Vintage Los Angeles Mid-City

The Golden State Mutual building at the corner of Western and Adams is home to two murals that are important cultural heritage landmarks. The Negro in California History - Exploration and Colonization by artist Charles Alston and The Negro in California History -Settlement and Development by artist Hale Woodruff. The murals and the building are designated as the City of Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument No. 1000 in 2010 and the murals are owned by Community Impact Development II, LLC

The Rich Streetcar History of Mid-city and West Adams Few folks living in our neighborhood know that at one time many years ago, local streetcars of the Los Angeles Railway and the Big Red Cars of the Pacific Electric, served all of Los Angeles with fast, dependable rail service. Here, on the Westside, local streetcars operated on Jefferson Blvd., Adams, Washington, Pico, Olympic, and W 3rd St.. The Pacific Electric interurban and suburban trolleys operated along Exposition, Venice and San Vicente Blvds.

JAZZ in Mid-City/West Adams "Yet even during the Central Avenue’s heyday, many musicians lived in what was then commonly referred to as West Los Angeles. Jazz luminaries Eric Dolphy, Vi Redd, Hampton Hawes, and Herb Geller all attended, for example, Dorsey High School. And by the mid-1940s, as Jim Crow restrictions began to loosen their grip, there was also a burgeoning music scene on the Westside, centered on Western Avenue from Pico to Santa Barbara (now Martin Luther... King Boulevard), and west from there on Washington, Adams and Jefferson. This new nightlife center became home to at least two dozen clubs and cafes featuring primarily African American musical acts that flourished to the early 1960s (and some through the 1970s), but which are now a distant memory." To read the whole article http://theneighborhoodnewsonline.net//1207-black-history-m See more

pretty good article

From our June issue

Desi Arnaz first asked Marl Young (1917 - 2009) to play the piano for the studio audience warm-up band for The Lucy Show. Young was instrumental in the merger of the all-black and all-white musicians unions in Los Angeles in the early 1950s and two decades later became the first black music director, in 1970, of the major network television series "Here's Lucy." http://theneighborhoodnewsonline.net//1227-marl-young-lucy

"Between 1947 and 1950, Lutcher claimed eight million-selling Top Ten hits, and a highly-successful performance stint in London. Her bluesy (sometimes risqué) swing riffs and sly double entendres won her the nickname as the Real Gone Gal (from her famous song, He’s A Real Gone Guy) in the late 1940s, leading to worldwide tours and singing engagements with Nat King Cole, among others. Lutcher later became the first African American female board member of the Musicians Union Local 47 (American Federation of Musicians)."

The Living History Tour takes place every autumn at the historic landmark, Angelus Rosedale Cemetery. This year it happens on Saturday, September 24 from 9 am to noon. There, amid the elaborate headstones and monuments, costumed actors bring to life a group of fascinating residents from Los Angeles’ earlier times. Visitors also learn the history of this cemetery, and the role it has played in the lives of generations of Angelenos. To read more http://theneighborhoodnewsonline.net//1164-the-living-hist

Anthony Nicholas Remembers Rosa Parks Tony Nicholas, director of the Tom Bradley Family Source Center in Los Angeles, spoke on Oct. 4 at the SGI-USA World Culture Center in Santa Monica, California. Mr. Nicholas shared his recollections of the two meetings between his dear family friend Rosa Parks and SGI President Ikeda. The World Tribune sat down with him to discuss those encounters as well as other memories from his extraordinary life. To Read More - http://www.theneighborhoodnewsonline.net//1125-anthony-nic

Wally Matsuura Life Long Kinney Heights Resident, Remembers Japanese Internment.... TNN: Wally how long have you lived in this house and how old were you when you moved in? Wally: Well we moved in, let's say '38 October, so I was about 7, I believe. TNN: What was the racial mix of the community? Wally: There was covenant so only people of the Caucasian race could live here. ... To Read More - http://www.theneighborhoodnewsonline.net//1140-wally-matsu See more

Charles Bukowski Before embarking on thousands of poems and stories chronicling the lives of L.A.’s prostitutes, lonely and destitute, the famous writer Charles Bukowski (known as the Poet Laureate of Skid Row) grew up in the Mid-City area. Bukowski’s family moved to L.A. from Germany in 1923. In 1926 they lived at 4511 W. 28th St. , and Charles attended Virginia Road elementary school located below Adams Blvd. near Crenshaw. A couple of years later the family moved to 2122 Longwood Ave., just south of Washington Blvd., near La Brea Ave. To Read More - http://www.theneighborhoodnewsonline.net//669-charles-buko

Black History Month Leo Branton Jr. Visiting with Lafayette Square resident Leo Branton feels like time-travel through landmarks of 20th century history. Branton, a famous civil rights attorney, served as defense counsel to Angela Davis, Hollywood blacklisted Dalton Trumbo, several Black Panthers, and innocent men arrested in the Watts riots. To Read More - http://www.theneighborhoodnewsonline.net//668-black-histor

McCARTY MEMORIAL CHURCH During the 1920s and 1930s, due to the high concentration of religious structures lining both sides of Adams between Vermont and Crenshaw Boulevards, Adams Boulevard became known as the street of churches. One of the most impressive is the McCarty Memorial Christian Church. On a hill with a great tower rising two-hundred feet into the air, it has become a community landmark. To Read More - http://www.theneighborhoodnewsonline.net//574-mccarty-memo