Tag: Faith

A friend told me he had gone for drinks in Glassell Park at a bar in a restored building, a renovated Spanish traditional like they once had all over Los Angeles.

I was curious if I could find out anything about the history of 3501 Eagle Rock Blvd. in the Los Angeles Times. I went online to the archives of the paper at the library and found out nothing.

I wasn’t really trying very hard. 

Instead, I got distracted by 1930s church advertising, display ads for places like Temple Baptist Church, April 15, 1933, “Was God Blowing Soap Bubbles When He Created a Sea!” 

There were Christian Scientists, Theosophists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Catholics, Congregationalists, Lutherans, and Swami Yogananda who would give a free lecture on “How to Analyze People at Sight.”

The variety, the selections, the choices were endless, a feast for the soul and the imagination. Out there, beyond you and the mirror and your mind, was a divine world of love and community.

Day Memorial Church said Jesus Christ, son of God, God the son, was not crucified on Friday, according to the scripture.  That church was Independent- Fundamental-Baptist Doctrines. Dashes and precepts.

First Methodist Episcopal advertised itself as “The Church with the Revolving Cross” on December 5, 1931. On that day you could also go to the First Unitarian Church on West Eighth Street, just east of Vermont to hear a lecture by Dr. John R. Lechner about Communism in America and “The Dilemma of the Liberal.”

July 30, 1932 advertised Dr. G.A. Briegleb from St. Paul’s Presbyterian. “Another Mountain Peak From Acts,” KFVD radio, Fridays at 10pm.

Electric signs, radio broadcasts, neon lit dreams and full color visions; everlasting life, the answers to life, the origin of life, the meaning of life; the answers to why we are here and where we are going and how we can get there.

It was all over Los Angeles, all you had to do was go and get it. 

“You’ll Fell a Little Bigger and Better!” proclaimed the LA Times, “When the church bells peal out Sunday morning, select your church and attend it. Don’t consider yourself a stranger, you’re not. The church owes you spiritual enlightenment and instruction. It’s your duty to receive it.”