Post #394116 by bigbrotiki on Tue, Jul 15, 2008 11:08 AM

On 2008-07-15 06:58, Bora Boris wrote:
I went by the other day and took a few pictures. I didn't notice this at first but it looks like they tried to incorporate some of the outside design elements into their 1950's logo. The building is covered in these guys.

Bigbro, the marquee no longer says Vagabond Theater it is now called the Hayworth Theater.

Thank you, Boris, you are a dedicated urban archeologist!
This proves the validity of the "Take a few minutes and photograph it" thread again. Now I cannot find one pic of the Vagabond exterior, only this lousy ad from the 70s when it was and art/revival movie house calling itself the NEW Vagabond:

Here's a quote from a patron of that period:
"While the Vagabond was the most rundown of all the revival houses I attended in my ten years in LA (compared to the Encore, Nuart, Sherman, Fox Venice, Vista, New Beverly, Tiffany, etc.), the prints were outstanding and the patrons interesting (I met several Directors there, including Rouben Mamoulian)."

Nice try with the facade-to-menu comparison, Boris, but the whole building housing the theater and the restaurant was built in the so-called ornate Churri#@$%&e (!) style, as it states here!:

"The Vagabond/Hayworth Theater (designated in 1983 as Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument 268) is representative of the Spanish Colonial Revival style, also called the ornate Churriqueresque style. The building was designed in 1926 by noted architect Stiles O. Clements, a major Los Angeles figure, who designed about 100 buildings along Wilshire Blvd."

...while the illustration on the menu clearly depicts the traditional shield of a Dayak warrior from Malaysia, Borneo:

Now you should have known that! :D

The choice of this logo is further proof that the restaurant subscribed to a broader Seven Seas/Ports of Call/Exotica concept (just like the poem) rather than being strictly Polynesian....(or, that owner and customers really did not care or notice :D )
Here are their rum cocktail offerings which run along the same theme:

Now here's a snag: If the Vagabond THEATRE opened in 1926, but Blanding's book was not published before 1928, how could it have been named after it? Here is my urban archeology theory:
Just as the theater has been re-named into the Hayworth recently, it must have opened under a different name, acquiring the Vagabond title only when the building was taken over by the Vagabond's House Restaurant in 1946.

...and last not least, a little off-topic:

On 2008-07-14 22:42, Koolau wrote:
It's fascinating to find these type of people who were well known, productive and influential in their day, and are now all but forgotten (see bandleader Paul Whiteman).

Forgotten by many, but not by all:

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2008-07-15 11:45 ]