The bored and dissolute nightclub crowd – in many incarnations – ghosts of 1926

Club Casa Del Mar opened in 1926 –

Club Casa del Mar

Whoa – this image… The bored and dissolute nightclub crowd, the possibly under-age cigarette girl, the gentleman… or mobster center frame…

Brushing the cobwebs away I can state the facts, the Casa Del Mar is now a luxury hotel, prior to that it was a rec center for enlisted men in WWII, the headquarters of Synanon (a bogus drug rehab program and later a disbanded “church”). Prior to it’s latest incarnation it was a Pritikin Longevity Center.

But, right now I’m fascinated by ghosts…

Here are a few — lifeguards training outside the Renaissance Revival building under construction designed by architect, Charles F. Plummer; sometime in the 1920s.

lifeguard drill casa del mar santa monica 1926

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5 Comments

  1. February 28, 2013

    Dearest Vic
    So this would be the picture in question…
    Now would we be wondering about the cigarette girl or the customers?
    Former in L’Aimant, later in Shalimar would be my punt.
    Yours ever
    The Perfumed Dandy

    • February 28, 2013

      L’Aimant powdery and floral and young? Shalimar – sophisticated and formulated in the memory of an empress and her favorite garden?
      I think your punt made it through the goal posts 😉

  2. February 28, 2013

    Great photos! I especially love the hat? crown? headpiece? in the top photo.

  3. February 28, 2013

    I think it was her uniform – very spangly!

  4. December 30, 2014

    Dig the chick sitting next to mobster man, with her deep red triangle blush application situation!

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