No. 93 - Pepper Trees

Pepper Trees
1920s
Canoga Avenue from Ventura Boulevard to Saltillo Street, Woodland Hills – map
Declared: 1/5/72

No offense to you pepper tree lovers, but this is sorta boring.

While I’m sure this stretch of Canoga Avenue in Woodland Hills was a paradise of pepper trees back when they were designated a city monument in 1972, today the trees don’t represent much beyond your pretty nice streetscaping.

The original pepper trees sprouted from the nursery owned by Victor Girard Kleinberger, head of the Boulevard Land Company and founder, in 1923, of the subdvision Girard, today called Woodland Hills. These pepper trees were among the more than 120,000 trees Girard had planted in the 1920s in effort to dress up his new development. In the mid-1990s, there were an estimated 300 lining this stretch of Canoga Avenue.

"Delightful Motor Trip"? - Count me in!

Today, the trees skirt the west side of Woodland Hills Country Club (once Girard Country Club, of course).

The pepper trees are Schinus molle and are native to Peru. They’re also susceptible to Texas Root Rot (the things you learn). You can see that some of the older, scragglier trees still exist, while a few are being replaced. In either case, the pepper tree-canopied blocks as seen in this vintage black and white photo (courtesy of the L.A. Department of City Planning’s website) aren’t to be found today.

Source:

Roderick, Kevin. The San Fernando Vally: America's Suburb. Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles Times Books, 2001.

Up next: Palm Trees and Median Strip

continue reading...

No. 92 - Old Stagecoach Trail Property

Old Stagecoach Trail Property
Chatsworth Park South – map
Declared: 1/5/72

Not a great post, sort of half-assed. But I will say this: I sweat more getting these shots than for nearly all the other monuments combined (not including Plaza Park back on that sweltering Labor Day, of course).

I trekked out to Chatsworth Park South and the Santa Monica Mountains a few weeks ago to look for the plaque put up by the Native Daughters of the Golden West in 1939. It was placed to commemorate the 19th-century stagecoach trail that led from the San Fernando Valley, over the Santa Susana Pass, into Simi Valley, and beyond. I veered in the wrong direction, though, and couldn’t find squat.

So I re-trekked it back on the first Sunday of the month to get some assistance from the folks at the Chatsworth Historical Society, headquartered in the park. Helen, Betty, and Jim were a big help. Thanks. The first thing they did was point out the location of the sign, way up on the mountainside, to which I dutifully hoofed it.

Chatsworth Park South

Once an Indian trail, the pass was given a few names during the Spanish Colonial era, and all incorporated the name of the 3rd-century martyr St Susana. In the early 1800s, it was suggested the Santa Susana Pass might be a shorter/better route between the San Buenaventura and San Fernando Missions as opposed to the El Camino Real, the road whose raison d’être was to connect the missions.

The pass continued to be used more and more as control went from Spain to Mexico to the United States, like for agricultural goods, cattle, sheep, and eventually mail.

In 1859, the state put up $15,000 to fix up the Santa Susana Pass Wagon Road, under the supervision of James P. Thompson. Thompson was also the man awarded the contract to use the pass for carrying mail. The first overland stagecoach to use the pass made its run between San Francisco and Los Angeles on April 6, 1861. The trip took 72 hours.

That's the trail, right there.

Another thing the Historical Society crew tipped me off about was the Devil’s Slide, the portion of the trail where the grade was so steep that extra precautions were needed to prevent accidents involving runaway coaches. These precautions included tricks such as tying wheels together, using a windlass, blindfolding easily spooked horses, and cutting step grades into the stone paths.

The Santa Susana Pass became the main transportation link between L.A and San Francisco during the Civil War and remained so for about a dozen years. However, a group of new owners abandoned the stage line in 1875, although local ranchers and farmers continued to use the pass. The Chatsworth Grade Road (pretty much the 118 today), built in 1895, rendered the old Santa Susana Pass obsolete.

The Topanga Parlor of the Native Daughters of the Golden West placed the commemorative tiled plaque by Devil’s Slide on St Patrick’s Day in 1939. Yeah, the plaque’s misspelled. One of the participants in the dedication was John Steven McGroarty.

So while I did find the sign after it was pointed out, I was clueless when it came to spotting old pick and ax marks and retaining walls and such. I was also disappointed when I couldn’t discover some old cisterns used to water the horses. But, most disappointing of all, I couldn’t find the remains of the De la Osa swing station where extra horses would be hitched to stagecoaches to help with making the arduous trip up the side of the hill (or unhitched after the way down). All this stuff is still to be found, along with remnants of the quarry days from a hundred years ago.

