signs

... from the ride home: two sets of big neon signs in the sky.  On the left, the easy ones: a pair advertising the Asbury Apartments, built overlooking MacArthur Park (then called Westlake Park), and super-luxury when they opened in 1925: they even had an elevator that went down all the way to the parking garage, and were electrified throughout.  They were originally to have been called the San Jacinto Dwellings: were they renamed after Asbury Park, New Jersey?  The 1939 WPA Guide to Los Angeles - my favorite reading material on the city's history at that time - is no help.

You can rent one right now!  There's actually rather a nice looking studio apartment, just $1,590 a month for all 600 square feet of it (and for the privilege of navigating the MacArthur Park area at night).  Oddly, there's no mention of the garage in the details.

But what actually intrigues me is the Storage sign - intrigues me, because unlike the Asbury outfit, I can't find any reference to it online.  When does that date from?  $20 is impossibly cheap now, but would have been reasonable ... when?  The lettering looks as though it, too, belongs to the 1920s or 30s, when I would have thought that was hugely expensive for a storage unit.  Has it, too, been renovated, like the Asbury signs, by LUMEN, LA's project that expands into the Living Urban Museum of Electric and Neon Signs?  Of course, it might be easier to think this one through exploration ...