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Echo Park is a neighborhood in the east- central region of Los Angeles, California . Located to the northwest of Downtown , it is bordered by Silver Lake to the west and Chinatown to the east. The culturally diverse neighborhood has become known for its trendy local businesses, as well as its popularity with artists, musicians and creatives. The neighborhood is centered on the eponymous Echo Park Lake .

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149-666: Established in 1892, and long before Hollywood became synonymous with the commercial film industry of the United States , the area of Echo Park known as Edendale was the center of filmmaking on the West Coast. By the 1910s, several film studios were operating on Allesandro Avenue (now Glendale Boulevard ) along the Echo Park-Silverlake border, including the Selig Polyscope Company , Mack Sennett 's Keystone Studios ,

298-450: A $ 45 million renovation. Starting in November 2019, a growing population of homeless people began moving into the lake grounds. The encampment included nearly 200 homeless tents, and four homeless individuals died at the park in 2020. On March 25, 2021, the park was closed for renovations and cleared of the homeless encampments. While closure notices were posted throughout the park days before

447-603: A Wonderful Life , It Happened One Night , the original King Kong , Mutiny on the Bounty , Top Hat , City Lights , Red River , The Lady from Shanghai , Rear Window , On the Waterfront , Rebel Without a Cause , Some Like It Hot , and The Manchurian Candidate . The studio system and the Golden Age of Hollywood succumbed to two forces that developed in the late 1940s: In 1938, Walt Disney's Snow White and

596-640: A complicated stock and bond transaction, Huntington conveyed his 50% of Pacific Electric to the Southern Pacific, while he acquired SP's 45% interest in the Los Angeles Railway. In addition, Huntington conveyed the Los Angeles and Redondo Railway to the Southern Pacific. Huntington retained control of the Los Angeles Railway , the narrow gauge street car system known locally as "Yellow Cars," until

745-549: A compromise with Arnold in October 1940 and signing a consent decree agreeing to, within three years: The "Little Three" ( Universal Studios , United Artists , and Columbia Pictures ), who did not own any theaters, refused to participate in the consent decree. A number of independent film producers were also unhappy with the compromise and formed a union known as the Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers and sued Paramount for

894-419: A computer and manipulate them digitally. The possibilities became apparent in director James Cameron 's Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), in images of the shape-changing character T-1000 . Computer graphics or CG advanced to a point where Jurassic Park (1993) was able to use the techniques to create realistic looking animals. Jackpot (2001) became the first film that was shot entirely in digital. In

1043-554: A controlling interest in this company was sold off by Huntington's estate in 1944. In what was called the "Great Merger" of September 1, 1911, the Southern Pacific created a new Pacific Electric Railway Company, with all electrical operations now under the Pacific Electric name. The constituent railroads were: Following these acquisitions, PE was the largest operator of interurban electric railway passenger service in

1192-558: A controversial gang injunction forced gang members to move outside their turf, instances of gang violence waned. In 2013, a Los Angeles judge signed off on a permanent gang injunction aimed at six rival gangs in the Echo Park area, creating what authorities call a "safety zone" for the area. The injunction targets the members of six gangs, namely Echo Park Locos, the Crazys, the Big Top Locos,

1341-680: A four-year degree, about average for the city and the county, but there is a high percentage of residents with less than a high school diploma. In 2007, LAUSD used eminent domain to remove 50 homes in order to build a new school. Within Echo Park are the following schools: The Los Angeles Public Library operates two branches in Echo Park: Echo Park Branch and Edendale Branch. The trendy Echo Park area, known as one of "the city's hippest neighborhoods", has many bars, night clubs, and restaurants. The sprawling historic Taix French restaurant (originally known as Les Freres Taix) has been

1490-550: A franchise plan with three-cent fare plan to the Los Angeles City Council, a plan which, if accepted, would have handicapped the other railways severely. Huntington countered with a ticket book which gave the rider 500 miles (800 km) of travel for $ 6.25 (equivalent to $ 212 in 2023), which undercut the Harriman strategy. The Council vetoed the franchise idea, unable to believe adequate service could be provided for such

1639-403: A high percentage of households earned $ 20,000 or less. The average household size of three people was about the same as the rest of the city. Renters occupied 76% of the housing units, and house- or apartment owners the rest. The percentages of never-married men and women, 46.8% and 38.3%, respectively, were among the county's highest. The 2000 census found 5,325 families headed by single parents,

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1788-408: A high rate for both the city and the county. There were 1,034 military veterans in 2000, or 3.5%, a low figure for Los Angeles. Census data below for is cited from only US Census District 1974.20. It does not include a large portion of Echo Park. The 2010 US Census estimates that the neighborhood demographics for tract 1974.20 are as follows: Latinos still form the majority of the community, though

1937-516: A homegrown supply of actors—lured west from the New York City stage after the introduction of sound films—to form one of the 20th century's most remarkable growth industries. At motion pictures' height of popularity in the mid-1940s, the studios were cranking out a total of about 400 movies a year, seen by an audience of 90 million Americans per week. Sound also became widely used in Hollywood in

2086-483: A landmark in the community since moving to 1911 Sunset Boulevard from downtown Los Angeles in 1964. The 321 Lounge cocktail bar inside the restaurant has hosted live music and comedy for many years and is a longtime destination for Los Angeles Dodgers fans to congregate before or after a baseball game. In the third annual New York Times Restaurant List, of the five California restaurants featured, two are based in Echo Park:

2235-469: A line from Monrovia to Glendora . The system reached La Habra in 1908. By 1910 PE operated nearly 900 miles (1,400 km) of track. Routes had been built into or passed through areas just beginning to grow. 1905 was the Pacific Electric's most profitable year, when the road made $ 90,711 (equivalent to $ 3.08 million in 2023). Profits from the Huntington Land and Improvement Company made up for

2384-481: A low fare. Then, on April 14, 1903, Harriman bought Hook's Los Angeles Traction Company, which ran lines within the downtown area and, through its California Pacific subsidiary, was constructing a line from Los Angeles to San Pedro . The final confrontation came over a bidding war for the 6th Street franchise, in which the franchise (thought to be worth maybe $ 10,000), finally went to the top bidder for $ 110,000 (equivalent to $ 3.73 million in 2023), with Harriman

2533-624: A major film production center. In Colorado , Denver was home to the Art-O-Graf Film Company, and Walt Disney 's early Laugh-O-Gram Studio was based in Kansas City , Missouri . From 1908, Jacksonville, Florida's motion picture industry saw more than 30 silent film companies establish studios in town, including Kalem Studios , Metro Pictures (later MGM ), Edison Studios , Majestic Films, King-Bee Films Corporation , Vim Comedy Company , Norman Studios , Gaumont Film Company and

2682-510: A more extensive regional mass-transit system. In 1957, it was given the authority to operate transit lines. In 1958, the California state government through its Public Utility Commission took over the remaining and most popular lines from Metropolitan Coach Lines. The MTA also purchased the remaining streetcar "Yellow Car" lines of the successor of the Los Angeles Railway , then called Los Angeles Transit Lines. LARy/LATL had been purchased from

