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~~ HOLLYWOOD PLACES – U to Z ~~
In the course of researching the Garden of Allah novels, I came across all sorts of places in and around Hollywood and the greater Los Angeles area and started to collect the information together into one location on my website. The references at the end of each entry refer to the page number of the book where I found the information. (So “2/15″ refers to page 2 of book 15 listed on my bibliography page.) Readers of these pages will note the occasional inconstancy–that is due to conflicting sources from which this information was taken. This is my long-winded way of saying that I am not presenting this information as professionally-researched, definitive, you-can-take-it-as-gospel. It ain’t. It’s just a huge pile of info I’ll pulled from a wide variety of books, websites, magazine articles. Take it, like it, lump it or leave it.
See also: The Garden of Allah Novels companion map of Los Angeles and Hollywood
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Uncle Bernie’s Toy Menagerie – Rodeo Drive – Toy store that featured a lemonade tree. (50s?) (Vanity Fair, March 2009)
Urban Military Academy – on Melrose, near Paramount (103/202)
Vagabond’s House Restaurant – 2505 Wilshire Boulevard- My father, Joe Chastek, first was introduced to Polynesia when he and a high school buddy stowed away to the Philippines when they were both 17. After that, he became so immersed in the culture that it literally became his whole life until he died in 1995. He was one of the first to open a nightclub with the South Seas motif. His first was the Zamboanga, where he entertained movie stars and sports celebrities. The Zamboanga was featured on the TV Biography series that discussed early 1940’s South Seas nightclubs in Los Angeles. His second nightclub was the Tradewinds. His third, the Vagabond’s House was on Wilshire Blvd in LA, and was incredibly popular with, again, movie stars and sports celebrities. http://www.tikiroom.com/tikicentral/bb/viewtopic.php?topic=7557&forum=1&start=30&39&PHPSESSID=1c2af6f24b55eecad6347406400a7636
Vallera Italian Kitchen was a favorite spot, especially during radio’s heyday. It was located at 6225 Hollywood Boulevard on the NW corner of Argyle and Hollywood Boulevard, just east of the Pantages Theater. (14/205)
Van De Kamp’s bakery & restaurants
Vendome Café – 6666 Sunset Blvd. Opposite and down a block from the Hollywood Reporter offices. (28/72) one of Hollywood’s most fashionable night spots in the mid-30s. Opened MAY 1933. This was the first restaurant opened by Hollywood Reporter’s Billy Wilkerson. http://nfo.net/usa/niteclub.htm who originally planned it as a gourmet paradise and specialty store but soon after the opening, Wilkerson made it a luncheon place and it soon became the most important place to lunch in town. (40/75) (see 28/72 for the Old English Costume Ball thrown by the Countess Dorothy di Frasso June) Closed late 1938, and reopened as Ruby Foo’s . (40/179) (41/316)
Vegetarian Restaurant / Cafeteria – 315-319 West Third St, downtown Los Angeles, circa turn-of-the-century (see PHOTO)
Venice (Pier) Ballroom – Popular big band venue in the 1940s (82/58, 59)
Vernon Country Club – 4949 S. Santa Fe Avenue, Vernon. In 1912, boxing promoter Baron Long opened up the Vernon Country Club southeast of downtown, and Vernon became the mecca emerging Hollywood was waiting for. Skirting local liquor laws and outside the restrictive blue law district, Long’s club became the site for early cinema high jinks. (Cowboy star Tom Mix once drove his car into the club and bought everyone a round of drinks.) As an alternative to the inland action, the beach cities offered places such as Ship Cafe on the Venice Pier, the Sunset Inn in Santa Monica (where Ivy at the Shore resides today) and numerous clubs, ballrooms and restaurants between the piers. (from: http://articles.latimes.com/2006/may/21/entertainment/ca-125nightlife21)
Phil Selznick’s Versailles / Club Versailles – 8590 Sunset Boulevard on the Sunset Strip. Versailles opened on Dec. 12, 1937, was around for about three years. Later opened as the Mocambo. Versailles was started by Lee Francis, the madam behind House of Francis who was trying to go legit. She claims to have paid to have the building designed and built but lost it to an East Coast gambler (ie a mobster) before it opened, possibly Bugsy Siegel using Phil Selznick as his front. https://jhgraham.com/2020/05/06/lee-francis/ says “Read Kendall reported on February 23, 1938, that “Phil Selznick’s Versailles Club opened to a swanky crowd last night.”
