Friday, June 6, 2008 – Gaylord and Cord

Wilshire Boulevard got its name from Henry Gaylord Wilshire, and the 1924 Gaylord apartments bear his name – 1924, architects, Walker and Eisen.  Wilshire was a politically active millionaire who bought a plot in the Westlake district and turned a city dump into Westlake Park, now MacArthur Park.  The story goes that when city planners proposed building a street that would bisect his property, he told them fine, but only if they named it after him.

The basics:

Henry Gaylord Wilshire (June 7 1861 - September 7, 1927) was a land developer, publisher and outspoken socialist who gave Wilshire Boulevard its name.  Born 1861 in Cincinnati Ohio, Wilshire came to Los Angeles in 1884. In 1895 he began developing 35 acres stretching westward from Westlake Park for an elite residential subdivision. He donated a strip of land to the city of Los Angeles for a boulevard through what was then a barley field, on the conditions that it would be named for him and that railroad lines and commercial or industrial trucking would be banned.

In 1900, Wilshire was arrested for speaking in a public park in Los Angeles. A judge dismissed the charges, but the incident caused Wilshire to leave Los Angeles for New York. Wilshire stood as the Nationalist Party congressional candidate for the 6th California district in 1890, for the British Parliament in 1894, for the 6th district again in 1900, for the Canadian Parliament in 1902, and for Congress from New York in 1904. He eventually returned to Los Angeles and made much of his connection with the now famous Boulevard that bore his name, although he had no involvement with its gradual expansion in the years while he was absent from the region. He made and lost several fortunes during his lifetime and died destitute.

See his 1907 book, Socialism Inevitable – "The contents of this volume consist almost exclusively of my editorials published within the past six years either in 'Wilshire's magazine' or in 'The Challenge,' its predecessor."

Nearby, hidden in the trees, is the Art Deco 1931 Auburn-Cord dealership built by Errett Lobban Cord (this guy). Cord once owned a lot of frontage on Wilshire, from here up into Beverly Hills.  This four-story building is still standing at 3443 Wilshire Boulevard, although now it's where you'll find the Counsel General of the Republic of Indonesia – no cool cars now.

If you wish to use any of these photos for commercial purposes I assume you'll discuss that with me. And should you choose to download any of these images and use them invoking the "fair use" provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976, please provide credit, and, on the web, a link back this site. 

Technical Note:

Photographs after March 3, 2008, were taken with a Nikon D200 – or a Nikon D70 when noted. All previous photographs were taken with the D70. The lenses used are (1) AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or (2) AF Nikkor 70-300 mm telephoto, or (3) AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 55-200 mm f/4-5.6G ED. Photography here is modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0.  The earliest photography in the archives was done with a Sony Mavica digital still camera (MVC-FD-88) with built-in digital zoom.

All text and photos, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - Alan M. Pavlik