2831-798: A number of theaters in the late 1920s, and would hold a monopoly on theaters in Detroit, Michigan . By the 1930s, almost all of the first-run metropolitan theaters in the United States were owned by the Big Five studios— MGM , Paramount Pictures , RKO , Warner Bros. , and 20th Century Fox . Motion picture companies operated under the studio system . The major studios kept thousands of people on salary—actors, producers, directors, writers, stunt men, crafts persons, and technicians. They owned or leased Movie Ranches in rural Southern California for location shooting of westerns and other large-scale genre films, and

2980-537: A public transportation company funded by General Motors and other auto-related industries. The Red Cars faded out of service not long afterwards, with the Los Angeles-Glendale-Burbank Line that traveled through Echo Park officially ending service on June 19, 1955. Echo Park was once infamous as a hot spot for gang activity. This was true in the 1980s and 1990s, but in the early 2010s as the neighborhood began gentrifying, rents started to skyrocket, and

3129-515: A set of still cameras placed in a row. Muybridge's accomplishment led inventors everywhere to attempt to make similar devices. In the United States , Thomas Edison was among the first to produce such a device, the kinetoscope and kinetograph . The history of cinema in the United States can trace its roots to the East Coast , where, at one time, Fort Lee, New Jersey , was the motion-picture capital of America. The American film industry began at

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3278-634: A time to theaters and use the lock-in to cover for releases of mediocre quality. Assistant Attorney General Thurman Arnold —a noted " trust buster " of the Roosevelt administration—took this opportunity to initiate proceedings against the eight largest Hollywood studios in July 1938 for violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act . The federal suit resulted in five of the eight studios (the "Big Five": Warner Bros. , MGM , Fox , RKO and Paramount ) reaching

3427-401: A vacant lot near Georgia Street in downtown Los Angeles. While there, the company decided to explore new territories, traveling several miles north to Hollywood: a little village that was friendly and enjoyed the movie company filming there. Griffith then filmed the first movie ever shot in Hollywood, In Old California , a Biograph melodrama about California in the 19th century, when the state

3576-537: Is at hand when we should commence building suburban railroads out of the city." Hellman added that he had already tasked engineer Epes Randolph to survey and lay out the company's first line which would be to Long Beach. In that same year, Huntington and Hellman incorporated a new entity, the Pacific Electric Railway of California, formed to construct new electric rail lines to connect Los Angeles with surrounding cities. Hellman and his group of investors owned

3725-520: Is caught with drugs, alcohol, guns or vandalizing property. Echo Park has many rolling hills and valleys with a few flat areas like Echo Park Lake . Its main commercial corridors are Sunset and Glendale boulevards. According to the Los Angeles Times "Mapping L.A." project, Echo Park is in Central Los Angeles , between Hollywood and Downtown Los Angeles . It is situated near the 101 ,

3874-691: Is generally acknowledged as the overall trend in the area. In 2022, there were 423 homeless individuals in Echo Park. Elysian Park is one of the largest parks in Los Angeles at 600 acres (240 ha). It is also the city's oldest park, founded in 1886 by the Elysian Park Enabling Ordinance. Most of Elysian Park falls in the Eastern neighborhood of the same name, but a small portion of the park does fall in Echo Park. Echo Park Lake provides recreational features and wildlife habitat, including wetlands. Echo Park Lake hosts community events, such as

4023-541: Is located at 1525 North Alvarado Street. Maria Elena Durazo (born March 20, 1953) is an American politician serving in the California State Senate. A Democrat, she represents the 24th State Senate district, which encompasses Central Los Angeles and East Los Angeles, including Echo Park. Her District Office resides at 1808 Sunset Blvd. in Downtown Echo Park. Eighteen percent of residents 25 and older have

4172-531: Is now part of a storage facility, dates from 1909 and includes one of the area's first permanent sound stages, the factories where movies are made. The former studio, 1712 Glendale Boulevard, is City of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 256. Echo Park Lake was established in 1868, as a drinking water reservoir, filled with water from a ditch that connects to the Los Angeles River in Los Feliz  to

4321-483: Is still typical of most films made in America today. While French filmmakers Auguste and Louis Lumière are generally credited with the birth of modern cinema, American cinema soon came to be a dominant force in the emerging industry. With more than 600 English-language films released annually as of 2017 , it has produced the fourth-largest number of films of any national cinema , after India , Japan , and China . While

4470-561: The Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles County, California . Director D. W. Griffith was central to the development of a film grammar . Orson Welles 's Citizen Kane (1941) is frequently cited in critics' polls as the greatest film of all time . The first recorded instance of photographs capturing and reproducing motion was a series of photographs of a running horse by Eadweard Muybridge , which he took in Palo Alto, California , using

4619-1072: The Kalem Company began using Fort Lee as a location for filming in the area, other filmmakers quickly followed. In 1909, a forerunner of Universal Studios , the Champion Film Company , built the first studio. Others quickly followed and either built new studios or leased facilities in Fort Lee. In the 1910s and 1920s , film companies such as the Independent Moving Pictures Company, Peerless Pictures Studios , Solax Studios , Eclair , Goldwyn Pictures Corporation , Star Film ( Georges Méliès ), World Film Company , Biograph Studios , Fox Film Corporation , Société Pathé Frères , Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. , Victor Film Company , and Selznick International Pictures were all making pictures in Fort Lee. Such notables as Mary Pickford got their start at Biograph Studios. In New York,

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4768-674: The Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens , which was built during the silent film era, was used by the Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields . The Edison Studios were located in the Bronx . Chelsea, Manhattan , was also frequently used. Other Eastern cities, most notably Chicago and Cleveland , also served as early centers for film production. In the West, California was already quickly emerging as

4917-596: The Los Angeles Motor Bus Company . A public referendum chose the latter in May 1923. The first service began in August 1923, and by 1925 had 53 miles of bus routes, the second-most in the nation after Chicago . PE operated frequent freight trains under electric power throughout its service area (as far as 65 miles [105 km]) to Redlands , including operating electrically powered Railway Post Office routes, one of

5066-405: The Los Angeles Railway . When his uncle Collis died, Henry lost a boardroom battle for control of the Southern Pacific to Union Pacific President E. H. Harriman . Huntington then decided to focus his energies on Southern California. In May 1901, Hellman, who had been Southern California's leading banker for almost three decades (and owned much property down there), wrote Huntington that "the time

5215-486: The Lubin Manufacturing Company . Picture City, Florida was a planned site for a movie picture production center in the 1920s, but due to the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane , the idea collapsed and Picture City, Florida returned to its original name of Hobe Sound . An attempt to establish a film production center in Detroit also proved unsuccessful. The film patents wars of the early 20th century helped

5364-667: The Pathe West Coast Film Studio, and others. Silent film stars who worked in the Edendale studios included Fatty Arbuckle , Harold Lloyd , Mabel Normand and Gloria Swanson . Charlie Chaplin 's first film was made at Keystone Studios, as well as the very first feature-length comedy, which starred Chaplin and Normand. The first pie-in-the-face scene was filmed at what later became the Mack Sennett Studios on Glendale Boulevard near Effie Street. The complex, which