Now, are these stagecoach ruts in the two pictures below?

After telling the Historical Society gang how I came up fairly empty on my search for stagecoach trail remains, I was encouraged to get in touch with the Santa Susana Mountain Park Association (SSMPA), a non-profit group founded in 1970. The group gives guided hikes of the trail and Santa Susana State Park on the third Sunday of each month. Will do.

One thing that is hard to miss, even for me, is the structure at the entrance to Chatsworth Park South. During the area’s mining days, this little building was a dynamite shack (coincidentally the name of my funk band in the 70s).

If you want to know all there is to know about Santa Susana State Park and its history, read Alexander D. Bevil’s comprehensive historic overview from this spring and 2005’s archaeological overview by Marla Mealey and Natalie Brodie. Both publications are from California State Parks, and they’re where I got much of this post’s information.

Up next: Pepper Trees

continue reading...

No. 91 - Korean Philadelphia Presbyterian Church

Korean Philadelphia Presbyterian Church
1924 – S. Tilden Norton
407 South New Hampshire Avenue – map
Declared: 11/17/71

Around 1906, a schism among the city’s Orthodox Jews had a group leaving Beth Israel and the Olive Street Shul to form Sinai congregation. Sinai first set up on West Pico, then dedicated a new synagogue on South Valencia on September 5, 1909. That 1909 synagogue was designed by S. Tilden Norton and is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 173. Stop back in July to see it.

In 1925, the group began holding services in the still-under-construction Temple Sinai East, this 1,400-seat building, also designed by Norton. It remained a synagogue until 1960, when Sinai relocated to its current home in Westwood.

In Landmarks of Los Angeles, McGrew and Julian write the New Hampshire building is “considered the birthplace of Conservative Judaism in Los Angeles.”

Parts of the The Jazz Singer were filmed here. No, not the Al Jolson version nor even the Neil Diamond one, but the Danny Thomas movie from 1952. Who knew such a thing existed? Peggy Lee’s in it.

Today, L.A. HCM No. 91 is the Korean Philadelphia Presbyterian Church. The church was closed both days I stopped by, or else I’d’ve gone in and prayed real hard to find a parking space in the neighborhood. (I should’ve taken the Metro, with a stop about two blocks away.)

How long does it take to chuck pairs of shoes up onto telephone wires? While aesthetically pleasing, it seems like a lot of work.

Here's a Jewish Journal article on Sinai's centennial.

If you are in the area (Koreatown) and are by the church, do yourself a favor and head north a few blocks and west a bit to grab a look at this 1928 garage at 248 South Berendo Street. Not a city landmark, but pretty cool nonetheless.

Up next: Old Stage Coach Property

continue reading...

No. 90 - St Vincent de Paul Church

St Vincent de Paul Church
1923 – Albert C. Martin
621 West Adams Boulevard – map
Declared: 7/21/71

St Vincent de Paul Church at the corner of Figueroa and West Adams received formal dedication on April 12, Easter Sunday, in 1925. Father Martin G. Hanley preached the sermon. That’s according to a contemporary L.A. Times account. Don Sloper, in Los Angeles’s Chester Place, says the first mass was held the Sunday before, with the Rt Rev. John J. Cantwell, bishop of the Diocese of Monterey and Los Angeles, presiding. So let’s say the church opened during the first half of April, 1925.

It was back in September, 1922, though, when Father J.H. MacRoberts, St Vincent’s pastor, announced gazillionaire Edward Doheny had pledged a quarter of a million dollars to the building of which at that time was planned to be a $500,000 church (it was later pegged at one million). “A large part of the other portion has been pledged as well.” The church had already owned the land for a couple of years. The Automobile Club of Southern California was at that time under construction across the street and the gated community of Chester Place and Doheny’s own mansion sat (and still sits) a couple yards to the west.

The congregation – the city’s third Roman Catholic parish – had been meeting in an 1887 church building on the campus of the former St Vincent’s College at the corner of Washington Street (Boulevard) and Grand Avenue. (St Vincent’s College penultimately became Loyola College, and ultimately, in 1973, Loyola Marymount University.)

The Rectory

Bishop Cantwell and Rev. MacRoberts approved design sketches by Albert C. Martin in December, 1922.

Martin had designed L.A.’s first major Churrigueresque-style building, the Million Dollar Theater on South Broadway, in 1918. Martin was also part of the teams that designed Los Angeles landmarks City Hall (No. 150) and the May Company on Wilshire (No. 566).

