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Los Angeles Times
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Lost L.A. comes to life in reissued book about the city before freeways
Not long after his arrival in Los Angeles three decades ago, Nathan Marsak bought a 1949 Packard, the kind of car best suited for old-timey gangsters and detectives, not an architectural historian who left Wisconsin to move to the city of his dreams. But he wanted to live 'the L.A. noir life,' he says, and no other vehicle seemed more appropriate. 'The L.A. bug just bit me. I wanted to look for the world of James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler, and I did,' he says. 'I drove my Packard around, looking for signs of the old, decrepit, dissolute Los Angeles, and I found it in spades. I had lots of adventures.' From the old suits he wears to the big Highland Park house where he lives with his family, Marsak has a deep affection for vintage things. (He does have an iPhone, though, and his wife did talk him into a microwave — but the design had to be retro.) Marsak's affection for the past extends to Arnold Hylen, a solitary, mild-mannered Swedish émigré, whose book of mid-20th century photos and an essay about old Los Angeles, 'Los Angeles Before the Freeways 1850-1950: Images of an Era,' was recently reissued by Angel City Press in a new edition curated and expanded by Marsak. Not merely a facsimile, the new edition has been augmented with additional text, notes, fresh layouts and more Hylen photos of an old city on the verge of being swallowed up by the new — a process of cultural erasure that crops up in many criticisms of Los Angeles as a superficial place with no deep sense of itself. Marsak disagrees — sort of. 'It's deserved, and it's undeserved,' he says. 'I've been all over, and it's unfair to pick on Los Angeles alone. But I think the city's been an easy target just because we've had so many high-profile losses of distinctive architecture here. That stands out in people's minds. Hylen was certainly aware of those losses and they worried him. If they hadn't, I don't think he would've felt an obsessive drive to chronicle the old city.' Hylen lived a quiet bachelor life, Marsak says, and never imagined his photos would one day be among those by William Reagh, Leonard Nadel, Theodore Seymour Hall and Virgil Mirano. He was born in 1908 and arrived in Vermont from Sweden when he was still a baby, relocating to Southern California with his family in 1917. As a teen he studied art at the Chouinard Art Institute in L.A.'s Westlake neighborhood and found work in World War II as a photographer and designer of sales materials and trade show exhibits for Fluor Corp., an oil and gas engineering and construction firm. As he photographed refineries, his eyes opened to the surrounding city. As Marsak describes in the book's introduction, he'd 'spend the day walking the streets, camera in hand, which fed his interest in the fast-disappearing downtown area, Bunker Hill in particular.' 'I think he knew the value absolutely of what he was doing for himself and other like-minded spirits,' Marsak says, 'but I don't think he knew what to do with the photos.' Thankfully, Glen Dawson did. An iconic figure in L.A.'s literary landscape, Dawson used his small press to publish two books of Hylen's photos. Marsak learned about them (thanks to an enthusiastic barfly he encountered in an L.A. dive) and found both in the used bookstores once existing on 6th Street: 'Bunker Hill: A Los Angeles Landmark' (1976) and 'Los Angeles Before the Freeways,' the latter published not long before Hylen's 1987 death. Marsak spent many years persuading the photographer's relatives to sell him the rights to republish Hylen's work — selling his beloved Packard to fund that purchase. Marsak's dedication has paid off: 'Los Angeles Before the Freeways' is an engrossing collection of black-and-white images of a city in which old adobe structures sit between Italianate office buildings or peek out from behind old signs, elegant homes teeter on the edge of steep hillsides, and routes long used by locals would soon be demolished to make room for freeways. These images are accompanied by Hylen's book-length essay, which runs like a documentarian's voice-over throughout the collection. Two notable changes for this edition: More photos and the decision to use Hylen's uncropped photos, which provide a richer sense of locale and more photos. There were 116 photos in the original book; Marsak went through Hylen's negatives and found more photos, resulting in 143 images in the new edition. Marsak supplies an introductory essay and an invaluable guide to the many architectural