Via Vigna Inn – Near the northeast corner of Hollywood & Vine. (1950s and 60s (?))
Victor Hugo Restaurant – 233 N. Beverly Drive at Wilshire. Opened 10DEC34 (40/117) Table d’hote Dinner in 1937 – $2 (considered rather stiff at the time). Owned by Hugo Aleidas. First location was 619 S. Grand…however 41/316 says that the original location was on Hill St between 7th and 8th
As listed in the ‘Los Angeles Guide, 1941’ : “The Victor Hugo – 233 N. Beverly Dr, Beverly Hills. Couvert after 9pm. The continental lunch is a gourmet’s favorite. First-rate French cuisine. Advance reservations necessary for the movie star’s impromptu Sunday night shows with dancing to name-bands.”
Scene of the glamorous Mayfair Ball in the 1930s.
Victory House was a bandstand and booth structure that was built in Pershing Square during world war II as a location to hold war bond drives.http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=170279&page=165
Vieux Carre – 1716 Las Palmas Ave, Hollywood. Gay bar that ran almost 10 years.
Villa Carlotta – 5959 Franklin Avenue, Hollywood. Built 1926. Popular place during the 30s and 40s with the crowd into poetry readings and séances. (59/179) Built by the widow of Thomas Ince, who also built the Chateau Elysee. See: http://www.pennyhead.com/angelcity/index.htm Home to Adolphe Menjou, Edward G. Robinson, George Cukor, Louella Parsons, Marion Davies. It featured several new-fangled amenities, including sound-proofed rooms, water filtration, refridgeration, and a ventilation system that changed the air in each room every 5 minutes. (66/354)
Villa Capri – McCadden St, Hollywood. Opened 1950 by Pasquale “Patsy” D’Amore whose Casa D’Amore (opened 1939) was Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood. There, they served the first pizza in Los Angeles to the likes of Frank Sinatra, Joe DiMaggio, Tommy Dorsey and Dick Powell. In 1957, it relocated to a larger, plusher building a few blocks away at 6735 Yucca, one block north of Hollywood Boulevard. The new Villa Capri became a favorite of movie stars, including James Dean, Marilyn Monroe and Jimmy Durante. Durante was there so often that a private banquet room was named for him. But the big star of the Villa Capri was Sinatra. That was, if you don’t count Patsy, who was much loved by the clientele. But with the Capitol Records building only a few blocks away, Frank practically used the restaurant as his clubhouse, dining there often and throwing lavish parties. When he recorded the song, “The Isle of Capri,” he snuck a mention of the Villa Capri into its lyrics. It is said that in 1960, when Sinatra threw his support behind John F. Kennedy for president, he held planning sessions there to figure out how to mobilize show business to help J.F.K. http://www.povonline.com/larestaurants/larestaurants05.htm
The Villa Capri restaurant opened on Yucca St. in 1957 and was co-owned by Frank Sinatra. It was a favorite of celebrities until it closed in 1982.
According to Old L.A. Restaurants – in 1950 the Villa Capri opened at 1735 N. McCadden Place in Hollywood. (It was next door to Don the Beachcomber’s restaurant at #1727, which had previously been located on the opposite side of the street.) In 1957, Villa Capri relocated to a larger, plusher building a few blocks away at 6735 Yucca Street, one block north of Hollywood Boulevard.