5513-536: The San Fernando Valley , La Habra , Redlands and Riverside , with branches to Colton and San Bernardino . He simultaneously created the Los Angeles Land Company. Huntington owned almost all the stock in the companies, with token amounts allotted to company directors. Although the company allowed Huntington to proceed with construction plans unencumbered by outside interference, the poor state of

5662-588: The Santa Fe Railway . In July 1908, Huntington leased all the lines of the Los Angeles Inter-Urban Railway to Harriman. In 1909 he sold the systems in Fresno and Santa Clara County to the Southern Pacific. Talks paused after the death of Harriman on September 9, 1909, but resumed in early 1910. On September 27, 1910, Huntington and Southern Pacific management came to a final agreement. In

5811-614: The antagonist and protagonist may be blurred. The roots of post-classical storytelling may be seen in film noir , in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), and in Hitchcock's storyline-shattering Psycho . The New Hollywood is the emergence of a new generation of film school-trained directors who had absorbed the techniques developed in Europe in the 1960s as a result of the French New Wave;

5960-407: The studios and Hollywood grew. Before World War I , films were made in several American cities, but filmmakers tended to gravitate towards southern California as the industry developed. They were attracted by the warm, predictable climate with reliable sunlight, which made it possible to film their films outdoors year-round alongside the varied scenery that was available. War damage contributed to

6109-520: The " Wig-Wag " crossing signals. A Christmas tree lot was operated in the small stub yard at the northwest corner of Willow Street and Long Beach Boulevard – the stock arrived in and was stored in a steel sided box car until the Christmas trees were prepared for sale – the busy intersection was where dual trackage departed Long Beach Boulevard and joined the private right-of-way from Huntington Beach and Seal Beach towards Los Angeles. The crossing signal there

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6258-509: The "Yellow Cars" and carried more passengers than the PE's "Red Cars" since they ran in the most densely populated portions of Los Angeles, including south to Hawthorne and along Pico Boulevard to near West Los Angeles to terminate at the huge Sears Roebuck store and distribution center (the L.A. Railway's most popular line, the " P " line). The Yellow Cars' unusual narrow gauge PCC streetcars , by now painted MTA two-tone green, continued to operate until

6407-604: The 1920s profits were good and the lines were extended to the Pasadena area, to the beaches at Santa Monica, Del Rey, Manhattan/Redondo/Hermosa Beach and Long Beach in Los Angeles County, and to Newport Beach and Huntington Beach in Orange County. Extra service beyond the normal schedules was provided on weekends, particularly in the late afternoon when passengers wanted to return simultaneously. Comedian Harold Lloyd highlighted

6556-416: The 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. The 2000 U.S. census counted 40,455 residents in the 2.4-square-mile (6.2 km) neighborhood—an average of 16,868 people per square mile, one of the highest densities in Los Angeles and among the highest densities for the county. In 2008 the city estimated that the population had increased to 43,832. The median age for residents was 30, about the same as the city norm. Echo Park

6705-533: The 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde marked the beginning of American cinema rebounding as well, as a new generation of films would afterwards gain success at the box offices as well. Filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola , Steven Spielberg , George Lucas , Brian De Palma , Stanley Kubrick , Martin Scorsese , Roman Polanski , and William Friedkin came to produce fare that paid homage to the history of film and developed upon existing genres and techniques. Inaugurated by

6854-609: The 1969 release of Andy Warhol 's Blue Movie , the phenomenon of adult erotic films being publicly discussed by celebrities (like Johnny Carson and Bob Hope ), and taken seriously by critics (like Roger Ebert ), a development referred to, by Ralph Blumenthal of The New York Times , as " porno chic ", and later known as the Golden Age of Porn , began, for the first time, in modern American culture. According to award-winning author Toni Bentley , Radley Metzger 's 1976 film The Opening of Misty Beethoven , based on

7003-520: The 1990s had access to technological, political and economic innovations that had not been available in previous decades. Dick Tracy (1990) became the first 35 mm feature film with a digital soundtrack. Batman Returns (1992) was the first film to make use of the Dolby Digital six-channel stereo sound that has since become the industry standard. Computer-generated imagery was greatly facilitated when it became possible to transfer film images into

7152-466: The 2 , and the 5 freeways. Echo Park is flanked by Elysian Valley to the north and northeast, Elysian Park to the east, Chinatown and Downtown to the southeast, Westlake to the southwest and west, and Silver Lake to the northwest. Boundaries are the Golden State Freeway – Glendale Freeway interchange at the north apex, Riverside Drive on the northeast, Elysian Park neighborhood on

7301-587: The 6th and Main terminal), on 4th Street, and along Hawthorne Boulevard south of downtown Los Angeles toward the cities of Hawthorne, Gardena, and Torrance. The system had four districts: Electric trolleys first appeared in Los Angeles in 1887. In 1895 the Pasadena & Pacific Railway was created from a merger of the Pasadena and Los Angeles Railway and the Los Angeles Pacific Railway (to Santa Monica.) The Pasadena & Pacific Railway boosted Southern California tourism, living up to its motto "from

7450-542: The Catholic watchdog organization The Legion of Decency —appalled by some of the provocative films and lurid advertising of the era later classified Pre-Code Hollywood —threatened a boycott of motion pictures if it did not go into effect. The films that did not obtain a seal of approval from the Production Code Administration had to pay a $ 25,000 fine (equivalent to $ 455,976 in 2023) and could not profit in

7599-573: The Diamond Street Locos, Frogtown Rifa, and Head Hunters. The perimeter for the safety zone is roughly bound by the Los Angeles River to the north, the 110 Freeway to the east, Beverly Boulevard to south and Glendale Boulevard to the west. It includes Echo Park Lake and Dodger Stadium . The injunction, a civil order, prohibits two or more listed gang members from associating in any way in public or in common areas like courtyards. It also allows for stricter penalties if any listed gang member

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7748-656: The Fox Film Corporation owned the Fox Theatre . RKO (a 1928 merger between Keith-Orpheum Theaters and the Radio Corporation of America ) also responded to the Western Electric/ERPI monopoly over sound in films, and developed their own method, known as Photophone , to put sound in films. Paramount, which acquired Balaban and Katz in 1926, would answer to the success of Warner Bros. and RKO by purchasing

7897-449: The Hellman group sold the rest of their shares and bonds in PE and LAIU to Huntington and Harriman for $ 1.2 million (equivalent to $ 40.7 million in 2023). Huntington and Harriman were now equal partners in ownership of the Pacific Electric. The Hellman syndicate retained their 45% interest in the Los Angeles Railway , which they thought would eventually declare dividends. By 1905,

8046-492: The Hollywood Freeway due to opposition from residents living and developers building on a hill that is now a private gated community called Hathaway Estates. In 1962, as a result of this local community opposition, the full build-out plan was rescinded and construction was terminated at the present SR-2 terminus near Glendale Bl and Duane Street. Since then, commuter traffic exiting and entering on to SR-2 has passed through

