Thursday, September 20, 2007 – The Walls Have Eyes

A bit of Hollywood, the west end – Jim Morrison looks down on Hayworth at La Brea –

To the right, just blank blue –

To the right, at Sycamore, a grin –

Up on the boulevard, Elvis and red brick –

The Hollywood Professional Building at Sycamore as noted –

Nary a day goes by that a building in Los Angeles isn't converted from empty office space to hip lofts. So goes today, with news from the Mayor's Office that the building permits have been issued for conversion of the Hollywood Professional Building at Sycamore and Hollywood. The building will be adaptively reused into 42 loft units, courtesy of the workaholics at CIM Group. While Ronald Reagan was president of the Screen Actors Guild, he had an office on the building's 8th floor. We expect that penthouse suite to fetch a pretty, pretty penny.

Built 1925 and floors added 1928 –

The Max Factor Building on Highland - designed by S. Charles Lee in the late twenties –

The back of the Roosevelt Hotel – named for Theodore Roosevelt and financed by a group including Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Louis B. Mayer. It opened for business on May 15, 1927, and Will Rogers, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Clara Bow, Greta Garbo, and Gloria Swanson were all there. The banquet and presentation of the first Academy Awards was here, in the "Blossom Room" - May 19, 1929.  Douglas Fairbanks and Al Jolson did the honors. There's more here.

Palms and glass, on the boulevard, the home of Stephen J. Cannell Productions - the outfit that crated stuff like The Rockford Files, The Greatest American Hero, The A-Team, Wiseguy, 21 Jump Street, and other such television shows.

Across the street from Hollywood High, appropriately, a Mute Math promo (see this video if you are not of that world).

If you wish to use any of these photos for commercial purposes I assume you'll discuss that with me. And should you choose to download any of these images and use them invoking the "fair use" provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976, please provide credit, and, on the web, a link back this site.

Technical Note:

Most of these photographs were shot with a Nikon D70 - using lens (1) AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or (2) AF Nikkor 70-300mm telephoto, or after 5 June 2006, (3) AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor, 55-200 mm f/4-5.6G ED. They were modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0.  Earlier photography was done with a Sony Mavica digital still camera (MVC-FD-88) with built-in digital zoom.

All text and photos, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - Alan M. Pavlik