styles belonging to L.A.'s past. His footnotes and captions also enhance our understanding of the photos: In some cases, he uses them to correct some false claims that Hylen makes in his essay (for instance, that a long stone trough on Olvera Street was a Gabrielino relic when in fact it was actually created by a local rancher). There are no special effects or gimmicks to Hylen's photos, no staging or posed imagery — he lets these forgotten edifices speak for themselves. They range from the magnificent, Romanesque detailing of the Stimson Block (the city's first large steel-frame skyscraper on Figueroa Street) to the multi-gabled, Queen Anne charm of the Melrose, a home built on Bunker Hill by a retired oilman. Occasionally, though, Hylen's lens does give us something a bit more impressionistic and emblematic of his thesis about L.A.'s vanishing history. Take, for example, a photo of the Paris Inn on East Market Street. The little French-style inn, which opened in 1930, stands in sharp relief in the foreground while City Hall hovers like a faint ghost in the background, suggesting that a more modern version of L.A. is on the verge of materializing out of thin air. For Marsak, who spends his time researching old L.A., giving lectures, serving as an Angels Flight operator and working with local preservationist groups, Hylen's work fills an important gap in L.A.'s past. He hopes readers, especially Angelenos, will come away with a deeper appreciation for their city. 'There's a saying that when something's gone, it's gone for good, and 98% of the stuff in this book is gone,' he said. 'Anyone who looks at this book probably already has a preservationist impulse, but if they don't, if I can light the preservation fire under at least one of them, all the hard work will have been worth it. I really hope seeing this work will make Angelenos think more about their own neighborhoods. I think Hylen would appreciate that.'
Los Angeles Times
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Still Deco after all these years: Robert Landau's L.A. images showcase the enduring style
Art Deco has never really gone out of style: Even after a century, the zigzag meanders, suave ladies and elegant lines associated with it still define sophistication. The style gained popularity after being showcased at the Paris Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in 1925, and to coincide with that centennial, West Hollywood's Denenberg Fine Arts Gallery has mounted an exhibit showcasing photographer Robert Landau's new book, 'Art Deco Los Angeles.' In addition to Landau's photos of beloved landmarks, some familiar and some reduced to rubble long ago, the Angel City Press tome includes an essay by author and architecture historian Alan Hess about the 20th century style known for bold geometric shapes. 'I was responding visually and emotionally to places I grew up going to,' Landau tells The Times of his photography, mentioning Pan-Pacific Auditorium as one such place. 'Went there as a child to see Harlem Globetrotters,' he says of the sprawling Fairfax District structure near the Farmers Market that was destroyed by fire in 1989. 'The '20s, '30s, '40s was an exciting time, and people were inspired by the dynamics of things like automobiles and technology, and also making architecture that was fun and engaging.' Designed by Wurdeman & Becket in 1935, the Pan-Pacific's Streamline Moderne aesthetic echoed the Motorama auto shows that were once held there. A low-rise sprawling structure, it was an example of an L.A. iteration of Deco — horizontal versus the vertical style found in most cities. The Eastern-Columbia department store, whose clock tower was allowed to exceed L.A.'s existing heights limits, has since been transformed into lofts. Landau photographed the 1930 building and accompanying pool in 2015. 'We have smaller-scale Deco here,' observes Margot Gerber, executive director of the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles. 'For a long time, it was one or two stories, a sprawling metropolis. We used to have 150-foot height limits, but technology evolved so we can have taller buildings in L.A.' Also in the book: the Mauretania, a low-rise apartment building designed in 1934 by Milton J. Black in a Streamline Moderne style that references the British luxury liner of that name, which set a transatlantic speed record in 1909. The 10-unit, stucco structure surrounds an open courtyard and is topped by an extensive penthouse where 'Wizard of Oz' Tin Man Jack Haley once lived. Los Angeles Central Library, photographed in 1988 and originally constructed in 1926, typifies low-rise Art Deco design in a city concerned about earthquakes. Other low-rise examples in the book include the Los Angeles Central Library (Goodhue and Winslow, 1926), Union Station (Parkinson and Parkinson, 1929) and the Griffith Observatory (Austin and Ashley, 1935), all emblematic of L.A. Deco. Ornamentation on buildings has been around for as long as buildings, but the roots of Art Deco style are often traced to the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, his mentor Louis Sullivan and movements like Art Nouveau, Bauhaus and the Vienna Secession. A Gilmore service station at 859. N. Highland Ave. now dispenses Starbucks coffee. Built in 1935, it was photographed in 2024. 