3 replies to this topic

[Phil Hackett]

This building is a fixture in Hollywood and used to be Bekins Storage. There are things inside here that haven't been seen or touched in 90 years, so I've been told. I wonder, since it's not that far from Beverly Hills (thinking of the American Model Raceways HQ), whether there might be some forgotten slot car history here. PdL and Scott better find out...

 

This is the first video I have seen about the history of the building. 

 

[Dave Crevie]

Christies had an auction there not so long ago. Some very interesting stuff. I'll try to find it on the net, but it might have been too long ago. 

 

Incidently, there is an auction going on right now of Game of Thrones set items. The throne sold for $1.4 mil. 

[Phil Hackett]

The studios have auctions quite frequently. The first "sale" i knew of was when MGM was selling wardrobes from various movies (MGM is about 4 miles from my residence) in the late 60s. Ever wonder where hippies got their vintage clothing? Much of it was from these types of sales. MGM and 20th Century Fox were going through financial problems about that time and were selling off all kinds of things. Both companies eventually sold off real estate (Century City ring a bell?) and anything else to raise cash. MGM had several backlots around here... the one at Jefferson @ Overland was the Hogan's Heroes location complete with the German Army half-track parked in plain view of the intersection. I believe Universal Studios is the last backlot in use in Hollywood.

[Dave Crevie]

The studios have auctions quite frequently. The first "sale" i knew of was when MGM was selling wardrobes from various movies (MGM is about 4 miles from my residence) in the late 60s. Ever wonder where hippies got their vintage clothing? Much of it was from these types of sales. 

 

My girlfriend of the time and her two friends, would commandier my mother's sewing equipment in our basement rec room, to make hippie clothing for sale at the head shops in the Chicago area. One of their big items were those knee length blouses with the flouncy sleeves. Those and the long pseudo-silk head bandanas that everyone was wearing. (like Jimmy Hendrix). They would cut out the patterns on the ping-pong table with those electric scissors that looked like fishes and were so popular back then. And do the sewing on my mother's fancy sewing machine, that she used to make crafts for her church group. She made hundreds of those stuffed pink elephants that the church group sold at their bazaars, and were given to kids that had surgery at the local hospital. She also made a lot of bean-bag frogs, and pin cushion dolls, that to me were akin to voodoo dolls. Not something a church should be selling, in my opinion.