8195-510: The Hollywood antitrust case, as did the Little Three studios. The United States Supreme Court eventually ruled in United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. that the major studios ownership of theaters and film distribution was a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act . As a result, the studios began to release actors and technical staff from their contracts with the studios. This changed

8344-466: The Hollywood studios. The Classical style began to emerge in 1913, was accelerated in 1917 after the U.S. entered World War I , and finally solidified when the film The Jazz Singer was released in 1927, ending the silent film era and increasing box-office profits for the film industry by introducing sound to feature films. Most Hollywood pictures adhered closely to a formula— Western , slapstick comedy , musical , animated cartoon , biographical —and

8493-609: The Huntington estate by National City Lines in 1945. The MTA started operating all lines as a single system on March 3, 1958. The Los Angeles-to-Long Beach passenger rail line served the longest, from July 4, 1902, until April 9, 1961. It was both the first and last interurban passenger line of the former Pacific Electric system. It was replaced by the Motor Coach 36f ("F" representing Freeway Flyer) route. The line, which used long stretches of open country running on private right-of-way,

8642-538: The Korean-inspired Perilla LA and the pizzeria Quarter Sheets. Cinema of the United States The cinema of the United States , consisting mainly of major film studios (also known metonymically as Hollywood ), has remained a significant influence on the global film industry beginning in the early 20th century . Classical Hollywood cinema , which developed from 1910 to 1962,

8791-700: The Los Angeles MTA until the agency was reorganized and relaunched as the Southern California Rapid Transit District in September 1964. The Interstate Commerce Commission approved the merger of Pacific Electric into the Southern Pacific Railroad on August 12, 1965. Prior to the merger, PE's lucrative freight service had been by Southern Pacific diesel-electric locomotives on the heavy-duty PE rail-bed and rails and tripping

8940-426: The Los Angeles River was in streets shared with automobiles and trucks. Virtually all street crossings were at-grade, and increasing automobile traffic led to decreasing Red Car speeds on much of its trackage. At its nadir, the busy Santa Monica Boulevard line, which connected Los Angeles to Hollywood and on to Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, had an average speed of 13 miles per hour (21 km/h) Traffic congestion

9089-482: The Los Angeles and Pacific Railway. Moses Sherman, Harry Chandler , Hobart Johnstone Whitley , and others bought the entire southern San Fernando Valley in 1910. The electric railway and a $ 500,000 boulevard called Sherman Way connected the three townsites they were selling. These included Van Nuys , Marion (now Reseda ), and Owensmouth (now Canoga Park ). Parts of Sherman Way are now called Chandler Boulevard and Van Nuys Boulevard . The railway company "connected all

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9238-401: The Motor Transit Company, which operated intercity bus service within Southern California. In the pre-automobile era, electric interurban rail was the most economical way to connect outlying suburban and exurban parcels to central cities. Although the railway owned extensive private roadbeds, usually between urban areas, much PE trackage in urban areas such as downtown Los Angeles west of

9387-412: The Newport and Santa Ana lines were completed. In 1906, the Newport line was extended to Balboa, and in late 1906, lines to Sierra Madre and Oak Knoll in Pasadena were finished. The two firms controlled 449 miles (723 km) of track, with the Pacific Electric at 197 miles (317 km) and the LAIU, 252 miles (406 km). Huntington purchased the Los Angeles and Redondo Railway in July 1905, along with

9536-489: The Northern District interurban lines to Pasadena, Monrovia/Glendora, and Baldwin Park versus the alternative of converting to buses, and found in favor of the latter. Remaining PE passenger service was sold off in 1953 to Metropolitan Coach Lines, which was given two years of rent-free usage of rail facilities. Jesse Haugh, of Metropolitan Coach Lines, was a former executive of Pacific City Lines which together with National City Lines acquired local streetcar systems across

9685-402: The Northern District's Pasadena's Oak Knoll line, and the Sierra Madre line. The Western District's last line to Venice and Santa Monica also ended. The Pasadena and Monrovia/Glendora lines ended in 1951. The various public agencies—city, county, and state—agreed with PE that further abandoning service was necessary and PE happily complied. PE management had earlier compared costs of refurbishing

9834-526: The PE. Large-scale land acquisition for new freeway construction began in earnest in 1951. The original four freeways of the area, the Hollywood , Arroyo Seco (formerly Pasadena) , Harbor , and San Bernardino , were in use or being completed. Partial completion of the San Bernardino Freeway to Aliso Street near downtown Los Angeles led to traffic chaos when inbound automobiles left the freeway and entered city streets. The Southern District's passenger service to Santa Ana and Baldwin Park ended in 1950 as did

9983-464: The President of the Nevada Bank, San Francisco's largest, became one of the largest bond holders for these lines and he and the younger Huntington developed a close business relationship. The success of their San Francisco trolley adventure and Hellman's experience in financing some early Los Angeles trolley lines led them to invest in the purchase of some existing downtown Los Angeles lines which they began to standardize and organize into one network called

10132-497: The Redondo Land Company, which owned 90% of the land in the beach community. This announcement precipitated a land boom in the area which resulted in a quick return of Huntington's entire investment in the area and in the railway. On March 19, 1906, an agreement was reached to sell control of the Los Angeles Pacific Railroad lines, owned by Moses Sherman and Eli P. Clark , for a reported $ 6 million to Harriman (equivalent to $ 203 million in 2023); this turned over all

10281-437: The Seven Dwarfs was released during a run of lackluster films from the major studios, and quickly became the highest grossing film released to that point. Embarrassingly for the studios, it was an independently produced animated film that did not feature any studio-employed stars. This stoked already widespread frustration at the practice of block-booking , in which studios would only sell an entire year's schedule of films at

10430-400: The US film industry. They were able to make their mark in a brand-new business: the exhibition of short films in storefront theaters called nickelodeons , after their admission price of a nickel (five cents). Within a few years, men like Samuel Goldwyn , William Fox , Carl Laemmle , Adolph Zukor , Louis B. Mayer , and the Warner Brothers (Harry, Albert, Samuel, and Jack) had switched to

10579-441: The Westlake district of east-central Los Angeles. LAPD also operates an LAPD Police Academy training facility Including a weapons firing range in Elysian Park adjacent to Dodger Stadium. Echo Park sits in the following governmental districts: The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services operates the Central Health Center in Downtown Los Angeles , serving Echo Park. The United States Postal Service Edendale Post Office

10728-419: The actors who appeared in it; MGM , for example, claimed it had contracted "more stars than there are in heaven." Each studio had its own style and characteristic touches which made it possible to know this—a trait that rarely exists today. For example, To Have and Have Not (1944) is notable not only for the first pairing of actors Humphrey Bogart (1899–1957) and Lauren Bacall (1924–2014), but because it

10877-521: The annual Lotus Festival every July. Vista Hermosa Natural Park is a 10.5 acres (4 ha) urban natural park that features walking trails, streams, meadows, oak savannahs, picnic grounds, sweeping views of Downtown Los Angeles skyline, and a nature-themed playground amid native Mediterranean vegetation. It is built on former residential land in the Temple–Beaudry district, houses that were torn down as part of slum clearance efforts, and that originally