'You can see where they simplified all forms and took it out of what it had been in the classical period or the Victorian Age,' notes Gerber. 'You look at Art Deco and it's lighter, so black-and-white and so graphic.' The book also includes modest homes, like one on Hudson and Larchmont that features a period stained-glass window but whose interior was remodeled in the Midcentury Modern style. Storefronts like the deserted Long Beach commercial building on North Atlantic Street are also pictured along with gas stations and tire shops repurposed as eateries and coffee shops. The Wiltern and Pellissier Building, located at 3790 Wilshire Blvd., was built in 1931 and photographed in 2002. Too many structures have been lost over the years, none as painful as the 1969 razing of the Richfield Tower, a 1929 office building in downtown L.A. designed by Morgan, Walls & Clements, the firm also behind the Mayan Theater, Pellissier Building and the Wiltern. 'It's increasingly difficult because of state mandates for housing. And a lot of limitations on development have been lifted,' says Gerber about the fight to preserve these architectural gems. Son of an L.A. gallerist, Landau began photographing the city in the late 1960s. She and others fought to get the Fairfax Theatre designated as a cultural monument, but despite that successful campaign the owner demolished the theater's interior, leaving only the Art Deco facade, as required by law, with an open pit behind it. Among the many Art Deco casualties are the Pacific Theatre on Wilshire (demolished 1988), Wilshire Bowl/Slapsy Maxie's (demolished 1952), the Mole-Richardson Studio Depot on LaBrea (demolished 2014), Simon's Drive-In Restaurant (demolished 1971) and the Four Star Theatre Building on Wilshire (demolished 2015). 'There's a lot we thought were landmarked but just because you get designation does not mean the building cannot be torn down. You can tear down within a year of its nomination. Our hope is the kind of publicity we get with these buildings, they'll become icons,' says Gerber. 'L.A. has not had a very good history of respecting its past, maybe because it's still a relatively young city,' Landau says. 'The May Co., they could have easily knocked that down and put a box there, but they didn't and now it's the Academy Museum. The public is coming around to understanding that a lot of these modern buildings that are put up don't match in character or quality some of these buildings from the past.' Formerly a May Company department store, this Art Deco style building constructed in 1939 now houses the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Landau photographed it in 2024. The son of L.A. gallerist Felix Landau, Robert began photographing the city in the late 1960s. Previous books include 'Rock 'n' Roll Billboards of the Sunset Strip' and 'Outrageous L.A.' The earlier images in his new book were shot on a Hasselblad in the 1970s and '80s. For later images he used a Nikon D700. 'I grew up a black-and-white guy,' he says. 'My heroes were the European street photographers — Atget, Kertész, Bresson. But here, the elements in the urban landscape are designed for cars driving by and they're screaming for attention, and color is a big part of that. I do a lot of my shooting on weekends, Sunday mornings, and late in the day. The light comes through the atmosphere, sometimes smog, and you get color.' Popular with the public in its day, Art Deco was rejected by the art and academic community in favor of the International Style, a sleek, minimalist sensibility seen in the works of practitioners like Richard Neutra and Philip Johnson, curator of a landmark 1932 MoMA show on the subject. Yet it has endured. 'People rejected Deco in the '50s because it seemed like something that was old school and they wanted nothing to do with it. But it didn't die,' observes Gerber. 'The Oscars, the past five years, have done a very specific elegant Art Deco style to their set. Now the style is synonymous with timeless elegance. I don't think it ever really disappeared.'