Interior of Villa Capri (circa 1950s):
Villa D’Este – 1355 N Laurel Ave, Italianate courtyard villa that was built circa 1928 by Cecil B. DeMille for his daughters in West Hollywood. The early 20th century Italian Renaissance style building, with its elaborately painted portico, ceiling decorations and frieze, was a former residence of silent film stars Pola Negri, and Mabel Normand. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zachary_Selig , http://www.movielanddirectory.com/tour-location.cfm?location=5320 , http://la.curbed.com/archives/2008/03/new_to_market_w_1.php
Villa Nova– Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe had their first blind date at the Rainbow Bar and Grill in 1953 when it was still the Villa Nova. Vincente Minnelli, Liza’s father, proposed to Judy Garland at the restaurant in 1945.
A brief history of that location: After being raided twice in 1938 for violating the state liquor law, Club Esquire became the Mermaid Club run by ex-policeman Frank Irvine until 1939 when it became the Villa Nova until 1967. Then it became the Windjammer. In April 1972 it opened as the Rainbow Bar & Grill.
Vivian Laird’s Restaurant and Jungle Room, Long Beach
Voisin – Where F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sheilah Graham often dined. (31/78)
The Waldorf – 521 S. Main Street, downtown LA – And if you looked at the downtown bars like the Waldorf, the Cellar, the 326 – it was so goddamned open. (11/36) Gay bar…on a seedy stretch of Main Street…near Harold’s…since their glamour days as early as the 1930s, both bars had grown shabby. (60/1)
Looks like it started out as the Waldorf in the Waldorf Hotel, at 521 S Main, later becoming the Waldorf Cellar, as it was listed in the 1956 City Directory. Bohemian Los Angeles by Daniel Hurewitz mentions in a footnote that “The official Waldorf liquor license was denied in 1936 on grounds that the business ran ‘contrary to public welfare and morals.’”
Wan-Q – 8751 W. Pico Boulevard (1 block east of Robertson) Wan-Q was a terrific Chinese restaurant located on Pico Boulevard, just east of Robertson, in the building that now houses another terrific Chinese restaurant called Fu’s Palace. Unlike Wan-Q, Fu’s Palace is not a dark place full of tropical decor and little streams and waterfalls that run through the room. I took some of my first dates to Wan-Q because it seemed to be that kind of place, but its main clientele was local Jewish families. … The waiters at Wan-Q were great and they really did fit the Great Chinese Waiter Stereotype of all looking alike…but you could tell them apart by the loud Hawaiian-style shirts they wore. There was one who thought the funniest thing in the world was to ask, when a family ordered something with pork in it, “Are you Joosh?” That was how he pronounced “Jewish.” http://www.povonline.com/larestaurants/larestaurants06.htm
Warner Bros. Hollywood Theater – 6433 Hollywood Blvd. Opened: April 26, 1928. Also been known as the Warner Cinerama, the Hollywood Pacific and the Pacific 1-2-3.
W.C. Kreiss ice cream parlor on the ground floor of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on the west side. Late 60s early 70s. – Carole: “The floats were amazing. They’d balance a big scoop of ice cream on the rim of the soda glass. There were always stars there which is why I loved taking out of town guests there. Sadly both locations closed in Beverly Hills and Palm Springs. The only ice cream parlor that even comes close to it is in Orange, California. Kreiss passed away and had no family so the two locations were shut down. It was really fun there. Great ice cream desserts but they were known for their malts, milk shakes and floats.”
Weiss Café – 6321 Hollywood Boulevard. Phone HE-8978
Also known at other times as Henry’s and Brass Rail Café
Webb’s Drive-in restaurant – 8767 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills. They also had another location at 420 N. Roxbury Dr, Beverly Hills. (1940s?)