11026-563: The bond market meant that he had to turn to stockholders to finance expansion. In 1904 he acquired and finished the Los Angeles and Glendale Railway. In June, LAIU assumed control of the Riverside and Arlington Railway and the Santa Ana and Orange Motor Railway, and soon after, PE and LAIU finished their extension to Huntington Beach and began building a line to Covina . Huntington continued to expand and not declare profits. On December 7, 1904,

11175-456: The center margin of each freeway but the plan was never implemented. There was one exception that was within the Hollywood Freeway through Cahuenga Pass. The San Fernando Valley line from Hollywood took to the center of the Freeway over the pass and exited at Lankershim Boulevard. When that service was terminated, the freeway was expanded onto the former PE roadbed. The Whittier & Fullerton line

11324-424: The center of Glendale Boulevard. The citywide system of electric trolleys began with the dawn of the 20th century, ultimately spinning a web of rail that linked cities in Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties. It was the largest and most advanced public transit system in the world at the time. The Red Car system was sold to Metropolitan Coach Lines, whose executive, Jesse Haugh, had connections to

11473-452: The community, primarily along Glendale Bl and Alvarado Street, which has contributed to congestion. Since that plan has been scrapped, the freeway is somewhat isolated from the remainder of the Los Angeles freeway system. There have been proposals to turn the freeway stub into a sort of public park. The Pacific Electric Railway , better known as the Red Cars, used to run through Echo Park along

11622-463: The controlling majority of stock (double that of Huntington's) and the newspapers of the time referred to it as the Huntington-Hellman syndicate. Using surrogates, the syndicate began purchasing property and rights-of-way. The company's first main project, the line to Long Beach , opened July 4, 1902. Huntington experienced periods of opposition from organized labor with the construction of

11771-836: The country with the intention of shutting them down and converting them to bus operation in what became known as the Great American Streetcar Scandal . Several lines operating to the north and the west which used the Belmont Tunnel from the Subway Terminal Building downtown ceased operation – the Hollywood Boulevard and Beverly Hills lines were shut down in 1954 and service to the San Fernando Valley, Burbank and Glendale using newly acquired PCC streetcars lasted only to 1955. The Bellflower line to

11920-399: The decline of the then-dominant European film industry, in favor of the United States , where infrastructure was still intact. The stronger early public health response to the 1918 flu epidemic by Los Angeles compared to other American cities reduced the number of cases there and resulted in a faster recovery, contributing to the increasing dominance of Hollywood over New York City. During

12069-786: The dots on the map and was a leading player itself in developing all the real estate that lay in between the dots". Huntington's involvement with urban rail was intimately tied to his real estate development operations. Real estate development was so lucrative for Huntington and SP that they could use the Red Car as a loss leader . However, by 1920, when most of the company's holdings had been developed, their major income source began to deplete. Many rural passenger lines were unprofitable, with losses offset by revenue generated from passenger lines in populated corridors and from freight operations. The least-used Red Car lines were converted to cheaper bus routes as early as 1925. In 1936, Pacific Electric acquired

12218-506: The early New Hollywood films like Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider had been relatively low-budget affairs with amoral heroes and increased sexuality and violence, the enormous success enjoyed by Friedkin with The Exorcist , Spielberg with Jaws , Coppola with The Godfather and Apocalypse Now , Scorsese with Taxi Driver , Kubrick with 2001: A Space Odyssey , Polanski with Chinatown , and Lucas with American Graffiti and Star Wars , respectively helped to give rise to

12367-537: The early times of talkies, American studios found that their sound productions were rejected in foreign-language markets and even among speakers of other dialects of English. The synchronization technology was still too primitive for dubbing . One of the solutions was creating parallel foreign-language versions of Hollywood films. Around 1930, the American companies opened a studio in Joinville-le-Pont , France, where

12516-547: The east, Stadium Way and Beaudry Avenue on the southeast, the south apex being Beaudry Avenue and West Second Street and the west limit being an irregular line consisting of Second Street and Beverly Boulevard, then moving upward north along Benton Way and the Glendale Freeway. Being in the central part of Los Angeles , Echo Park experiences a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Csa). Temperatures here are almost identical to that of Downtown Los Angeles . Within Echo Park are

12665-470: The end of rail service in 1963. Large profits from land development were generated along the routes of the new lines. Huntington Beach was incorporated in 1909 and developed by the Huntington Beach Company, a real-estate development firm owned by Henry Huntington, which still owns both land in the city and most of the mineral rights. There are other local streetcar suburbs . Angelino Heights

12814-601: The end of the 19th century, with the construction of Thomas Edison's " Black Maria ", the first motion-picture studio in West Orange, New Jersey . The cities and towns on the Hudson River and Hudson Palisades offered land at costs considerably less than New York City across the river, and benefited greatly as a result of the phenomenal growth of the film industry at the turn of the 20th century. The industry began attracting both capital and innovative work forces. In 1907, when

12963-521: The end of their careers or used the same creative teams on their films so that a DeMille film still looked like one whether it was made in 1932 or 1956. Post-classical cinema is the changing methods of storytelling in the New Hollywood. It has been argued that new approaches to drama and characterization played upon audience expectations acquired in the classical period: chronology may be scrambled, storylines may feature " twist endings ", and lines between

13112-403: The enterprise. Revenue from passenger traffic rarely generated a profit, unlike freight. The real money for the investors was in supplying electric power to new communities and in developing and selling real estate. To get the railways and electricity to their towns, local groups offered the Huntington interest opportunities in local land. Soon Huntington and his partners had significant holdings in

13261-546: The eventual shift of virtually all filmmaking to the West Coast by the 1930s. At the time, Thomas Edison owned almost all the patents relevant to motion picture production and movie producers on the East Coast acting independently of Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company were often sued or enjoined by Edison and his agents while movie makers working on the West Coast could work independently of Edison's control. In Los Angeles,

13410-470: The example for other national film industries. In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge demonstrated the power of photography to capture motion. In 1894, the world's first commercial motion-picture exhibition was given in New York City , using Thomas Edison 's kinetoscope and kinetograph. In the following decades, the production of silent films greatly expanded, studios formed and migrated to California , and

13559-473: The few U.S. interurbans to do so. This provided important revenue. The PE was responsible for an innovation in grade crossing safety: the automatic electromechanical grade crossing signal, nicknamed the wigwag . This device was quickly adopted by other railroads. A few wigwags continue in operation as of 2006 . During this period, the Los Angeles Railway provided local streetcar service in central Los Angeles and to nearby communities. These trolleys were known as

13708-543: The film Titanic , Cameron wanted to push the boundary of special effects with his film, and enlisted Digital Domain and Pacific Data Images to continue the developments in digital technology which the director pioneered while working on The Abyss and Terminator 2: Judgment Day . Many previous films about the RMS Titanic shot water in slow motion , which did not look wholly convincing. Cameron encouraged his crew to shoot their 45-foot-long (14 m) miniature of

13857-418: The films and stories they told became much longer. The United States produced the world's first sync-sound musical film , The Jazz Singer , in 1927, and was at the forefront of sound-film development in the following decades. It was fully released to the public on October 6, 1927. Since the early 20th century, the U.S. film industry has primarily been based in and around the thirty-mile zone centered in

