A Change In Scenery: downtown

Showing posts with label downtown. Show all posts

08 August 2015

Balboa Park Turns 100, Part 4

San Diego's Balboa Park turns 100 years old this year, and to celebrate I've been working on a series of Balboa Park-related posts that include both my own photographs and postcards from my collection that are relevant to the Panama-California Exposition. For part 4 I'm going to bend the rules a little to include two items that precede the Exposition because I think they are too fantastic to leave out.

Enjoy!

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Though El Cajon, CA was referred to as "Cajon" for about 30 years in the late 1800s, it was changed back to "El Cajon" in 1905. Correspondent Josie G. didn't use the proper name of the town 9 years after this fact.

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The San Diego County Courthouse was built in 1889 and stood at the corner of Front Street and Broadway. It was demolished in 1959 and replaced by a modern county courthouse. That building was completed in 1961 and was razed to be replaced with a $555M superior court building, now under construction and scheduled to open in 1916.

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I absolutely love this correspondence: "Thurs. morning 9-23-09. Dear Alberta, arrived O.K. stopping at Richelieu 1055 5th St. Mr. + Mrs. Bowles send ___. Taking a street car ride this morning to Coronado this afternoon. Weather fine. Your mother feeling daily good. She joins me in love. Yours, L"

The Richelieu Hotel was located at 1055 5th Ave. in downtown San Diego. The House of Blues is located on that plot now. This Wells Fargo handbook for travelers from 1915 I found while looking up the Richelieu is very informative and a great artifact from the Exposition, click here to have a look.

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These three postcards were part of the motherlode I mentioned in my last post.

Interested in catching up with the Balboa Park Turns 100 series? Check out Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

17 February 2015

after dark

1926 Orpheum Theatre

1927 Tower Theatre

1930 Eastern Columbia Building

Downtown Los Angeles

1927 United Artists Building, now the Ace Hotel + Theatre at the Ace Hotel

All photographs © Monika Seitz Vega, 2015.

All photographs taken the evening of the 7th Annual Night on Broadway.

07 January 2015

a few from downtown

Just before Christmas I had a morning meeting downtown + planned ahead to take a walk afterward to photograph the Belle & Sebastian "Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance" billboard next to the Ace Hotel/United Artists Theatre. That image is the first one below, along with a few others from that day.

In just a couple weeks, Bringing Back Broadway will be hosting Night on Broadway, I'm looking forward to visiting and photographing my favorite spots along Broadway in the evening. It'll be a fantastic night, I highly recommend attending if you're in the area.

"Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance" comes out in the US January 20th.
2015 marks 20 years of Belle & Sebastian.

I was elated to see that yarn bombing is still alive and well. Los Angeles has its own group, Yarnbombing Los Angeles, which may be the ones behind this streetlamp in front of the former Rialto Theatre.

I saw this advertisement in the morning -- from the car -- when the light was nice, by early afternoon I unfortunately had to shoot into the sun to get it.

1930 Eastern Columbia Building. 9th & Broadway.

Not my favorite formal shop to photograph, as Steven's Bridal is now a Gap Outlet...

29 August 2014

magenta positives

Earlier this month I spent an afternoon as a docent for the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation's "All About the Wiltern Theatre" tour. It was a fantastic event that I am proud to have been a part of. Both before and after the tour I had time to photograph some old haunts as well as some new discoveries.

It turns out that the slide film I was shooting that day hadn't aged gracefully. Here are some of my favorite photographs from the day's roll, in all of their magenta glory.

All photographs © Monika Seitz Vega, August 2014. Long live film.

13 March 2014

postcards, part 4

This time around I chose city scenes from my collection of postcards. I love the linen postcards and artwork from the 1930s and '40s, the feel and color of them are so unique. These selections feature places I've had the opportunity to see myself (New York, Columbus), others to hopefully see in the future (downtown Boston), and the Carthay Circle Theatre, well... it's alive in film and photographs and, in a way, on Buena Vista Street. Enjoy.

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back, postmarked August 17, 1940

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The Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles opened in 1926 and was demolished in 1969.

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back, postmarked October 2, 1938

While the Deshler Wallick was demolished in 1970, the adjoining LeVeque Tower and Palace Theatre still stand.

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back, postmarked July 1, 1935 (It looks like I'm not the only one who has sent postcards to myself)

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As this is part 4 of an ongoing and potentially infinite number of postcard entries, feel free to catch up with the previous entries via the links below. I've already got a theme picked out for part 5, so it shouldn't be long.

Postcards, part 1.
Postcards, part 2.
Postcards, part 3.

19 September 2013

the Los Angeles Natural History Museum

The Los Angeles Natural History Museum turns 100 years old this November. I don't go for the dinosaurs, I tend to enjoy the quiet areas of the museum and surrounding park. The spaces that make me feel like it could be any moment of those 100 years, it doesn't have to be right now.

Below are a handful of photographs I've taken during my trips to the museum.

This summer's visit included a trip through the butterfly pavilion, the edible garden, and the recently completed "Becoming Los Angeles" exhibit. The exhibit features pieces from early Hollywood including Mack Sennett's movie camera, Walt Disney's original animation table, and the Chaplin costume below.

U.S. Works Progress Administration scale model of downtown Los Angeles in the 1930s.
Seeing this in person is worth the price of admission alone.
© Monika Seitz Vega, 2013

21 May 2013

Three new Polaroids on Etsy

Click here to view Frank's Highland Park Camera on Etsy.

Click here to view the Roxie Theatre on Etsy.

Click here to see the New Granada Theater on Etsy.