 |
 |
|
| |
Los Angeles From an "Auto" : Part 5
|
6163 Reads
|
|
|
 |
| |
Here is the 5th part in the series of OCR'ed scans from a 1906 electric coach tour guide entitled Los Angeles From an "Auto" which, now in the public domain, I am releasing free in installations first and eventually as one complete work. I have also been creating google maps mashups of the original buildings shown in the engravings in the guide juxtaposed with current photographs I have taken of where the building is or was. The first four parts can be found here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4. This installment covers the old plaza, a military fort that is now a hay market and the Church of Our Lady of the Angels and includes 16 engravings featuring the Los Angeles Times, the Jail and the Bradbury Building.
|
|
Let us see what of all this remains. There upon the corner where we first enter this historic ground, stands what was, in days agone, Los Angeles' most noted hostelrie. The building is still there, but it would be safe to wager that not a man of the hundreds in sight could tell you that originally it was the Pico House, named in honor of General Pio Pico, California's last Mexican Governor. But you must not wonder at this lack of knowledge, for it has been years since that name stood for all that was great and famous in the purchasable hospitality of Los Angeles, and the present day lodging house long ago shut out the memory of the famous hotel of another generation. Yonder on the cornor stands the former mansion of the Senora Leonor Perez, a lady of great prominence in early days, through whose veins flowed the blood of some of the noblest in all Castile. The old mansion is but an outline, for its ground floor is given over to a Chinese curio shop, and the chambers where so often slept the grandees of those Arcadian days now shelter lodgers whose whole earthly possessions could not buy a silver buckle from the bridle of one of those caballeros of the long ago. Over across the opposite corner is the long adobe building where were the headquarters of the "Commandante Militar" of this pueblo. No more of military etiquette distinguish the people who greet you at its door, for the days of its greatness are far behind us, and its crumbling walls today surround a hay market.
But let us turn to the western side of this historic Plaza, for there shall we find something which will carry us back to the days when Los Angeles was a center, not as it is today, of commerce and twentieth century progress, but of that charming life which gave to this far-away corner of the world its touch of romance and Arcadian simplicity, which, fostered by the balmy touch of a never-ending summer, gave to its people a joy in the living of their lives that has formed a most important factor in the building up on the site of the old Spanish pueblo, of a city which has already become marvellous in its greatness, and for which the hand of destiny has but just begun to point the way.
We are facing the old Mission church, "The Church of Our Lady of the Angels," which, of all those historic buildings that once surrounded this same Plaza stand today the only un disheveled relic of those years agone. True the old tiles of its roof have given way to modern shingles, but the original facade still faces the Plaza's end, and the same bells which have rung the rule of three nations over this bit of Sunland still peal forth the call to vespers or matin.
The raw images can be found here.
Dave Bullock blogs at eecue.com
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| Posted by: eecue on Tuesday, August 09, 2005 - 06:50 PM
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
|