14006-551: The final few miles from private right-of-way to reach the 6th and Main PE terminal and were bogged down within this jammed traffic. Schedules could not be met, plus former patrons were now driving. The San Bernardino line, Pomona branch, Temple City branch via Alhambra's Main Street, San Bernardino's Mountain View local to 34th Street, Santa Monica Boulevard via Beverly Hills, and all remaining Pasadena local services were all cut in 1941. Permission

14155-402: The following: Angelino Heights is most notable for its Victorian era residences, although these are few in number. It lies at an elevation of 502 feet (153 m). Since the 1910s, Elysian Heights, along with Edendale , has been home to many of the counter-culture, political radicals, artists, writers, architects and filmmakers. The children of many progressives attended school there during

14304-459: The foreign language. The Spanish-language crews included people like Luis Buñuel , Enrique Jardiel Poncela , Xavier Cugat , and Edgar Neville . The productions were not very successful in their intended markets, due to the following reasons: Classical Hollywood cinema , or the Golden Age of Hollywood, is defined as a technical and narrative style characteristic of American cinema from 1913 to 1962, during which thousands of movies were issued from

14453-550: The lake. The plans became divisive within the community, many of whom have advocated for the fence to remain, amid the ongoing homelessness crisis. The fence surrounding the lake was removed May 30, 2023 by the city. The Glendale Freeway ( SR 2 ) was originally planned and constructed in 1959 to connect with the Hollywood Freeway (US-101) through the neighborhoods of Silver Lake and Echo Park, but terminates roughly 1.5 miles (2.4 km) northeast of its intended terminus at

14602-418: The land companies developing Naples , Bay City (Seal Beach) , Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and Redondo Beach. Harriman, who controlled the powerful Southern Pacific Railroad , was concerned with the competition that these new electric lines gave his steam railroad traffic, and had been prodding Huntington for joint ownership of the lines but Huntington refused to negotiate. In early 1903, Harriman proposed

14751-419: The late 1910s, motion picture companies on Allesandro Street, now Glendale Boulevard, had been using the park as a filming location. Echo Park Lake was identified as an impaired body of water in 2006, and the city allocated $ 64.7 million to fund its cleanup and revitalization. In the summer of 2011, the lake was closed off and drained when the rehabilitation project began. The lake reopened on June 5, 2013, after

14900-536: The late 1920s. After The Jazz Singer , the first film with synchronized voices was successfully released as a Vitaphone talkie in 1927, Hollywood film companies would respond to Warner Bros. and begin to use Vitaphone sound—which Warner Bros. owned until 1928—in future films. By May 1928, Electrical Research Product Incorporated (ERPI), a subsidiary of the Western Electric company, gained a monopoly over film sound distribution. A side effect of these " talkies "

15049-478: The lines in downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica and down the coast to Redondo Beach to the Southern Pacific. In January 1907, the Hellman syndicate, after seeing that Huntington ran the Los Angeles Railway similarly to PE, continually expanding and not declaring dividends, sold their 45% stake in the Los Angeles Railway to Harriman and the Southern Pacific. The Covina line was completed in 1907, as well as

15198-468: The major studios owned hundreds of theaters in cities and towns across the nation in 1920 film theaters that showed their films and that were always in need of fresh material. In 1930, MPPDA President Will Hays created the Hays (Production) Code , which followed censorship guidelines and went into effect after government threats of censorship expanded by 1930. However, the code was never enforced until 1934, after

15347-601: The modern " blockbuster ", and induced studios to focus ever more heavily on trying to produce enormous hits. In the US, the PG-13 rating was introduced in 1984 to accommodate films that straddled the line between PG and R, which was mainly due to the controversies surrounding the violent content of the PG films Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Gremlins (both 1984). Film   makers in

15496-561: The monopoly they still had over the Detroit Theaters—as Paramount was also gaining dominance through actors like Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard, Veronica Lake, Betty Hutton, crooner Bing Crosby, Alan Ladd, and longtime actor for studio Gary Cooper too- by 1942. The Big Five studios did not meet the requirements of the Consent of Decree during WWII, without major consequence, but after the war ended they joined Paramount as defendants in

15645-563: The most successful film of its time, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs . This distinction was promptly topped in 1939 when Selznick International created what is still, when adjusted for inflation, the most successful film of all time in Gone with the Wind . Many film historians have remarked upon the many great works of cinema that emerged from this period of highly regimented filmmaking. One reason this

15794-502: The mountains to the sea." The Pacific Electric Railway was created in 1901 by railroad executive Henry E. Huntington and banker Isaias W. Hellman . As a Vice President of the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP), operated by his uncle, Collis P. Huntington , Huntington had a background in electric trolley lines in San Francisco where he oversaw SP's effort to consolidate many smaller street railroads into one organized network. Hellman,

15943-521: The movie-making process. Nestor Studios of Bayonne, New Jersey , built the first studio in the Hollywood neighborhood in 1911. Nestor Studios, owned by David and William Horsley, later merged with Universal Studios; and William Horsley's other company, Hollywood Film Laboratory, is now the oldest existing company in Hollywood, presently called the Hollywood Digital Laboratory. California 's more hospitable and cost-effective climate led to

16092-652: The national cinemas of the United Kingdom , Canada , Australia , and New Zealand also produce films in the same language, they are not part of the Hollywood system. Because of this, Hollywood has also been considered a transnational cinema , and has produced multiple language versions of some titles, often in Spanish or French. Contemporary Hollywood often outsources production to the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The major film studios of Hollywood are

16241-406: The new railways. Tensions between union leaders and like-minded Los Angeles businessmen were high from the early 1900s up through the 1920s. Strikes and boycotts troubled the Pacific Electric throughout those years until they reached the height of violence in the 1919 Streetcar Strike of Los Angeles . The efforts of organized labor simmered with the onset of World War I . Railroads were one part of

16390-503: The pandemic, public health officials temporarily closed movie theaters in some jurisdictions, large studios suspended production for weeks at a time, and some actors came down with the flu. This caused major financial losses and severe difficulties for small studios, but the industry as a whole more than recovered during the Roaring Twenties . In the early 20th century, when the medium was new, many Jewish immigrants found employment in

16539-437: The paradigm of film making by the major Hollywood studios, as each could have an entirely different cast and creative team. The decision resulted in the gradual loss of the characteristics which made Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios, Columbia Pictures, RKO Pictures, and 20th Century Fox films immediately identifiable. Certain movie people, such as Cecil B. DeMille , either remained contract artists until

16688-451: The percentage fell from 69.8% in 2000 to 59.5% in 2010; Whites grew from 13.2% in 2000 to 23.2% in 2010; Asian population remained almost unchanged at 13.3% in 2010 compared to 13.2% in 2000; Other grew from 3.4% in 2000 to 4% in 2010. The number of people in the district shrank by almost 15% to around 3,500 people. This represents less than 10% of the number of residents considered to live in Echo Park. The demographic shift from Latino to White

