Was "Citizen Kane" Born Here?

I came upon the Green Spot Motel in Victorville, California when my wife, in a weak moment, indulged my obsession with driving old Route 66 bit by bit, and agreed to head east from Los Angeles into the Mojave desert.  We had driven a good stretch of the old highway in Texas and New Mexico, but had seen no more of it in California than Santa Monica Boulevard, which hardly seems to count.  We were in LA for a week and I wanted to see the "real thing"...the old part of Route 66 that had not been swallowed up by that great city.

 

When we drove into Victorville, the Green Spot motel caught my eye right away.  This was the kind of place I was looking for!  It appeared to be a true remnant of the heyday of Route 66.  A little research confirmed the motel was built in 1937 (or thereabouts) by John Roy to capitalize on the highway's tourist trade.  The Green Spot thrived into the 1950s until the Freeway bypassed Victorville in 1959. 

 

 

It is in sad shape today.  But there is real history here.  The Route 66 Encyclopedia cites Hollywood legend that the first draft of "Citizen Kane" was written here.  Orson Welles had banished writers John Houseman and Herman J. Mankiewicz to Victorville to shield them from Hollywood distractions.  This old post card shows what a different place the Green Spot motel was in those days.

 

 

Here's another post card advertising the motel as "Southern California's finest auto court-- truly deluxe."  There you have it. 

 

 

With "running ice water" in each of the 21 units, air conditioning by Frigidaire, and, in later years, a pool in the courtyard, this must truly have seemed an oasis in the desert.

 

Just across the street, the Green Spot Cafe was a good place for a meal.  There were plenty of customers as the bus station was right next door.

Today, the swimming pool is filled in and covered up, the cafe is long gone, and the Green Spot is not quite as inviting as it once was.

 

The Green Spot now appears to be the kind of place that rents by the hour. What do you think?  Should we check in for the night?  The office is open.

 

 

We have to approach places like the Green Point motel with a little (or maybe a lot of) imagination if we want to recapture the vibe of the glory days of Route 66.

 

 

There are Green Spot motels in every town that was ever bypassed by an interstate.  Many have been torn down; others hang on somehow, waiting for what?  Someone to infuse them with money and bring them back?  It can happen.  Some of the old motels on Biscayne Boulevard in Miami that became crack-houses, centers for prostitution, and flop houses in the latter decades of the 20th century are actually receiving face-lifts and becoming what the investors like to call "boutique" properties.

 

 

Could it happen at the Green Spot motel?  I would never say never.  After all, how many motels can claim a spot on the timeline of "Citizen Kane" as a selling point? 





Jensen's Recreation Center

Anyone who has followed this blog knows by now that I'm a fan of the many rooftop signs perched atop historic buildings all over Los Angeles.  After years of neglect, some of these signs are being restored by the city.  The first to be lighted again when this process began was the bowler on Jensen's Recreation Center.

Jensen's Recreation Center, 1706 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, built in 1924.  Henry Jensen, who supplied bricks for many Los Angeles buildings, built this Italianate structure in Echo Park as a combination entertainment/retail/apartment complex.  The bowling alley and billiards parlor highlighted on the famous rooftop sign were located on the first floor of the building.

Jensen lost his fortune in the Great Depression and the sign went dark.  Over the decades, LA grew, buildings were demolished, new buildings went up, but Jensen's survived.  Though the bowling alley and billiards parlors vanished decades ago, the sign remained, and in the '90's was re-lighted.  Once again, the bowler's arm pulls back, then swings forward, the ball rolls across the sign, and the pins flash and fall. 

Store fronts still line the sidewalk, just as when Jensen built his recreation center in 1924.

The entrance to what was once the recreation center is in the center of the Sunset Boulevard facade.  Jensen included apartments in his original plan, and they're still there, up the stairs on the building's second and third floors.  This was always a mixed-use building.

The building is heavily decorated.

Jensen's Recreation Center is an LA Historic Cultural Monument.

It's a wonderful building, but there's no question the most significant attribute is that electric sign on the roof!

I promise to brush-up on my night-time photo techniques so I can capture the Jensen's sign in action next time!