Websters – 270 S. La Cienega Blvd, Beverly Hills
Welch’s, on Atlantic Blvd at San Antonio Drive, Long Beach – Phone 2-1225
Western Costume Co. – 5555 Melrose Ave. Opened in 1912, then moved to the Melrose location in 1932. (25/81)
West Side Market – 9009 Sunset Blvd – a grocer where many of Hollywood’s top stars did their marketing – and where the “regulars” were somehow able to always to get the choicest cuts of beed, the richest cream and butter and the best of whateve relse was being rationed during the days of WWII. It was, in effect, a wide-open “Black Market” that billed customers by the month and that even delivered. Thesedays it is the Roxy nightclub. (25/161)
The White Spot Café – 5357 Wilshire Boulevard, near La Brea. A popular 1920s eatery for teenagers, once located at 5357 Wilshire Boulevard, near La Brea. Though it closed around 1941, many old timers used to argue over which Los Angeles cafe first introduced the chili burger, the White Spot or Ptomaine Tommy’s. Chili burgers aside, the White Spot was famous in its day for their omelets smothered in chili. The cafe’s devoted following also used to drop in late at night for “midnight specials.” Bizarre Los Angeles Facebook. Also at 5467 Wilshire and also 7266 Wilshire
The Whiz Bang
– 3987 So. Western Ave
Phone VErmont 3864
– 867 So. Western Ave
Phone FAirfax 9642
The Wholesale Supply Co. – 1047 N. Wilcox. Ph GR 4194 – “Movie Supplies” – “Chemicals, Dry Colors, Fireworks, Lacquers, Paints, Oils, Shellacs, etc”
William Fox Studios – located at Sunset and Western Ave, just before the time 20th Century Fox was formed in West L.A. (75/131)
Wich Stands – Drive in restaurants. At Figueroa & Florence, Slauson & Overhill
Wilshire Seacomber, Wilshire Blvd at San Vicente Blvd. Beverly Hills
Wil Wright’s — Original store: 8641 Sunset Boulevard. Opening in May 1946 and for 24 years thereafter a small shop on the Sunset Boulevard served the richest ice cream on America – 24% butterfat – to the most famous people in the world. (63/128) There was also one on Beverly Drive. (50s?) (Vanity Fair, March 2009)
Wil Wright’s was a chain of ice cream parlors that dotted the Southern California landscape up until the mid-seventies. There was one in Beverly Hills at the corner of Beverly Drive and Charleville, and another in Westwood Village at the corner of Glendon and Lindbrook. (There were others but those were two I frequented.) They were the perfect place to take a date after the movie with delicate pink and red decor and little marble tables and wire-frame chairs that made you feel like you were seated inside a Valentine’s Day card. I seem to recall that my dates would always order the banana split while I wondered about the Freudian implications of their orders. I would either have a milk shake or a dish of Wil Wright’s unique orange sherbet which resembled frozen orange juice more than any orange sherbet I’ve ever had anywhere else. There is still a Wil Wright’s brand of ice cream sold in stores but I think the parlors are all gone. http://www.oldlarestaurants.com/wil-wrights/
There was also one on the northwest corner or Ventura and Van Nuys boulevards, Sherman Oaks as well as in West Hollywood at 8252 Santa Monica Boulevard.
shermanoaks.patch.com/groups/opinion/p/wil-wrights-ice-cream-parlor-was-simply-the-best-ever
| Willard’s Far Famed Chicken Steak Dinners. Original restaurant opened 1928 at 9625 West Pico Blvd, Los Angeles. In the 1930s, another location opened up at 4500 Los Feliz Blvd at the corner of Hillhurst. In 1940, that location became a Brown Derby.See also: https://www.martinturnbull.com/2014/07/27/willards-restaurant-at-los-feliz-and-hillhurst-far-famed-chicken-steak-dinners/ |  |
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Wilshire Bowl – 5665 Wilshire Boulevard, helped made popular with film folk by popular bandleader Phil Harris. Later reincarnated as Slapsy Maxie’s. (40/122) As listed in the ‘Los Angeles Guide, 1941’ : “Dinner 6pm to 2am, no couvert.”
Wilshire Beauty Shop – 8442 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills. Located inside the Fox Wilshire Theater. (1950s)
Wilshire-La Brea Recreation – 737 South La Brea, Los Angeles. Phone YOrk 5296. A 28-lane bowling Alley, cocktails, coffee shop.
