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. Westlake Park was built in the 1880s as a reservoir connected to the city's systems of zanjas (trenches). When the city abandoned the zanja system for a pressurized pipe system, smaller reservoirs were converted into parks. By the 1890s, the park was a vacation destination surrounded by luxury hotels. MacArthur Park, renamed in honor of General Douglas MacArthur, is Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument #100.; Richard M. Bates, Jr. designed the1926 Westlake Theatre (636 South Alvarado Street) in the Spanish Baroque-style. In 1935 S. Charles Lee remodeled the theater, which is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #546.; Architect Claude Beelman designed the 1924 Gothic revival style Elk's Lodge No. 99, (607 South Park View Street) which later became the Park Plaza Hotel and is Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument #267. This view of MacArthur Park looking west includes the Westlake Theater (lower right corner), Wilshire Boulevard curving off around the lake (left), and the Park Plaza Hotel (high-rise with the arched doorway across the park).
Type
image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;11 x 15 cm. Photographic prints
If you're wondering about permissions and what you can do with this item, a good starting point is the "rights information" on this page. See our terms of use for more tips.
Share your story
Has Calisphere helped you advance your research, complete a project, or find something meaningful? We'd love to hear about it; please send us a message.
