 |
Westside Nautical Bar Crawl - 4/30/2011 (Photos start Pg 5) |
Murph
Grand Member (4 years) 
Joined: Jul 11, 2006
Posts: 671
From: SoCal
|  Posted: 2011-05-02 4:38 pm Permalink
John.... THANKS!
What an excellent time!
The bars were a blast but the best part was the awesome group of crawlers you assembled!
This upbeat group could have made a LA Mortuary Crawl fun!
[ This Message was edited by: murph 2011-05-02 21:38 ]
|
Don Brewski
Tiki Centralite
Joined: Nov 30, 2008
Posts: 55
From: Santa Monica Ca.
| Posted: 2011-05-02 8:06 pm Permalink
Excellent report for those of us not there! Happychi and myself had a previous engagement. Next time! I live walkin' distance from the Galley!
|
PolyD
Member
Joined: May 01, 2011
Posts: 4
From: San Diego
| Posted: 2011-05-03 07:05 am Permalink
A morturary crawl??? That's just cool!!!!
|
congawa
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Aug 11, 2008
Posts: 340
From: Long Beach, CA
| Posted: 2011-05-03 09:45 am Permalink
Quote:
|
On 2011-05-02 16:38, Murph wrote:
John.... THANKS!
What an excellent time!
The bars were a blast but the best part was the awesome group of crawlers you assembled!
This upbeat group could have made a LA Mortuary Crawl fun!
[ This Message was edited by: murph 2011-05-02 21:38 ]
|
|
Well, considering we weren't all that far away from Westwood Memorial Park (Marilyn Monroe), Holy Cross Cemetery (Bela Lugosi, Bing Crosby) and Hillside Memorial Park (Al Jolson, Jack Benny, George Burns), that might indeed be a fun crawl!
Holy Cross has a grotto area near the graves of Bing "Waikiki Wedding" Crosby and Bela "Island of Lost Souls" Lugosi, which might even be semi-poly-pop (if you replace the Catholic statuary with Tikis).
There's an Al Jolson statue at Hillside that might make for a good photo op:
This is also the Jolson memorial -- not to give Crazy Al any ideas or anything:
Caltiki Brent
|
Tonga Tom
Grand Member (first year) 
Joined: Sep 24, 2009
Posts: 1034
From: 2 mi. south of the Hut
| Posted: 2011-05-03 11:24 pm Permalink
Oh but wait, here's more photos from Don's...
Secret tapa stash...
JOHN-O, which way do we go?
Thanks PolyD, you got Sven and me in the photo...but still, no Adrian.
"Hey, keep it quite down there!"
Al, you soooo CRAZY!!!
"Ah ah ee ee tooky tooky."
"Ah ah ee ee tooky tooky."
Thanks PolyD...We're on the way to the Warehouse...
|
crazy al
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jun 25, 2002
Posts: 1783
From: CA
| Posted: 2011-05-04 1:54 pm Permalink
unlike the president, Tom decided to release these photos....
really, just trying out some ideas for statuary around this place, when a TCer buys it and brings it back up to speed.... Yaki-Tavern??? Yaki-Hut.... i like it.
|
Tonga Tom
Grand Member (first year)
Joined: Sep 24, 2009
Posts: 1034
From: 2 mi. south of the Hut
| Posted: 2011-05-15 3:10 pm Permalink
What the Hell, here's some more photos. These ones are from the Warehouse...
|
Tonga Tom
Grand Member (first year)
Joined: Sep 24, 2009
Posts: 1034
From: 2 mi. south of the Hut
| Posted: 2011-05-15 3:16 pm Permalink
And, just a couple from Shanghai Red's...
|
JOHN-O
Grand Member (first year)
Joined: May 16, 2008
Posts: 2458
From: Dogtown, USA
| Posted: 2011-05-15 6:34 pm Permalink
[ This Message was edited by: JOHN-O 2011-05-16 13:18 ]
|
congawa
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Aug 11, 2008
Posts: 340
From: Long Beach, CA
| Posted: 2011-05-15 9:13 pm Permalink
Quote:
|
On 2011-05-15 18:34, JOHN-O wrote:
CalTiki's look said it all.
Pieces of Eight (aka Shanghai Red's)...
It was fool's gold. Or at least it is now. 
Well I guess 4 out of 5 ain't bad.
|
|
Shanghai Red's was better a bit after this, when we followed the lead of the others and went to the outside patio. There, amidst the foliage and water entrance was the real remainder of Pieces of Eight.
Caltiki Brent
|
bigbrotiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Mar 25, 2002
Posts: 10562
From: Tiki Island, above the Silverlake
| Posted: 2011-05-15 10:54 pm Permalink
Wow Tom, those are the best interior shots of the Warehouse I have ever seen in all these years, they really show off the crazy clutter that makes this restaurant special and prove what a cool guy Burt Hixson was to create such a place!
I just wish the current management would be ascool as he was. Instead they seem to be kind of oblivious to the specialness of the place. But at least they are keeping it as is! We do appreciate that!
