A few days ago, I posted a photo from the mid-1930s of Frank Sebastian’s Cotton Club at the intersection of Washington and National Blvd in Culver City. During my research, I came across this interesting aerial photo. Before this place was the Cotton Club, it was a nightclub called The Green Mill. It opened in 1923 (three years into Prohibition) and this photo was taken in 1924. I’m guessing that circular thing out front was a fountain, but it appears to be empty. And look at all that empty land around it, not to mention that enormous parking lot. I guess back then land in Culver City was cheap and plentiful.
Matt H says: “Such a cool photo. For some perspective, we’re looking northwest. Washington Blvd. is running diagonally in the foreground, Venice parallel to it on the opposite side of the property, and National Blvd connecting them, behind it.”
This appears to be some sort of billboard advertising “New Green Mill Being Erected Now” which means this photo is from 1923.
In a plot twist that will surprise nobody, all that empty land is now fully developed. This aerial image of the same area was taken in May 2022.
It looks like the water wheel at the left was part of a recirculating system that sent it through underground passageways to those open channels which spilled into the main pond. The center was probably how the overflow got back into a pumping system that directed it all back to the starting point. It is all more Mad King Ludwig before even Walt considered doing this stuff on a grand scale. Curious…was there an early silent film studio located on the adjacent lands before they began building into the triangular lots? Why was that big white structure at the bottom there already…seems to have a large covered dining area? Is that an early gas station across from it? Yada, yada…or to quote Frank Black, “Where is my mind?”. Questions, questions!
I have an interesting book called “Out With the Stars: Hollywood’s Nightlife in the Golden Era” by a Jim Heimann. The chapter on the Twenties talks about the ‘supper clubs’ along Washington Boulevard of which there were many. It has the same two photos of the Green Mill, but unfortunately no details about the water hydraulics of the fountain or what surrounded the club, other than bean fields, and to comment on how wide open the area was. “Danceland, an open-air ballroom on Washington near Adams, with a marble dance floor … graphically illustrated how sparse the landscape was by advertising free parking for three thousand cars on the lot next door. (In 1925, this tract of land would be transformed into the Circus Maximus for MGM’s ‘Ben Hur’.)” The Green Mill was among the largest, and as Martin has noted, was shortly transformed into ‘the king of cabarets’ by Frank Sebastian as the Cotton Club, with ‘colored orchestras’, which is interesting in that Harry Culver originally established Culver City as a ‘sundown town’, whites only. Eventually the cabaret became the Casa Mañana with a drastically changed look, and was finally reborn as Meadowbrook Gardens which burnt to the ground in 1948. So many of these places burned to the ground, it makes one wonder if it was just poor electrical standards or if they had help.
^^^ Or careless smokers. We forget smoking was allowed practically e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e!
Oh, of course! Forgot about that. If they crammed in all the people that could park in their lots, imagine what the atmosphere was like inside with everyone smoking.
Land was still cheap and relatively cheap when the house I grew up with was built on those bean fields in 1952. But it was much closer to the MGM studios.
And I learned to my chagrin when I was in high school that Culver City still had restrictive covenants in place in the 1960s.
You’d think by the 1960s, those covenants would have gone the way of the dodo, but noooo…
Buildings certainly look different and more interesting when they are not crammed next to each other. With all that empty land around the club, it looks really nice. I learn so much from your blog, Martin, and all the nice people who leave comments. Thank you!
Ah, so Ince is rapidly expanding out of view on the left across the road, Goldfish is still swimming around his bowl to the top, and the housebuilders are in-filling as fast as they can all around here for the next ten years. Those close-ups can be a bit deceptive.
Until about 1923, the old Ince Aviation Field was located around here, possibly the lot on the right here. It was DeLay field from 1920-23.