Introduce Myself & the City I grew up in... Los Angeles

A lot of people move to Los Angeles from all over the country and the world. But I was born in the god forsaken city lol. And for a while I've known about the somewhat deep history of Los Angeles but I decided to go around and take photos of some of the history of Los Angeles. I was born in Compton California, which was a beautiful suburb of Los Angeles in the early 70s. We had great lawns and cactus gardens. People use to ride their horses around certain parts all the time. My school was awesome too. In the 3rd grade I was learning Algebra II and we also were learning the names of every state and its capitals. We were responsible for learning how to draw each state also. Someone decided they would have to destroy that education slowly over time so no one would see it enough to go against it. The same was eventually done in the white neighborhoods . In the 5th grade my family moved to the historic West Adams area Los Angeles. This area is near USC the University established in 1880.

These amazing homes were once Frat Houses and now are Dorm properties of USC.

At the time I didn't know it was an historic part of Los Angeles. There was a lady that lived down the street and she would walk down very slowly dress like a man. She had a man's brownish-grey suit on with a gangsters hat on almost covering her face. All the kids were scared of her because she was so tall and had a very pot belly. We thought it was a man for years. Then one of the adults told us who she was. Her name was Big Mama Thornton, the woman who first sang the song "Hound Dog" in 1952.

This second video is how Big Mama Thornton looked back then. Actually the video is 10 years after we first saw her in 1974.

A song that would later go on to be recorded by Elvis Presley. By the way, there's a strange connection because my aunt was in a group called The Sweet Inspirations, (Whitney Houston's mother Cissy Houston was also in the group) who also went on to be background singers for Aretha Franklin and Elvis Presley when he made his Las Vegas come back. When Elvis died I remember my sister came to the backyard where I was playing and she was crying. I asked, "what's wrong", she said "Elvis is dead". I said "No he's not", she said, "its on the news". As I went into the house I wondered why was she crying? Later I remembered she would go to Vegas with my mother to see our aunt sing with Elvis and she had met and knew him. I didn't think about this until almost 30 years later lol.

Back to the historic West Adams area where I grew up... right down the street from USC and the Coliseum where the Los Angeles Rams use to play football is the oldest home in Los Angeles. Its called the Stimson home, a Richardsonian Romanesque mansion where lumber millionaire Thomas Douglas Stimson lived in 1891. He had the home built after moving to Los Angeles from Chicago for a healthier environment. At the time the Stimson home was the most expensive home to build of its time at $150,000.

The photos were hard to take because the Church owns it now and is protected behind a gate and a lot of bushes

Just two properties down is the very ornate St. Vincent Catholic Church at the corner of Adams and Figueroa Street

More historic old homes in the area in the Victorian and Craftsmen style

These next photos are on the street I grew up on in historic West Adams. This church is at the corner of my street. Just across the street from the record store where I bought my first records. Flash records. Of course its gone now.

One summer my friends and I were walking around at night and there was a large white duck waddling down the street. It was late at night and I didn't want the duck to walk out in the street and get killed so I put belt around its neck and walked it home and put it in my backyard. I later found the owner and took the duck back to him.

This is the church that the movie "Bulworth" staring Warren Beatty and Hallie Berry was filmed at.

Also, in 1925 Buster Keaton filmed "Seven Chances" at this same church

Right across the street and up the hill is the house where they filmed "The People Under The Stairs" by Wes Craven.

Next door to the Wes Craven movie house is a former home of Hattie McDaniel the first black person to win an Academy Award for the movie "Gone With The Wind". She lived from 1895 to 1952

This photo is from google.

I didn't take a picture of her home because I was busy taking pictures of the houses across the street from her home and "The People Under The Stairs" movie house.

Here's a few more pictures from the same street. We use walk down this street on our way to school every day in 5th and 6th grade.

Just past my elementary school is the home where musical legend Marvin Gaye was killed in 1984. The school bus for High school picked us up from in front of this house everyday.

A few blocks north I would play video games in the arcade in the early 80s, just down the street from my girlfriend's house. Directly across the street from her house is the recording studio and business offices of music legend Ray Charles. My girlfriend was good friends of a girl who went on to be a pretty good actress by the name of Theresa Randall. She played in a lot of movies like Spike Lee's Girl 6, Malcolm X. She also played Martin Lawrence's wife in Bad Boys with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence.

Just wanted to share photos from Los Angeles the city I grew up in. I'll go around and take more interesting pictures from this giant place