A Citibank now stands on the corner of Sunset and Crescent Heights where Russian Actress Alla Nazimova built a compound of Spanish-style villas and bungalows in the 1920s. She lived there, enjoying the company of other film and literary stars including Dorothy Parker, F Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.
Journalist Kaitlin Parker of WEHOville brings the story of the corner back to light with archival photographs and a tour to the bowels of the current mini-mall and bank that stand there now. Today’s view is decidedly unromantic, unglamorous and certainly uninspiring. Seeing what was then, and what is now, makes one want to protect any history still standing today in Los Angeles.
Check out the short movie below, which came to the Buzz courtesy of reader Richard Battaglia and the Windsor Square Hancock Park Historical Society.
WEHOville News: Garden of Allah: Rediscovering WeHo’s Lost Oasis
Fascinating. But the name is pronounced NaZIMova.