Tea at Trianon: Christmastime in Old L.A.

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Christmastime in Old L.A.

From Curbed Los Angeles:

On November 16, 1950, the city’s tallest elevator—at seven stories—debuted at the Robinson’s department store in Downtown LA. According to the Los Angeles Times, thousands of people lined the street in front of the store to view windows that told the story of “The Littlest Angel” by Charles Tazewell. “So large was the crowd, that for a time traffic was slowed almost to a standstill in the vicinity of the store,” the Times reported.

Those lucky enough to muscle their way inside to the main floor found vested boy choristers singing carols as a pageant of fashions featuring 50 models played out on a dozen stages. At the “Crystal Aisle of Gifts” on the sixth floor, “gift secretaries wearing uniform dresses of vivid chartreuse accented with corsages of holly” aided shoppers. But the biggest draw was Saint Nicholas, who “received his own special domain on the fifth floor.”

Now the year is 2019 and most shopping malls sit empty, while once-mighty retailers like Sears and Barney’s shutter stores with reckless abandon. It wasn’t always this way. Long before Amazon Prime, residents of Los Angeles, and the United States at large, spent countless tired hours during the holiday season pushing through crowded department stores searching for gifts and the occasional bargain. There were also luxurious holiday experiences to be had.

One of the fastest-growing cities on the West Coast in the 20th century heyday of the department store, Los Angeles was home to legions of towering shopping complexes that competed fiercely for customers, particularly during the last weeks of the year.

As early as 1908, the LA Times was reporting on the December crush of shoppers in the Downtown retail district: “Broadway, Spring Street and all the other thoroughfares on which holiday goods are sold surged with the mob that was scrambling to fill stockings; the big stores were jammed.”

Stores like Bullock’s, Coulter’s, Robinson’s, and May Co. attracted flocks of holiday shoppers with elaborate window displays, towering Christmas trees, and the chance to speak to jolly Old Saint Nick himself. It was a tradition that would carry on through the 1980s.

“Christmas was mind-blowing,” author and historian Julia Bricklin recalls of the Bullock’s in Torrance. “Carolers everywhere, Santa Claus, white lights and decorations, the exquisite free wrapping rooms, and free (I think) hot chocolate at the various eating rooms.” (Read more.)