nick f2007
Sunset Strip at Horn Avenue, West Hollywood, 1974
The triangular intersection of Sunset, Horn and Holloway Drive has long been one of the Strip's most pulsating, and for decades it has been particularly blessed with some landmark favorite venues.
To start with the background: The Classic Cat (8844) was, in the opinion of a lot of people who visited (I didn't), the most elegant and lavish of the Strip's topless joints. It had replaced the short-lived Jerry Lewis Club, which the entertainer opened, it was said, to counter former partner Dean Martin's popular place up the Strip. It later became Tower Records' video and classical outlet, and now the space is being reworked again.
The Kavkaz Russian restaurant, set slightly up the hill on Horn, had a long tenure but closed not long after this; eight years later the space was taken over by an enterprising young chef, Wolfgang Puck, and his original Spago became part of LA--and restaurant--history. Puck took his pioneering venue to Beverly Hills in 1997; one of the ubiquitous Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf cafes sits below the original old building, which awaits its next chapter. 8801 Sunset was originally a Dolores drive-in eatery and was later the site of an outlet for entrepreneur Earl "Mad Man" Muntz's 4-track stereo cassette system (you were living high if your car was fitted out with one of these set-ups).
The Tower Records building was constructed in 1971, and this store, perhaps the most famous in the chain, became the place to shop, hang out, or spot music legends rummaging through the aisles--from Nancy Sinatra to Ray Manzarek to Elton John. There were record-release events and signings. And the oversized album-cover displays arrayed around the building caught the eye from all directions. It closed in 2008 to almost unanimous disappointment. After being painted a garish blue (this seems to have become customary for high-profile vacant Strip buildings) it was converted to a boutique. A mammoth development with a fitness club on the lower level had been proposed, but the city of West Hollywood's planning commision, which usually approves everything that comes its way, denied the project a couple of times. Something will eventually replace the building, which despite a lot of effort (including that of some friends of mine), was denied historical-landmark status.
One of this intersection's must luminous businesses, Book Soup, was about a year away from its opening. In these days many of the Strip's oversized billboards promoted Las Vegas entertainment showrooms.
Sunset Strip at Horn Avenue, West Hollywood, 1974
The triangular intersection of Sunset, Horn and Holloway Drive has long been one of the Strip's most pulsating, and for decades it has been particularly blessed with some landmark favorite venues.
To start with the background: The Classic Cat (8844) was, in the opinion of a lot of people who visited (I didn't), the most elegant and lavish of the Strip's topless joints. It had replaced the short-lived Jerry Lewis Club, which the entertainer opened, it was said, to counter former partner Dean Martin's popular place up the Strip. It later became Tower Records' video and classical outlet, and now the space is being reworked again.
The Kavkaz Russian restaurant, set slightly up the hill on Horn, had a long tenure but closed not long after this; eight years later the space was taken over by an enterprising young chef, Wolfgang Puck, and his original Spago became part of LA--and restaurant--history. Puck took his pioneering venue to Beverly Hills in 1997; one of the ubiquitous Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf cafes sits below the original old building, which awaits its next chapter. 8801 Sunset was originally a Dolores drive-in eatery and was later the site of an outlet for entrepreneur Earl "Mad Man" Muntz's 4-track stereo cassette system (you were living high if your car was fitted out with one of these set-ups).
The Tower Records building was constructed in 1971, and this store, perhaps the most famous in the chain, became the place to shop, hang out, or spot music legends rummaging through the aisles--from Nancy Sinatra to Ray Manzarek to Elton John. There were record-release events and signings. And the oversized album-cover displays arrayed around the building caught the eye from all directions. It closed in 2008 to almost unanimous disappointment. After being painted a garish blue (this seems to have become customary for high-profile vacant Strip buildings) it was converted to a boutique. A mammoth development with a fitness club on the lower level had been proposed, but the city of West Hollywood's planning commision, which usually approves everything that comes its way, denied the project a couple of times. Something will eventually replace the building, which despite a lot of effort (including that of some friends of mine), was denied historical-landmark status.
One of this intersection's must luminous businesses, Book Soup, was about a year away from its opening. In these days many of the Strip's oversized billboards promoted Las Vegas entertainment showrooms.