Brutal cold, whipping wind. An abbreviated dash to the empty campus, where the Charlie-Beast seems to be in his element. This will be a Three Dog Night (read the Band Name Origin paragraph), I’d say.
rDay Two-Hundred-Forty-Five
Day: November 25, 2015
P.O.P., Looking Back
When I first came to LA in the early 1960s, P.O.P. (aka Pacific Ocean Park) was a Santa Monica seaside amusement park often mentioned in the same breath as attractions like Disneyland. Today, with the foul weather and a non-functioning camera, I again turn to my ancient archives of unprocessed b & w negatives, finding an undated set of exposures marked P.O.P. but which I estimate to have been taken sometime in the 1968 – 71 timeframe. If I recall accurately, P.O.P. went bankrupt by the late 60s and was eventually demolished. My favorite image of the series is this one:
Some other rather uninspired photos were on the roll, but I will display them anyway here for a little more context.
Another photo in the same batch shows the intersection of Bay and Main Street in Santa Monica. I think Bay led right down to the beach, and may have been an entrance to P.O.P. Here we can compare my early photo with a 2015 Google Street View capture.
Finally, the same roll of film contained a couple of unmarked, unexplained scenes that I cannot identify. But they don’t look like Santa Monica to me. Maybe someone can help out with this one.
