Ocean Avenue

by Jenny Revitz Soper

Title

Ocean Avenue

Artist

Jenny Revitz Soper

Medium

Photograph - Digitally Enhanced

Description

The Georgian Hotel nicknamed "The Lady" was built during the peak of California's coastal expansion in the 1920s and 1930s. The historic Santa Monica hotel showcased Romanesque Revival and Art Deco architecture and was among the first skyscrapers to call Ocean Avenue home.

As Hollywood's elite flocked to the beach to escape the valley heat, The Georgian's popularity grew. One of the last strongholds of the Prohibition Era, the basement restaurant was considered a true Speakeasy, which hosted big-name gangsters like "Bugsy" Siegel and Al Capone and dozens of film stars and industry moguls like Charlie Chaplin and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. Carole Lombard and Clark Gable were known to stop by. (It's rumored that their meetings took place when Gable was still married to his previous wife.)

In the 1960s, the building was converted to apartments; in the 1990s, it returned to hotel form. All that back and forth must have confused some of the ghosts and spirits and left them as hostages – One employee tells a story about getting a telephone call from a guest room that was not occupied and he just heard giggling. A guest claims to have checked into their room put their stuff down, and jumped into the shower. When they came out the television was on, the bed was open and the suitcase was empty. When the restaurant is empty, employees have heard loud sighs, and gasps and have been startled by a disembodied voice who greets them with, 'Good Morning.'

Uploaded

November 4th, 2017

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