Wagons in vintage Street scenes

Believe it or not, this is Stanley Kubrick filming a scene from
'Sparticus' above Cahuenga Pass in 1959.
And believe it or not there is a station wagon down there.

 

Believe it or not, this is Stanley Kubrick filming a scene from
'Sparticus' above Cahuenga Pass in 1959.
And believe it or not there is a station wagon down there.

 

You guys that like to read will probably think this is pretty cool the ones that don't.....well just look at the picture.
Most likely you wont care if there's a wagon in here or not.

Here is an impressive photograph of the Hall of Justice.
At the site of the Hall of Justice, life and death have been meted out for more than a century to a who's who of Los Angeles' famous and felonious. The imposing edifice, bounded by Broadway, Spring and Temple streets, has been the scene of sensational trials and the temporary address of depraved criminals. Murderer Charles Manson pronounced the accommodations "Stone Age." But an earlier guest, mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, rated better service: He was permitted to leave on chauffeured excursions to lunch and to visit his barber. In 1944, a crowd of Latinos cried and cheered as a dozen "zoot-suiters" walked out free men, after their tainted convictions in the "Sleepy Lagoon" murder trial were overturned.

Robert Mitchum was jailed here in 1947 for marijuana possession. The press photographed the obliging actor in a variety of poses, such as mopping his cellblock floor. And it was here, in the basement morgue, that Marilyn Monroe's body was autopsied in 1962, after she committed suicide at 36. The site was known for law, order and disorder long before the $6.5-million Hall of Justice opened in 1926. In 1870, a midday shootout left half of the city's eight-man police force dead or wounded, among them William Crossman Warren, the city's only police chief to die in the line of duty. The killer went free--in part because he was one of the department's own, angry over an unpaid bounty fee. One of the darkest episodes involving the site came Oct. 24, 1871, after a white man was killed and another wounded in cross-fire between two rival Chinese tongs. Within hours, a white and Latino mob besieged and looted the Chinese quarter, killing 18 people. Some of them were hanged at the hall's site, which was then a lumberyard and corral where Angelenos often did their lynchings. Eight men were found guilty, but their convictions were overturned because of a flaw in the indictments. They were never retried. At those gallows, 35 lynchings took place over two decades--including that of L.A.'s most notorious outlaw, Juan Flores. But eventually, the gallows gave way to one of the most lavish, lucrative and genteel prostitution businesses in Los Angeles: Pearl Morton's bordello. Charity for All and Malice Toward None She ran it around the turn of the century with the full knowledge and even the patronage of the law: Her landlord was Deputy Sheriff Juan Murrieta (for whom Murrieta Hot Springs in Riverside County is named). Her charity for all and malice toward none made her L.A.'s most beloved and respected madam--at least by men. By 1891, a new red sandstone courthouse anchored the growing Civic Center, built on what was colloquially known as Pound Cake Hill by Americans and Loma de las Mariposas--Hill of Butterflies--by Latinos.

The courthouse was conveniently located across the street from Morton's brothel, where judges and attorneys were known to take long coffee breaks. The Hall of Justice was built in 1925 and opened for business in 1926. But before construction could begin, six horses and some muscle-bound men had to drag the 11,000-ton Alhambra Hotel 130 feet to the north to make room. Behind the Italian Renaissance facade of white granite, the hall's 14 floors housed courtrooms, 520 double cells, and offices for the district attorney, public defender, sheriff and coroner. Sensational trials filled those courtrooms: actors Errol Flynn and Charlie Chaplin in sex and paternity cases; a perjuring district attorney named Buron Fitts; the controversial death penalty trial of "Red Light Bandit" Caryl Chessman; and Sirhan Sirhan, convicted of assassinating Robert F. Kennedy. Over the years, desperate inmates tried to escape. Many succeeded, though most were quickly recaptured. A few even fell to their deaths by trying to rappel down the granite walls with ropes fashioned from blankets. Manson dangled a wire from his cell window and tried to smuggle in marijuana and a hacksaw.