St Vincent Parochial School / dog

For St Vincent’s, the architect was inspired by Bertram G. Goodhue’s California Building from the 1915 San Diego Exposition (it’s still there today, but now known as the Museum of Man in Balboa Park) as well as the Santa Prisca, a historic church in Tasco, Mexico.

Crews broke ground in 1923, while the majority of construction occurred throughout 1924. And, man, what a busy year for L.A. churches it was, too. According to a Los Angeles Times article from New Year’s Day, 1925, the city saw construction of 62 new churches that year. The new houses of the holy, at a cost of nearly $7.3 million, brought L.A.’s church tally to 412.

The Churrigueresque church is in the shape of a cross and sits at a 45-degree angle to the intersection, better providing diners at the Popeyes across Figueroa unobstructed views of the eighty-plus-year-old church.

While Ralph Adams Cram designed the interior, the interior ceiling decoration is by John B. Smeraldi. Just around that time, Smeraldi was also working on the ceilings at the Biltmore Hotel downtown. Busy guy.

The reredos

The Wurster Construction Company’s E.M. Lukens reported the strength of that 44-foot concrete dome was tested by hanging sand bags from “the entire circumference of the dome to the weight of thirty pounds per square foot and an additional thirty pounds per square foot over one-half the circumference.” After two days, an additional ten tons was suspended from the center with no deflection noted.

The underside of the dome features eight paintings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and their symbols: man; lion; ox; and eagle. (Sorry, no picture.)

You’ll also notice inside the church the reredos with ten saints and, again, the Four Evangelists. Then note the statue of St Edward to the left of the saints (he’s to the right of the statue of St Peter). See how not only does he show a resemblance to patron Edward Doheny, but he’s also holding a miniature model of the church. (Again, sadly, no picture.)

St Vincent de Paul Church has a seating capacity of 1,200.

Finally, since you’ve made it this far and have been so patient, St Vincent de Paul was a 17th-century French priest. Pope Clement XII beatified him in 1737, the patron of charitable societies.

Sources:

“Huge Sum Given for Building” Los Angeles Times; Sep 24, 1922, p. I5

“Sketches of New Church Approved” Los Angeles Times; Dec 10, 1922, p. V1

“Unusual Design in Church Plan” Los Angeles Times; Oct 12, 1924, p. E3

“Sixty-Two New Churches in 1924” Los Angeles Times; Jan 1, 1925, p. H10

“Easter Service Dedicates New Catholic Church” Los Angeles Times; Apr 13, 1925, p. A8

Don Sloper, Los Angeles’s Chester Place (Charleston SC, Chicago IL, Portsmouth NH, San Francisco CA: Arcadia Publishing, 2006)

Up next: The Korean Philadelphia Presbyterian Church

continue reading...

No. 89 - Central Spanish Seventh-Day Adventist Church

Central Spanish Seventh-Day Adventist Church
1912 – Elmer Grey
1366 South Alvarado Street – map
Declared: 7/7/71

This Romanesque/Beaux Arts church was originally built as the home for the First Church of Christ, Scientist. For about the past thirty years, it’s been the Central Spanish Seventh-Day Adventist Church. Today, Ever Garcias is the senior pastor for the Central Spanish congregation, while the Reverend Moises A. Sandoval presides over the Sunday meetings of the Centro Cristiano Emanuel.

When architect Elmer Grey first submitted preliminary studies for the church in February of 1912, costs were planned at around $100,000. Construction began on June 10 later that year.

The building was designated on the same day as the previous six homes on the Historic-Cultural Monument list for their “reflecting Victorian architecture on a grand scale prevalent at the turn of the century”.

The most notorious part of the church’s history, though, is its life in the 1970s. At the beginning of the decade the building was converted from a synagogue to house the Disciples of Christ congregation of the People’s Temple Christian Church, run by the Reverend Jim Jones. Yes, that Jim Jones.

Jim “It’s hard to be God” Jones set up (another) shop here, after establishing temples in San Francisco and Utah. Throughout the seventies, his popularity grew while his congregation soared to 20,000. Jones would come to Los Angeles every two weeks to preach to the nearly all black congregation here. In the summer of 1977, he moved a group of his followers to Jonestown in northern Guyana where, the following November, more than 900 of them died in the mass murder/suicide that was in all the papers back then.

Today, the church is surrounded by fencing to keep out vandals, the homeless, etc., but otherwise looks a lot like it did 80-odd years ago, as in this shot from 1915 above.

Special thanks to Francisco, a congregation member who, one Saturday afternoon, showed me around and filled me in on some of the building’s recent history.

Up next: St Vincent de Paul Church

continue reading...