The early thirties in Hollywood must have been mighty strange –
Hollywood and Beverly Hills were exempt from the Great Depression. This is the Beverly Hills City Hall, 1931-32, William J. Gage and Harry G. Koerner – a baroque Spanish Renaissance extravaganza. And it has a history:
The very existence of Beverly Hills was threatened by a proposal to annex the City to Los Angeles in 1923. Los Angeles, proponents argued, would provide an inexhaustible supply of clean water for growth. Emboldened by their new local identity, residents Will Rogers, Mary Pickford and others mobilized local voters against the plan. Pro-annexation workers left bottles of the sulfur-smelling water on the doorsteps of every Beverly Hills home with a label that read: "Warning. Drink sparingly of this water as it has laxative qualities." Despite these "dirty" campaign tactics, annexation failed…
This "war of independence" was perhaps the first union of show business and politics in our national life. Long before Ronald Reagan went from soundstage to governor's mansion, Rogers, a wise-cracking political humorist, became honorary mayor of Beverly Hills. Rogers went on to play a part in the development of Beverly Hills by fostering construction of a new City Hall in 1932…
Will Rogers?
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Technical Note:
These photographs were taken with a Nikon D200 – the lenses used were AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or AF Nikkor 70-300 mm telephoto. The high-resolution photography here was modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0 software.
