My long-standing obsession with old-fashioned signage is so satisfied when I am in Los Angeles that it’s damn near overwhelming. It’s so romantic.
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Wonderful photos Sheila! That Cinegrill is a true classic and one of the last remaining original animated signs. It gets restored about every 10 -15 years as it has a lot of bulbs, besides the neon, and they just let it slowly burn out until it is intolerable. At one time the Cinegrill rivaled The Coconut Grove for popularity in old Hollywood, and then later became a pretty cool pop and jazz venue. Also, the first Oscars were held at the Roosevelt in 1929 and then 60 years later we had my bachelor party for my first marriage there. Not that they are comparable, except perhaps in the volume of booze consumed.
Kent!! I love the background information on those signs – thank you – and ha! about your bachelor party. The angled view of both of those signs in the same space of air struck me as so evocative, so damn pretty – with that slight element of romantic seediness that I find so beautiful and so missing in New York new which is much more slick and corporate.
I love the old signage!! The Roosevelt is the headquarters for the TCM Festival, and my sister and I will be staying there again for the festival. A wonderful hotel!
Did you have a chance to go to Musso and Franks? It is awesome! Great food and so much history in that restaurant. If that bar could talk…
Maureen – Nice, in re: The Roosevelt! So cool – so the TCM fest is held at Grumman’s mostly, right? So you can basically just walk across the street? Grrrr, I will get to that festival one day!
And I have never been to Musso and Franks – I put up that pic on Facebook and my feed filled up with people sharing memories of meals they had there. I totally must go!!
Sheila, the venues are the Grauman’s, the TCL Chinese Theaters, which are right next door, the Egyptian, and the Montalban. I have never been to the Montalban, so I am excited to see that.
Yes-you can walk right across the street to see a good portion of the movies! Not sure where the Montalban is, but when we went in 2013-the Egyptian was the furthest venue we went to-and that is only a couple block walk from the Roosevelt. You can’t beat the convenience-sometimes you only have 15 minutes to get from movie to movie-we buy the Premium pass so we can bypass the worst of the lines.
We ate at Musso and Franks twice-once for dinner and once for brunch-my sister and joke we might just skip some movies and hang out there on the coming trip. Love it! We had wonderful waiters who told us such great stories. A real treat!
Maureen – wow, that all sounds like so much fun.
Will definitely eat at Musso and Franks when I go back to LA – sounds awesome.
Shelia–Just wanted to say how great these pictures are–I especially love the one of the Cinegrill. So evocative of a time and place.
What is it about the light in Los Angeles? I swear even the sunbeams are pastel-colored.
Barb – I know! The quality of the light is just heart-rending, somehow. Those twilight moments, the neon signs coming on, the air cooling off … it’s magical to me, just so so NOT like New York City. I love it. (I love New York, too – but that’s one of the fun things with traveling – getting into the energy and mood of other places.)