Our apartment building on a cloudy day last fall:
Through the public library's image archive, we found out that our apartment building was built in 1921 and was originally called the Belvedere Apartments. You can still see the name "Belvedere" imprinted in the sidewalk.
I'm not sure, but it seems like the Belvedere must have originally been a luxury apartment building. In our apartment unit, there is large archway between the living room and bedroom that is now filled in, but must have been open at one time. It makes me wonder if this unit and the one next to it were at one time connected as well. It would make sense, because we live in a historic area of Santa Monica known as Ocean Park. A lot of the little cottages around here used to be vacation homes.
Nowadays, while still a nice building, it is far from luxurious. The biggest problem we have right now is a back deck and stairwell that is falling down on itself. Somewhere along the way some smarty decided to switch out the wooden steps with concrete ones, and the weight is pulling the whole thing down.
On another note, this image archive has a lot of wonderful images and is a great resource both for scholarly researchers and for people just having fun (like me). We're working on a similar digital library at Pepperdine, and someday it will be filled with great, useful images like these. :)
Amazing how the building has not really changed in 90 years! I think it's lovely to be living in a place of such history! Hoping a two bedroom apt will open there for you as it feels like such a Perfect Spot! (One we will be visiting in five wks from today! Wooohooo!)
ReplyDeleteLove, M.
it's amazing you can have yuki there. doesn't look like you could from the outside! is there any chance the landlords will make the decking safe again?
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