16837-477: The play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (and its derivative, My Fair Lady ), and due to attaining a mainstream level in storyline and sets, is considered the "crown jewel" of this ' Golden Age '. At the height of his fame in the early 1970s, Charles Bronson was the world's No. 1 box office attraction, commanding $ 1 million per film. In the 1970s, the films of New Hollywood filmmakers were often both critically acclaimed and commercially successful. While

16986-462: The poor earnings of the interurban system, with profits of $ 151,000 in 1905 rising to $ 402,000 in 1907 (equivalent to $ 5.12 million and $ 13.1 million in 2023). However, in 1909, earnings were only $ 75,000. Huntington had begun long negotiations with Harriman about consolidating the Los Angeles electric railways beginning in 1907. There had always been a difference between the two men as to

17135-422: The popularity and utility of the system in an extended sequence in his 1924 film Girl Shy , where, after finding one Red Car too crowded, he commandeered another and drove at high speed through the streets of Culver City and Los Angeles. In response to a proposal to establish the first bus company in Los Angeles by William Gibbs McAdoo , Pacific Electric and the Los Angeles Railway proposed their own system,

17284-402: The primary source of the most commercially successful and most commercially successful movies in the world. Hollywood is considered to be the oldest film industry, where the earliest film studios and production companies emerged. It is the birthplace of various genres of cinema —among them comedy , drama , action , musical , romance , horror , science fiction , and epic —and has set

17433-629: The production side of the business. Soon they were the heads of a new kind of enterprise: the movie studio . The US had at least two female directors, producers and studio heads in these early years: Lois Weber and French-born Alice Guy-Blaché . They also set the stage for the industry's internationalism; the industry is often accused of Amero centric provincialism . Other movie makers arrived from Europe after World War I: directors like Ernst Lubitsch , Alfred Hitchcock , Fritz Lang and Jean Renoir ; and actors like Rudolph Valentino , Marlene Dietrich , Ronald Colman , and Charles Boyer . They joined

17582-485: The purpose of the railway, with Huntington seeing the PE as a means to facilitate his real estate efforts, and Harriman seeing it as part of the Southern Pacific's overall transportation system in Southern California . Harriman left Huntington alone until 1910, when the former refused to allow the latter to run a line to San Diego that would have interfered with a competitive arrangement Harriman had worked out with

17731-554: The region attracting millions of workers. There were several years when the company's income statement showed a profit when gasoline and rubber were rationed and much of the populace depended on mass transit. At peak operation toward the end of the war, the PE dispatched over 10,000 trains daily and was a major employer in Southern California. However, the equipment in use was old and suffered from deferred maintenance. The nation's last interurban Railroad post office (RPO) service

17880-602: The remaining 20%. Huntington could expand the PE as he saw fit, but he was not to compete with existing SP lines. A byproduct of this sale was that Harriman sold the banking unit of his Wells Fargo Company to Hellman who merged it with his Nevada Bank operations and established the Pacific Coast's largest, most powerful bank. On June 6, 1903, Huntington created the Los Angeles Inter-Urban Railway, capitalized at $ 10 million (equivalent to $ 339 million in 2023), with plans to extend lines to Santa Ana , Newport Beach ,

18029-434: The reservoir. In 1891, the four owners of the surrounding area gave up 33 acres (13 ha) of land around the reservoir to the city so that it could be used as a park. The city began work landscaping the park in October 1892. City parks superintendent Joseph Henry Tomlinson chose the name because of echoes he heard during the construction of Echo Park Lake in 1892. By 1895, the park and accompanying boathouse were completed. By

18178-449: The same creative teams often worked on films made by the same studio. For example, Cedric Gibbons and Herbert Stothart always worked on MGM films, Alfred Newman worked at 20th Century Fox for twenty years, Cecil B. De Mille 's films were almost all made at Paramount , and director Henry King 's films were mostly made for 20th Century Fox . At the same time, one could usually guess which studio made which film, largely because of

18327-469: The same sets and wardrobe and even mass scenes were used for different time-sharing crews. Also, foreign unemployed actors, playwrights, and winners of photogenic contests were chosen and brought to Hollywood, where they shot parallel versions of the English-language films. These parallel versions had a lower budget, were shot at night and were directed by second-line American directors who did not speak

18476-576: The scale of George Lucas 's $ 1 billion prequel to the Star Wars Trilogy , The Blair Witch Project earned the distinction of being the most profitable film of all time, in terms of percentage gross. Pacific Electric Railway The Pacific Electric Railway Company , nicknamed the Red Cars , was a privately owned mass transit system in Southern California consisting of electrically powered streetcars , interurban cars, and buses and

18625-485: The secret winner. In May 1903, Huntington made an overnight trip to San Francisco and worked out an arrangement with Harriman. The Pacific Electric would get the Los Angeles Traction Lines, SP's San Gabriel Valley Rapid Transit Railway line, the 6th Street franchise, and some downtown trackage. In return, Harriman got 40.3% of PE stock, an amount equal to Huntington's, with Hellman, Borel and De Guigne owning

18774-466: The ship as if "we're making a commercial for the White Star Line". Even The Blair Witch Project (1999), a low-budget indie horror film by Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick , was a huge financial success. Filmed on a budget of just $ 35,000, without any big stars or special effects, the film grossed $ 248 million with the use of modern marketing techniques and online promotion. Though not on

18923-481: The south closed in 1958 as the Golden State/Santa Ana (Interstate 5) neared completion. The Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority was established in 1951 to study the possibility of establishing a publicly owned monorail line running north from Long Beach to downtown Los Angeles and then west to Panorama City in the San Fernando Valley. In 1954, the agency's powers were expanded to allow it to propose

19072-494: The spread of film companies to other parts of the US, outside New York. Many filmmakers worked with equipment for which they did not own the rights to use. Therefore, filming in New York could be dangerous, as it was close to Edison's company headquarters, and close to the agents the company sent out to seize cameras. An alternative was Los Angeles , which had mild winters, a large selection of places to film, and, most importantly, it

19221-451: The studios in order to achieve their artistic visions. The apogee of the studio system may have been the year 1939, which saw the release of such classics as The Wizard of Oz , Gone with the Wind , Stagecoach , Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Wuthering Heights , Only Angels Have Wings , Ninotchka and Midnight . Among the other films from the Golden Age period that are now considered to be classics: Casablanca , It's

19370-463: The sweep, over 200 protesters clashed with LAPD, who arrested 179 protesters. The encampment and ensuing incident became a major flashpoint in LA's homelessness crisis. Of the 183 homeless individuals living at Echo Park Lake, only 17 had successfully transitioned into permanent housing as of March 2022. In February 2023, councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez announced plans to remove the fence that encircles

19519-723: The theaters, as the MPPDA controlled every theater in the country through the Big Five studios. Throughout the 1930s, as well as most of the golden age, MGM dominated the film screen and had the top stars in Hollywood, and they were also credited for creating the Hollywood star system altogether. Some MGM stars included "King of Hollywood" Clark Gable , Lionel Barrymore , Jean Harlow , Norma Shearer , Greta Garbo , Joan Crawford , Jeanette MacDonald , Gene Raymond , Spencer Tracy , Judy Garland , and Gene Kelly . Another great achievement of American cinema during this era came through Walt Disney's animation company . In 1937, Disney created

