member of an old and respected Santa Monica family, had served under Dorton as assistant city manager . . . succeeded him . . . and he, too suffered a serious heart attack.
"His successor was Ernest Mobley, ex-Army officer . . . resigned shortly, followed by William A Hard, city controller and director of finance, acting city manager."
" . . .
"As of this writng [1974], in fact, only the buildings which constitute Santa Monica Shores, on the property on Neilson Way, have been completed, in fact further development has been thrown into some doubt by reason of the provisions of Proposition 20, the initiative measure adopted by the voters of California in 1972 and which imposes strict limitations on all construction within 1,000 feet of the shoreline.
"Subsequent to the building of Santa Monica Shores, considerable criticism was voiced, not only in Santa Monica but nationwide, on the ground that redevelopment tends to oust the poor from their homes and to build housing for the affluent on the same site.
"Critics to some extent have overlooked the fact that under the law "decent safe and sanitary" housing must be found for those displaced, and that owners in all cases must receive fair market value for their holdings.
"Records in Santa Monica indicate, however, that the majority of those displaced did not look to the redevelopment agency for help in relocating, but as is usual among Americans of all economic levels, depended upon their own capabilities in the search for new homes.{???KR}
"An exception occurred in the case of a number of persons of advanced age and who were receiving public assistance. A private, non-profit corporation was formed, and some of the newer apartment buildings within the redevelopment area were moved onto city owned propety for the use of these people. The housing was considerably better than most of the buildings demolished in the redevelopment process. [???KR]
"The redevelopment area, of course, extends from Neilson Way to the beach, and from Ocean Park Boulevard to the southerly city limits."
" . . ."
"No discussion of this area wold be complete without some mention of the defunct Ocean Park amusement zone, and the cottage area which sprang up around it early in the present century. As a matter of fact, the cottages slightly preceded the amusement zone, which began when A.R. Fraser* built his "Million Dollar Pier" in 1910, only to have it destroyed by fire in 1912, together with many of the cottages.
"It was rebuilt immediately, to be destroyed again by fire in 1924. Other leaders in the early amusement park development included G. Merritt Jones*, H.R. Gage*, and Charles Lick*.
"The amusement zone prospered during the period when the Pacific Electric Railway ran three car trains to the area every few minutes during the summer season, almost as often in winter, but it began to decline when the automobile came into general use. At the same time, cottages which had been intended as vacation homes for one family became permanent housing for as many as four families, as I have noted.
"During the Thirties the entrepreneurs of individual amusement leases turned to gambling, usually labelled as bingo, keeno, or the like, as a means of separating the customer from his or her hard earned cash.
"Originally, merchandize prizes were given to winners. Soon it became possible, by going to the proper address, to exchange a carton of cigarettes or whatever for money.
"For a brief period, in fact, a full fledged Las Vegas style casino operated in what had been a dance hall.
"With the advent of the council-manager government, however, law enforcement became more strict, and a new concept was developed for Ocean Park.
"The Los Angeles Turf Club, operators of the Santa Anita track, sought diversification, already having a project at Lake Arrowhead. Together with a major broadcasting system [CBS, KR], they launched Pacific Ocean Park, which was intended to provide family type amusement. They leased the pier, the no longer used municipal auditorium which had been built on the beach adjoing the pier, and some privately owned property along the Ocean Front Promenade.
"In setting up the project, it was evident that the operators had been encouraged by the success of Disneyland at Anaheim, and by Marineland on the Palos Verdes peninsula, and Pacific Ocean Park had some of the features of both.
"For a time, the operation appeared to be a success, but attendance began falling off, and a new organization took over, cutting the admission price and making most of the amusement devices open to all who had paid at the main gate, without further charge.
"The effort failed, and the operation went into a receivership. Almost endless litigation followed, so confused was the financial structure by that time.
"As of 1974 the whole pier and adjacent structures were in ruins, aside from a small area which was leveled by the owner. From time to time large parts of the pier had been falling into the ocean as timbers decayed, and three major and many minor fires have contributed further to the scene of desolation.
"Demolition has been determined to be the only solution, but the issue is somewhat complicated by the fact that the old amusement zone straddles the line between Los Angeles and Santa Monica. The Santa Monica City Council, however, ordered demolition within its jurisdiction.
"The fact that old-style amusement districts, such as once existed in Santa Monica, Venice and Redondo, are as outmoded as the horse and buggy, now hs become quite clear. It is also obvious that Disneyland and Marineland completely meet the needs of Los Angeles county residents for the comtemporary type of amusement park."
" . . ."
Betty Lou Young Our First Century: The Los Angeles Athletic Club 1880-1980, LAAC Press: Los Angeles, California 1979, 176pp., 1950s
"In spite of these drawbacks, the Deauville was sold to a group of local investors in 1947 and was operated briefly as the California Cabaña Club, an ambitious venture which ended in bankruptcy. Two years later it was acquired by a wealthy Texan, Frank S. Hofues*, who owned the nearby Del Mar Club. He confided that he had sailed past the Deauville one day, saw it as a potential competitor, and decided to take it over.
"After Hofues* died in 1956, another Texas group purchased an interest in the club as a legal springboard for a land development and golf complex in Tarzana to be called the Deauville Golf and Beach Club. The exact ownership status was still subject to dispute in April, 1964 when fire broke out and gutted the structure in a spectacular blaze."
Betty Lou Young and Randy Young Santa Monica Canyon: A Walk Through History Casa Vieja Press: Pacific Palisades, CA, 1997, 182pp., 1950s
"370 Mesa . . . Since 1951, it has been the home of artists Lee* and Luchita Mullican-Lee a native of Oklahoma and Luchita from Venezuela. Lee established his studio in Venice and began teaching at UCLA in 1959. His paintings, often done with a pallette knife in vibrant color, . . . inspired by the mystical and spiritual life of the Southwest and by the symbols of Indian culture. . . . Both sons, Matthew and John, attended Canyon School and became artists as well . . ."
" . . . "
"311 Amalfi . . . Gracie Fields estate was sold in June 1951 to Howard and Marie Allen Beckman, who subdivided and in 1958 sold the main house . . . to Dr. Alan Warren Allen and his wife, Mary Jane* . . . .
"The neighbors' recollection [1962] of Mary Jane was that she was a tiny blonde who frequented Muscle Beach and formed the top of the muscle men's pyramid. . . .
" . . ."
"247 Amalfi . . . A modified International-style house designed by Thomas Abell in 1951 for artist Richard Haines and his family after they moved from Upper Mesa Road. . . . He served as head of the Painting Department at Otis Art Institute from 1954 to 1974, and won many honors for his oils and watercolors. Haines' works which may be seen locally include his mosaic murals at UCLA's Schoenberg Hall depicting the history of music; on the new Physics Building at UCLA; and on the Federal Building downtown Los Angeles.
" . . . "