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Image / Myer Siegel & Company in Westwood

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Title
Myer Siegel & Company in Westwood
Alternative Title
Los Angeles Photographers Photo Collection;
Creator
Schultheis, Herman
Contributor
Made accessible through a grant from the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation
Date Created and/or Issued
1937
Contributing Institution
Los Angeles Public Library
Collection
Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection
Rights Information
Images available for reproduction and use. Please see the Ordering & Use page at http://tessa.lapl.org/OrderingUse.html for additional information.
Description
Title supplied by cataloger.; Herman J. Schultheis was born in Aachen, Germany in 1900, and immigrated to the United States in the mid-1920s after obtaining a Ph.D. in mechanical and electrical engineering. He married Ethel Wisloh in 1936, and the pair moved to Los Angeles the following year. He worked in the film industry from the late 1930s to the mid-1940s, most notably on the animated features Fantasia and Pinocchio. His detailed notebook, documenting the special effects for Fantasia, is the subject of a 14-minute short-subject included on the film's DVD. In 1949, he started employment with Librascope as a patent engineer. Schultheis was an avid amateur photographer who traveled the world with his cameras. It was on one of these photographic exhibitions in 1955 that he disappeared in the jungles of Guatemala. His remains were discovered 18 months later. The digitized portion of this collection represents the images Schultheis took of Los Angeles and its surrounding communities after he relocated to the area in 1937.
In 1886 Myer Siegel opened his first store at Second and Main in Los Angeles. Designed by architect Allen G. Siple, the Westwood Village store, located at 1025 Westwood Boulevard, opened in December 1937 and was the fifth store in the chain following Downtown, Pasadena, Wilshire and Beverly Hills. The large glass brick panel above the marquee allowed light to enter the mezzanine, and marble wainscoting flanked the entrance which was paved in travertine. This building is still standing.
Aman walks by the newly opened Myer Siegel and Company at Christmas time in 1937. A sign for Desmond's on top of the Spanish tile roof of the building located at 1001 Westwood Boulevard is seen on the right.
Type
image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;11 x 15 cm.
Photographic prints
Identifier
00098486
Herman J Schultheis Collection; Los Angeles Photographers Collection;
N-007-926 8x10
CARL0005087242
http://173.196.26.125/cdm/ref/collection/photos/id/38483
Subject
Myer Siegel and Company
Desmond's
Department stores--California--Westwood (Los Angeles)
Stores & shops--California--Westwood (Los Angeles)
Art deco (Architecture)--California--Westwood (Los Angeles)
Glass blocks--California--Los Angeles
Signs and signboards--California--Westwood (Los Angeles)
Automobiles--California--Los Angeles
Streets--California--Westwood (Los Angeles)
Westwood Boulevard (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Westwood (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Schultheis Collection photographs
Siple, Allen G.,1901-1973

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