Which certainly cannot be said about Pieces of Eight/Shanghai Red's
The two factors that still echo Paul Page's song about the place are the VIEW:
"You take a million lights along the bay..."
...and the LANDSCAPING of the entrance with its "stream"- crossing bridges:
Otherwise the utter genericness of the place was mind-boggling to me. I am talking floor to ceiling corporate hotel chain decor, with nondescript paintings of flowers and other crap on the walls.
(pic clipped from the net)
Not even the BAR had one shred of anything in it that -and I am not even thinking Pieces of Eight- would have any context with the CURRENT name:
This name to me conjures up some exotic seafaring character, no? Well, someone up in management must have decided that nautical was tacky, and even though the "Specialty Restaurant" group that this place belongs to made its name through theme restaurants, there is NOTHING relating to the theme left here. You might as well be in some hotel convention room. (See Cammo's Hanalei Hotel discussion.)
This disparity becomes even more apparent when one delves a little into the true history of the name, which actually ties into the area and is just the kind of thing WE here would have appreciated:
Shanghai Red actually existed, and so did his bar! Here is a little history about the two:
"Every able drinking seaman who hit San Pedro washed up in Red's saloon, but all they knew about Red was that he ran the roughest waterfront bar in the world, boasted that he could lick any man in the joint and was a soft touch for any sailor who had been rolled or lost his pay in a crap game or was otherwise momentarily embarrassed. His real name was Charles Oliver Eisenberg, and he was born on San Francisco's Barbary Coast, where he earned his trade early as a bar boy in a waterfront dive. When he was old enough, or maybe before, he joined the Navy and saw the world. He went back to the land again in Shanghai and bought into a waterfront saloon. That's where he earned his name. When he had a stake he came home and opened up on Beacon Street. The day Red died they padlocked his doors and the place never opened again. Some years ago the whole street was condemned for a redevelopment project."
ALSO: "The toughest bar in L.A. history, Shanghai Red's in San Pedro, employed a burly, tattooed woman nicknamed "Cairo Mary" to break up bare-knuckled fights among the sailors returning home after WWII"
Here is Cairo Mary in action in 1953!:
The ultimate irony is that the lone surviving artefact from the place (as far as I can find), the cool "Glo-Dial" clock from Shanghai Red's:
....now resides in the DESERT: in Palm Springs, at this place: http://www.fishermans.com/shanghaireds.php
To make things come full circle, I had been in that joint just last year, meeting with Wildsville Man and the luckless then-proprietor of the Caliente Tropics bar and coffee shop. Oh the strange ways of the hospitality industry (thank god I am not part of it!)
Somebody should go and check out how they got their name and that clock. It's actually not a bad place, in a down to earth kinda way. Much more a waterfront dive (in the desert!) than its generic namesake by the waterfront.
|
Tonga Tom
Grand Member (first year)
Joined: Sep 24, 2009
Posts: 1034
From: 2 mi. south of the Hut
| Posted: 2011-05-16 11:51 am Permalink
Thank you Sven for the compliments, as well as your ongoing wealth of information.
We will definitely have to visit Shanghai Red's this weekend while we're at Caliente.
|
congawa
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Aug 11, 2008
Posts: 340
From: Long Beach, CA
| Posted: 2011-05-16 2:47 pm Permalink
I was thinking the same thing...it's not far north of the TravelLodge, at 235 S. Indian Canyon Drive. Sven, thanks for the rundown on the original San Pedro Shanghai Red's. San Pedro is the former home of a lot of lost waterfront dives. It would have been great to see Cairo Mary in action (albeit at a bit of a distance from said action).
Caltiki Brent
|
congawa
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Aug 11, 2008
Posts: 340
From: Long Beach, CA
| Posted: 2011-05-16 2:58 pm Permalink
The Shanghai Red name also lives on in San Pedro, courtesy the San Pedro Brewing Co. on 6th Street:
http://sanpedrobrewing.com/
Among their hand-crafted ales is this one:
Shanghai Red Ale
Sweet & malty - this full-bodied beer is made with a spectrum
of roasted barley to produce a “round” flavor that is complimented
by Cascade hops. Silver Medal LA County Fair ‘10
Caltiki Brent
|
Chuck Tatum is Tiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: May 12, 2011
Posts: 1674
From: Southern Cailifornia
| Posted: 2011-05-16 5:11 pm Permalink
Quote:
|
On 2011-05-16 14:58, congawa wrote:
The Shanghai Red name also lives on in San Pedro, courtesy the San Pedro Brewing Co. on 6th Street:
http://sanpedrobrewing.com/
Among their hand-crafted ales is this one:
Shanghai Red Ale
Sweet & malty - this full-bodied beer is made with a spectrum
of roasted barley to produce a “round” flavor that is complimented
by Cascade hops. Silver Medal LA County Fair ‘10
Caltiki Brent
|
|
After a long day at the waterfront, I'm ready for a cold one
and by cold one I mean "Shanghai Red Ale" Sweet & Malty, just like my woman
and better then a punch in the kisser from "Cairo Mary"
"Shanghai Red Ale" just drink it!
|