A Really Good Hamburger

You get hungry when you spend the day traipsing around historic neighborhoods taking pictures of old buildings and houses!  So when it's time for a break, I go in search of the great American hamburger...and there's not better place to do that than Los Angeles.  I decided a long time ago there are more great hamburger joints in LA than in any other city.  Two of my favorites are The Apple Pan on the west side and Top's in Pasadena.  But on this trip, I decided to go back to Oinkster in Eagle Rock.

As the sign notes, the Oinkster is "slow fast food" and not just hamburgers.  They have chicken, pastrami, and pulled pork among other things.  They're also famous for their milkshakes.  But I love the burger at the Oinkster.

We got there and put in our orders.  Our timing was good, because within just a few minutes the place was jammed with people and the line got longer and longer.  That means a bit of a wait.

Finally, our food!  Not just a cheeseburger, but also fries.  They're Belgian fries, which means double fried.  Very crispy on the outside, soft on the inside.  All of the sauces including the ketchup are homemade.  Yum!  That's a big burger.  I wasn't hungry for the rest of the day!

You can eat outside too, but it was a little cool on the day we had lunch there.  We'd been to The Oinkster once before and wondered if it was as good as we remembered it.  It was.

The Oinkster, slow fast food, 2005 Colorado Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA.  Worth a visit!  Next post, back to historic buildings!

Nob Hill Towers

And you thought Nob Hill was only in San Francisco!  So did I, until I was exploring the West Lake/MacArthur Park area near the Bryson (see my December 10th post) one afternoon and came across this building on Ocean View Avenue.

Nob Hill Towers, 2430 Ocean View Avenue, Los Angeles, built in 1929.  This Art Deco-style apartment house is built on a hill at the corner of South Carondelet Street, a setting that is a bit reminiscent of San Francisco.  Maybe that's what inspired the name!  Apparently, you really can see the ocean occasionally on Ocean View Avenue, but that occurs only on a very clear day.  I was here on a beautiful day...but never saw the Pacific.

In route to the front door you pass an interesting little fountain...

Let's go inside.

If not lavish, the lobby is interesting and suggests a well-maintained building.  Note the metal insets in the floor, which are unusual and, I think, very striking.

I had interesting conversations with several tenants, all of whom said they enjoyed living in the building.  One fellow told me the owners had purchased the Nob Hill Towers at the height of the real estate boom, and had not been able to follow through on all of their plans for the apartments.  Still, he and the others said the apartments were nicely renovated and they had no complaints.  He suggested I go up to the 7th floor for a look at the views from the terrace...so let's take the elevator up.

When I got out on the 7th floor, I followed the young man's advice to go up one more flight of stairs on the downtown side of the building for a peek out over the rooftop which is reached through the door at the top.  As you can see, you're within walking distance of downtown LA, so the view is spectacular.

Now, back down the stairs to the 7th floor and the terrace on the opposite side of the building.  The views are equally grand.  This is looking toward Wishire Boulevard and the Bryson and Royale Wilshire just down the street.

Here's downtown Hollywood...

...and in the hills, the iconic sign that once read "Hollywoodland."

Here's the Griffith Observatory in Griffith Park.

And this is the view looking up Wilshire Blvd.  The slender building that's second from the left is the top of the famous Bullock's Wilshire department store, now the home of Southwestern Law School.

But let's get back to Nob Hill Tower.  If you've read this blog for a while, you've probably figured out I have an affection for metal casement windows.  I love their look, and the broad expanse of glass that lets in so much light.  It's a good look for an Art Deco building like this one, and the Nob Hill Tower is home to ribbons of casements.

I've borrowed some photos from Rent.com to give you a look inside one of the apartments.  It's a top floor apartment with a terrace and arched windows.  As you can see, other features are hardwood floors and a fireplace. 

The apartments with those arched windows and terraces are on the top floor in this part of the building.

A tenant told me the man who built the Nob Hill Towers lived in this house across the street...

He doesn't live there anymore, and the neighborhood went into steep decline in the decades after he built his apartment tower.  Today, it's a diverse neighborhood, teeming with people, and, if a little rough around the edges in some places, very much alive.



There's an interesting mix of homes in this neighborhood: small apartment buildings, older homes which have been subdivided into rooming houses, single-family homes, and grand old apartment houses like the Nob Hill Towers.  Traipsing around it made me hungry.  Next time, I'll share one of my favorite burger joints in LA.