In 1931, Clara Phillips, the "Tiger Woman" convicted of killing her husband's lover, had better luck with a hacksaw smuggled in by a love-struck courtroom admirer. She was recaptured and spent 12 years in prison. Judges escaped the building's confines by crossing Broadway and ascending Bunker Hill via Court Flight. Twin 14-passenger wooden cable cars climbed a 200-foot grade to the judges' private club, a 50-room Victorian mansion that once was home to mining tycoon Lewis Leonard Bradbury. Even a Role in Harold Lloyd Comedies Filmmaker Hal Roach rented it for one-reel Harold Lloyd comedies, including "Just Nuts" (1915) and "Haunted Spooks" (1920). Its big, drafty spaces led Lloyd to call it "pneumonia hall." The mansion was torn down for parking, and Court Flight was dismantled in 1944. Throughout the 1950s, sheriff's officials faced a persistent problem in the basement crime vault: Mice were eating the marijuana seized as evidence. Cats were imported, to no avail. "Those mice are addicts," one official said at the time. In 1970, rodents, inmates and Saturday workers all shook when a time bomb exploded on the sixth floor next to Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Evelle Younger's office. No one was injured, but a bathroom and a flight of stairs were destroyed. Younger stepped up security, calling the incident "not a very friendly act." In either an impulse of civic duty or a creative escape attempt, an inmate told officials that his Black Panther cellmate was involved in the bombing. Today, a framed memorandum identifying the suspect hangs on a wall in the Sheriff's Department explosives unit, but no one was ever prosecuted.

Sometimes the mayhem outside the hall overshadowed the drama within. In the 1970s, Manson's female followers held a daily vigil during his trial. They shaved their heads and carved Xs into their foreheads. Passersby paused in awe as daredevil Evel Knievel--who had been sentenced to spend six months in the county lockup for attacking a television executive with a baseball bat--was picked up in a chauffeured Stutz. After working all day, he would return to his cell in the evening. When he was released--the same day as 20 other inmates--he ordered individual limos that lined Spring Street. The gradual departure from the Hall of Justice began in 1971, when the district attorney and public defender's office and municipal and superior courts relocated across the street to the Criminal Courts Building (recently renamed the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Building).

The coroner's office followed the next year, moving to its present location on Mission Road. In 1993, the Sheriff's Department left for a modern compound in the San Gabriel Valley. And in 1994, after the Northridge earthquake, the Hall of Justice was red-tagged as unsafe. Today, darkened and empty, the hall is like a ghost waiting to be brought back to life. Chandeliers hang above tarnished bronze staircases. Graffiti scars the walls and paint flakes from the ceiling. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors recently chose a private entity, Hall of Justice Associates, to design and restore the building for about $127 million. In exchange, the county is pursuing a complicated long-term lease arrangement that would eventually cover the cost. After the restoration is complete--expected in 2005--Sheriff Lee Baca hopes to relocate his office and staff from a quiet hillside compound in Monterey Park to Los Angeles' political hub. In the meantime, the Hall of Justice is vacant of everything but its vivid past.

 

Here's the Hall of Justice today.....
Lots of street changes since that photo was taken.....

 

Now those are some interesting facts.

 

Graham Ford

 

I have seen several late 50's to very early 60's photos of Mopars being transported this way. It seems to make alot of sense, yet I am guessing Chrysler was the only one that did it and the practice was abandoned after a few short years.
To me it seems like a smart idea to load the auto-transporter trailers and then put those loaded trailers on flat cars. That way the cars are only loaded once onto the trailers at the factory and once off the trailers at the dealers. Much less loading and unloading of individual cars seems to be an efficient way to do it with less labor required and lower chances of damage to the vehicles.
But, I guess that with the introduction of the three tiered auto racks in the early 60's, alot more cars could be transported on a single rail car, also I guess the method in the photo resulted in needlessly paying to ship the extra weight and mass of all those trailers, especially since, once emptied, they would need to be shipped back to the factory for another load.

 

Casa de Petro formerly located at 14325 Ventura Blvd, Sherman Oaks, CA (near the corner of Beverly Glen).

 

Mobil Gas Station by Smith and Williams, Anaheim, CA. 1955

 

Mobil Gas Station by Smith and Williams, Anaheim, CA. 1955

 

What is that lovely white roadster in the foreground?

mike

 

My guess is an Austin Healy 3000.

 

I thought the Austin Healey 3000 was only in production from 1959 to 1967
but I could be wrong, it's been known to happen.

 

More than likely then a Austin-Healey 100, predecessor to the 3000 model. They looked very similar.