Post #401894 by DJ Terence Gunn on Mon, Aug 18, 2008 2:09 AM

On 2008-08-17 21:25, Tipsy McStagger wrote:

i'm not convinced....the yellow door building is our mark from the vintage photo...look at the trim above the door...it has the same three half round strips as the one in the photo....plus, architectural details/ motifs remain consistant in buildings as they are being built......they don't arbitrarily "mix em' up"....the brick detail on the roof line of the place with the yellow door is identical to the brickwork in the photo... ....vy's jewelry does not match the building in the slide.

Excellent observations, Tipsy! The door part I don't agree with yet, as the door in the current photo of Vy's Jewelry cannot be fully seen at the top (and it's only a side view anyway). They may be identical. However, the brick motif above the front is uniqe to the three buildings. If one pans upwards on the google street cam (what a wonder that is!) one can see this motif on the upper part of the building. Bravo, Tipsy! However, I'm not completely convinced that this is, in fact, the mystery location. It may be, of course; but as any possible brick motif (namely, the one shown in the mystery photo) is hidden by an awning at Ry's Jewelry, there's no telling that the same motif isn't there -- even if the motif is there and wasn't extended to the upper part of the building. More than likely there isn't such a motif there. But without somebody actually going and taking a look under the awning, we'll never know.

If the current photo (if it is the same building that the mystery place is located in) is 550 Grant Avenue, and the mystery photo indicates an adjacent business at 544, then there was rezoning. But more importantly, there is an anomoly in numbering along Grant Avenue -- then and now. The fact that 'The Place' was located at 546 Grant Avenue in the 1950s, and that there is no 546 Grant Avenue currently, proves rezoning/numbering. Still, this is the general area, and the numbers are somewhat logically close enough -- though 550 and 544 are numbers apart.

However, if there was rezoning, the mystery location may not be at the current 550 Grant location at all (despite any similarities), and either further up the street or further down. A lot of these store fronts had/have similar facades (though not always similar brick motifs -- especially the one indicated above), and with the proverbial door to the left (as one looks at the store).

Anyway, I'm going to bow out of this thread now, as I'm getting too obsessed with it. (I love a mystery and I love a challenge and I am prone to indulgence!) I've made some input and observations on this thread, hopefully some helpful and insightful, and I will continue to follow the thread as an interested observer.

May the mystery be solved soon! Sorry to say this, but I'm going to laugh my ass off if the mystery location turns out to be in a different Chinatown in a different city altogether! I'm hoping it won't be, though, as we've gone so far to get this far.

-T.G.