House of Westmore. The Westmore Brothers had cornered the hairdressing business at 6638 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. (31/30)
In 1935, the Westmores opened their Hollywood beauty salon and barbershop on Sunset Boulevard near Highland. Perc and Ern Westmore had made wigs for Max Factor. Their father, George, had run the MGM makeup department. A mile away, in a separate building at Sunset and Gordon, the Westmores ran a cosmetic plant. (p209/113)
Westmore Brothers had cornered the hairdressing business in Hollywood. (31/30)
The Willows – Huntington Drive, near Santa Anita race track
Wilshire Country Club – Los Angeles’ triumvirate of golf establishments were the Wilshire Country Club, the Los Angeles Country Club and the Bel Air Country Club. (78/41)
The Winter Garden, 518 S. Spring Street, Los Angeles
Woody’s Smorgasburger – various locations. The first one opened at 5529 S. Sepulveda Boulevard at Berryman Avenue, just north of the intersection of Sepulveda and Jefferson in Culver City, in 1956.
Wilson’s Steak House – Corner of Robertson Boulevard & Beverly Boulevard
Writer’s Club – corner of Sunset and Cherokee. (75/125) Within a month, I was elected to membership in the Writer’s Club. In addition to quarters on Sunset Boulevard housing a bar and a little food where the members could congregate at will, the club had regular Wednesday luncheon meetings of the Corned Beef, Cabbage and Culture Circle, which I much enjoyed. It was a club for men only, of course, with invitations extended to the ladies on special occasions. Among the active members who became my friends were Rupert Hughes, Doug Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Irving Thalberg, Ernst Lubitsch, John Gilbert, and Will Rogers. – Preston Sturges (65/159)
Yamashiro – 1999 North Sycamore – Built between 1908 and 1912 by the Bernheimer brothers, Oriental antique dealers. It began its connection with Hollywood in 1923 when it became the clubhouse for the “Club of the Hollywood Four Hundred”. This organization of the Hollywood film elite was formed partially as a response to the cool reception motion picture people received at Los Angeles old-moneyed and very restrictive private clubs. (25/24)
In the late 1920’s Yamashiro served as headquarters for the ultra-exclusive “400 Club”. Created for the elite of Hollywood’s motion picture industry during its Golden Age, Yamashiro gave Hollywood its first celebrity hangout. Here Bebe Daniels, Frank Elliott, Lilian Gish, Ramon Navarro, and the Who’s Who of actors, writers, directors and celebrities in Hollywood formed their first social institution as a monument to their achievement. At the outbreak of World War II, anti-Japanese sentiment spread rapidly in Hollywood and throughout the country. In the post Pearl Harbor paranoia, Yamashiro was mistakenly rumored to be a signal tower for the Japanese. Much of the beautiful landscaping and decorative elements of the palace itself were stripped by vandals. Yamashiro’s distinctive Asian architecture was disguised, the beautiful carved woods covered with paint, and the estate became a boys’ military school. At the end of the war with Japan, a builder bought the property, added a second story, and converted Yamashiro into 15 apartment units. Then in 1948, the estate, unrecognizable and in disrepair, was purchased by Thomas O. Glover, who originally intended to tear down the structure and develop a hotel and apartment units on the seven acres of property. While preparing to demolish, he discovered the treasure of ornate woodwork and silk wallpaper hidden under layers of black paint. He realized that this was too important to destroy and decided to restore the property. This became a 20-year project which continues even today. http://www.yamashirorestaurant.com/history/
The gardens below the building were known as the “Hollywood Scenic Gardens” (LAiM – 1940 map)
Yee Mee Loo, 690 Spring St, Los Angeles – “Exceptionally good Chinese Food”
