As I mentioned in my previous post, today we went on a walking tour of the downtown theater district. I cannot write a very thorough post about everything we saw, but here are some pics. The entire photo stream is here.
The Bradbury Building. Not part of the theater tour, but we went in to take a peek anyway.
The Roxie.
The Los Angeles Theatre.
The Orpheum Theatre. This had some wonderful detail. Here's one example:
The Tower Theatre.
The Pantages.
Yesterday, as I was driving to the Time-Warner Cable office to pick up my new-fangled cable box, I drove by the LAFD Hollywood Station.
[plaque on the ground next to the memorial]
This is a large station, and it also happens to house the LAFD Museum. I highly recommend a visit to the museum, by the way, they have some cool old fire engines, and the volunteers are a treasure trove of information. Every time I go I learn something new about the LAFD, as I did this time.
I pulled into the station because I realized that the Memorial was completed months ago, and I had not yet visited. I literally did a double take as I was driving by and did a screeching u-turn. I like to think it was a legal screeching u-turn, but the LAPD might have thought otherwise. For the record, it was a safe screeching u-turn, I was the only one on that particular street at that particular moment. Anyway.
On the wall are the names of the fallen firefighters. The ones who died while fighting a fire have the Maltese cross next to their name
I went inside the museum to ask about the cross and also found out that the early fire departments were all volunteer. I was also to that currently, the only volunteer fire department in California is in Sierra Madre, all the rest are professional.
The volunteer at the Museum told me that the early fire departments sprung up around bars because that's where lots of men could be found gathered reliably (heh heh), so it was easy to get a group of guys to run and help with a fire. At some point, fire departments were part of insurance companies, and they would put out the fire at structures insured by that particular company. So if the building across the street was not insured, they would just let it burn. I will not make the painfully obvious comparison with the current health care system. Oops. Just did.
Reciprocity is also apparently something that kicked in around the '40s and '50s. Reciprocity is when there's a fire over here, and that department over there rushes in to help, even though technically the fire is not in their jurisdiction.
Keep in mind I got this information on the fly, and am not certain of the dates. Regardless, interesting, no? There's some more LAFD history here.
Please do go visit the museum and memorial, and bring the kiddies, it will be worth your time. And while you're there, support the LAFD Historical Society.
Next Saturday I'm going to the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana to see this fantastic exhibit. I'm thrilled, and will take as many pictures as they allow me to take. Without a flash, obvy. [Photo courtesy of the Bowers Museum website.]