19668-594: The time was an independent city. In the Sultan's Power, directed by Boggs for Selig Polyscope Company, also starring Bosworth, is considered the first film shot entirely in Los Angeles, with shooting at 7th and Olive Streets, in 1909. In early 1910, director D. W. Griffith was sent by the Biograph Company to the West Coast with his acting troupe, consisting of actors: Blanche Sweet , Lillian Gish , Mary Pickford , Lionel Barrymore and others. They started filming on

19817-454: The world, with 2,160 daily trains over 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of track. It operated to many destinations in Southern California, particularly to the south and east. The Southern Pacific now began to emphasize freight operations. From 1911, when revenue from freight was $ 519,226 ($ 17 million adjusted for inflation), freight revenue climbed to $ 1,203,956 in 1915 (equivalent to $ 36.3 million in 2023), 13% of total revenue. During

19966-640: Was built around the Temple Street horsecar, which was later upgraded to electric streetcar as part of the Yellow Car system. Highland Park was developed along the Figueroa Street trolley lines and railroads linking downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena. Huntington owned nearly all the stock in the Pacific Electric Land Company. West Hollywood was established by Moses Sherman and his partners of

20115-399: Was claimed as the first to have been filmed in Los Angeles , in 1907. A plaque was unveiled by the city, in 1957, at Dearden's flagship store on the corner of Main Street and 7th Street, to mark the filming on the site when it had been a Chinese laundry. Bosworth's widow suggested the city had got the date and location wrong, and that the film was actually shot in nearby Venice , which at

20264-432: Was considered moderately diverse ethnically. The breakdown was Latinos , 64%; Asians , 18.8%; whites , 12.9%; blacks , 2%, and others, 2.3%. Mexico (41.3%) and El Salvador (15.2%) were the most common places of birth for the 53% of the residents who were born abroad, a figure that was considered high compared to the city as a whole. The median household income in 2008 dollars was $ 37,708, a low figure for Los Angeles, and

20413-577: Was cut in 1938, Redondo Beach, Newport Beach, Sawtelle via San Vicente, and Riverside in 1940. When the San Bernardino Freeway opened in 1941 but was not yet connected to the Hollywood Freeway, while the "Four Way" overpass was being constructed, westbound car traffic from the SB freeway poured onto downtown streets near the present Union Station. PE's multiple car trains coming and going from Pasadena, Sierra Madre, and Monrovia/Glendora used those same streets

20562-527: Was destined for use as the site of a high school. Echo Park resides in both Los Angeles City Council District 13 under Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez and Los Angeles City Council District 1 under Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez . The Los Angeles Fire Department Station 20 is in the area. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) operates the Rampart Community Police Station at 1401 West 6th St., 90017, located near Echo Park in

20711-593: Was later utilized when the Southern California RTD was designing and building the Metro Blue Line light rail line. The Blue Line, the first modern mass transit line in Los Angeles since the discontinuation of the Red Car service, was first opened in 1990. The few remaining trolley-coach routes and narrow gauge streetcar routes of the former Los Angeles Railway "Yellow Cars" were removed in early 1963. The public transportation system continued to be operated by

20860-459: Was of such great concern by the late 1930s that the influential Automobile Club of Southern California engineered an elaborate plan to create an elevated freeway-type Motorway System, a key aspect of which was the dismantling of the streetcar lines, replacing them with buses that could run on both local streets and on the new express roads. When the freeway system was planned in the 1930s the city planners planned to include interurban tracks in

21009-431: Was only 90 miles to the border of Mexico , in case they needed to run if Edison's enforcement agents found them. By 1912, most major film companies had set up production facilities in Southern California , near or in Los Angeles , because of the region's favorable year-round weather. The 1908 Selig Polyscope Company production of The Count of Monte Cristo , directed by Francis Boggs and starring Hobart Bosworth ,

21158-412: Was operated by PE on its San Bernardino Line. This was inaugurated comparatively late, on September 2, 1947. It left LA's new Union Station interurban yard on the west side of the terminal, turned north onto Alameda Street at 12:45 pm and reached San Bernardino at 4:40 pm, taking three hours for the trip while making postal stops en route as required. It did not operate on Sundays or holidays. This last RPO

21307-464: Was possible is that, with so many movies being made, not everyone had to be a big hit. A studio could gamble on a medium-budget feature with a good script and relatively unknown actors: Citizen Kane , directed by Orson Welles (1915–1985) and often regarded as the greatest film of all time , fits this description. In other cases, strong-willed directors like Howard Hawks (1896–1977), Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980), and Frank Capra (1897–1991) battled

21456-402: Was pulled off May 6, 1950. Aware that most new arrivals planned to stay in the region after the war, local municipal governments, Los Angeles County and the state agreed that a massive infrastructure improvement program was necessary. At that time politicians agreed to construct a web of freeways across the region. This was seen as a better solution than a new mass transit system or an upgrade of

21605-674: Was received in September 1942 to abandon the shuttle line to General Hospital which company officials said had been operating at a loss for several months. The Glendale line survived to the early 1950s due to the convenience of a subway into downtown Los Angeles and used the company's only modern equipment, a group of streamlined PCC cars. In 1940, Pacific Electric sold its Glendale , Burbank , and Pasadena operations to Pacific City Lines . San Bernardino operations were sold to San Bernardino Valley Transit. PE carried increased passenger loads during World War II, when Los Angeles County's population nearly doubled as war industries concentrated in

21754-587: Was that many actors who had made their careers in silent films suddenly found themselves out of work, as they often had bad voices or could not remember their lines. Meanwhile, in 1922, US politician Will H. Hays left politics and formed the movie studio boss organization known as the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA). The organization became the Motion Picture Association of America after Hays retired in 1945. In

21903-536: Was the largest electric railway system in the world in the 1920s. Organized around the city centers of Los Angeles and San Bernardino , it connected cities in Los Angeles County , Orange County , San Bernardino County and Riverside County . The system shared dual gauge track with the 3 ft 6 in ( 1,067 mm ) narrow gauge Los Angeles Railway , "Yellow Car," or "LARy" system on Main Street in downtown Los Angeles (directly in front of

22052-494: Was under Mexican rule . Griffith stayed there for months and made several films before returning to New York. Also in 1910, Selig Polyscope Company of Chicago established the first film studio in the Los Angeles area in Edendale , and the first studio in Hollywood opened in 1912. After hearing about Griffith's success in Hollywood, in 1913, many movie-makers headed west to avoid the fees imposed by Thomas Edison , who owned patents on

22201-637: Was written by two future winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature : Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961), the author of the novel on which the script was nominally based, and William Faulkner (1897–1962), who worked on the screen adaptation. After The Jazz Singer was released in 1927, Warner Bros. gained huge success and were able to acquire their own string of movie theaters after purchasing Stanley Theaters and First National Productions in 1928. In contrast, Loews theaters owned MGM since forming in 1924, while

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