Ye Bull Pen Inn – 8204 Beverly Blvd. Later known as The Hula Hut phone York-9583. – “Six blocks west of Gilmore Stadium”
Zamboanga South Seas Club – 3828 W. Slauson. Popular tropical themed bar. http://nfo.net/usa/niteclub.htm (40/157) All through the 1930s and ’40s, Sunset Strip was Ground Zero for night time excitement. The Strip, a 1.5 mile stretch of Sunset Boulevard between Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Doheny Drive, came to symbolize the Glamor and Glitz of Hollywood. The Clubs usually had a ‘tropical’ theme; among which were the ‘Zamboanga South Seas Club’ (3828 W. Slauson), ‘Don’s Beachcomber’, and Don Dickerman’s ‘The Pirates Den’ (see 61/74). These places were populated by press agents, newspaper and magazine reporters, Power brokers, Stars and Starlets, and those who got a vicarious thrill by associating with the famous. http://nfo.net/usa/niteclub.htm
My father, Joe Chastek, first was introduced to Polynesia when he and a high school buddy stowed away to the Philippines when they were both 17. After that, he became so immersed in the culture that it literally became his whole life until he died in 1995. He was one of the first to open a nightclub with the South Seas motif. His first was the Zamboanga, where he entertained movie stars and sports celebrities. The Zamboanga was featured on the TV Biography series that discussed early 1940’s South Seas nightclubs in Los Angeles. His second nightclub was the Tradewinds. His third, the Vagabond’s House was on Wilshire Blvd in LA, and was incredibly popular with, again, movie stars and sports celebrities.
Zebra Room – at the Town House Hotel on Wilshire. Opened 1937 or 38. (40/163)
The Town House is a large hotel property built in 1929 on Wilshire Boulevard adjacent to Lafayette Park in Los Angeles, California. Designed by Norman W. Alpaugh, the building was once among the most luxurious hotels in Southern California.
As listed in the ‘Los Angeles Guide, 1941’ : “The Zebra Room is frequented by the young set. A more conservative atmosphere is in the Wedgewood Room.”
Zardi’s Jazzland was in the old Sardi’s building at 6315 Hollywood Boulevard.
Zenda Ballroom Café – 936 W. 7th, Los Angeles, a very spacious venue locatedwas downtown L.A on the corner of 7th and Figueroa. (8/147) (40/142)
The Zep – at Florence and Figueroa, was a famous cocktail lounge built in the shape of an airship. (41/14)
Zindabad Pub in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel (1940s)
The Zulu Hut – 11100 Ventura Boulevard, Studio City. Opened 16NOV1924, closed 01MAR1931when a massive fire broke out.
1920s hot spot on Ventura Boulevard in Universal City where black-faced waiters dispensed somewhat incongruous corn-pones (Cornmeal bread usually shaped into a flat cake and baked or fried on a griddle), squab and fried chicken in thatched huts. (40/43) Sometimes called Zululand, this open-air stand with an African jungle theme advertised as “half-mile beyond Universal City on Ventura Boulevard.” Proprietor Raymond McKee dubbed himself the Zulu Chief and waiters in black-face served squab and fried chicken under rustling palms. Open until 2 a.m., the Zulu Hut was something of a roadhouse sensation in the 1920s.
See also
http://www.americassuburb.com/gone.html
and
http://ladailymirror.com/2015/09/07/mary-mallory-hollywood-heights-the-zulu-hut-studio-citys-first-programmatic-architecture/
Zucky’s Restaurant and Delicatessen – Wilshire Blvd and 5th St, Santa Monica, Phone EXbrook 5-3623
MEXICO
Agua Caliente Casino and Hotel – opened 1926 a Mexican gambling resort popular with the Hollywood crowd in the 1930s. (15/114) (40/53) According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agua_Caliente_Casino_and_Hotel it opened June 1928 and closed in 1935 when the Mexican president outlawed gambling. However the racetrack, which opened in DEC 1929 remained open.
Salon de Oro – a casino that only permitted gambling with gold coins. (40/54)
Jockey Club – at the race track. (40/54)
Foreign Club Bar, Tijuana