The Fountain Pen Shop was a historic fountain pen retailer, museum, and repair shop in Downtown Los Angeles, and later, Monrovia, [1] [2] originally established in 1922. [3] The shop is considered to be the oldest pen shop in the United States operated continuously by the same family. [1] [4] Its original location was at the intersection of Sixth and Spring Streets, with its second Downtown Los Angeles location near Pershing Square [3] and its Monrovia location at 2640 S. Myrtle Ave. [5]
The Fountain Pen Shop was founded by the grandfather of Fred Krinke and one partner. Krinke's father inherited the business in 1940, subsequently turning it over to Krinke in 1975. [3] Krinke, who was born in 1928, [4] had helped his father at the shop since World War II, during which time the business was backlogged with pen repair orders. Krinke began assisting at the shop in between his classes at Pasadena Junior College. After the war ended, Krinke was drafted for military service, serving in the Air Force. Upon his return, he decided to go into the pen business full-time. [3] In addition to his work at the shop, Krinke made appearances at the Los Angeles International Pen Show [6] --attending every year since its inception [7] --and the Southern California Pen Collectors Club, the latter of which he founded. [8] In 2019, Krinke passed away at the age of 91, leaving the fate of the 97-year-old business to be determined. [4]
Monrovia is a city in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains in the San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 37,931 at the 2020 census. Monrovia has been used for filming TV shows, movies and commercials.
South Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 25,619, up from 24,292 in the 2000 census. It is located in West San Gabriel Valley. It is 3.42 square miles (8.9 km2) in area and lies between the much larger city of Pasadena, of which it was once a part, and the metropolis of Los Angeles. South Pasadena is the oldest self-builder of floats in the historic Tournament of Roses Parade.
The Pacific Electric Railway Company, nicknamed the Red Cars, was a privately owned mass transit system in Southern California consisting of electrically powered streetcars, interurban cars, and buses and was the largest electric railway system in the world in the 1920s. Organized around the city centers of Los Angeles and San Bernardino, it connected cities in Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Bernardino County and Riverside County.
Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) contains the central business district of Los Angeles. In addition, it contains a diverse residential area of some 85,000 people, and covers 5.84 sq mi (15.1 km2). A 2013 study found that the district is home to over 500,000 jobs. It is also part of Central Los Angeles.
The San Gabriel Valley, often referred to by its initials as SGV, is one of the principal valleys of Southern California, lying immediately to the east of the eastern limits of the city of Los Angeles and occupying the vast majority of the southeastern part of Los Angeles County. Surrounding landforms and other features include the following:
Randy's Donuts is a bakery and a landmark building in Inglewood, California which is near Los Angeles International Airport. It is built in a style that dates to a period in the early 20th century that saw a proliferation of programmatic architecture throughout Southern California. This style had its heyday from the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s. By the 1950s however, the trend of designing structures in the shape of the product sold there had changed to focus on signs rather than architecture itself. Randy's is represented by a giant doughnut on the roof of an otherwise ordinary drive-in that is a dedicated doughnut bakery. The building was designed by Henry J. Goodwin.
The culture of Los Angeles is rich with arts and ethnically diverse. The greater Los Angeles metro area has several notable art museums including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the J. Paul Getty Museum on the Santa Monica Mountains overlooking the Pacific, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), and the Hammer Museum. In the 1920s and 1930s Will Durant and Ariel Durant, Arnold Schoenberg and other intellectuals were the representatives of culture, in addition to the movie writers and directors. As the city flourished financially in the middle of the 20th century, culture followed. Boosters such as Dorothy Buffum Chandler and other philanthropists raised funds for the establishment of art museums, music centers and theaters. Today, the Southland cultural scene is as complex, sophisticated and varied as any in the world.
The Third Street Promenade is a pedestrian mall esplanade, shopping, dining and entertainment complex in the downtown area of Santa Monica, California which originally opened as the Santa Monica Mall on November 8, 1965. It is considered a premier shopping and dining district on the Westside and draws crowds from all over the Greater Los Angeles area. Due to easy access to Downtown Los Angeles via the Big Blue Bus rapid transit service, E Line's terminus station and the Pacific Coast Highway-Santa Monica Freeway Interstate, the neighborhood's north-south thoroughfares connecting to Muscle Beach, Venice Canal Historic District, Marina del Rey, Ballona Wetlands and Los Angeles International Airport, and its proximity to historic U.S. Route 66, Santa Monica Pier, Palisades Park, Tongva Park, Santa Monica State Beach and the Pacific Ocean coupled with Los Angeles's mild mediterranean climate, it is also a popular tourist destination.
The Grove is a retail and entertainment complex in Los Angeles, located on parts of the historic Farmers Market.
The A Line is a 48.5-mile (78.1 km) light rail line running north–south between Azusa and Long Beach, California, passing through Irwindale, Duarte, Monrovia, Arcadia, Pasadena, South Pasadena, Northeast Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, South Los Angeles, Watts, Willowbrook, Compton, Rancho Dominguez, and Long Beach in Los Angeles County. It is one of the six lines in the Los Angeles Metro Rail system. Opened in 1990, it is the system's oldest line with an estimated 22.38 million boardings per year as of December 2017. It is operated by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA). The line is the longest standard-gauge light rail service in the world.
Broadway, until 1890 Fort Street, is a thoroughfare in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The portion of Broadway from 3rd to 9th streets, in the Historic Core of Downtown Los Angeles, was the city's main commercial street from the 1910s until World War II, and is the location of the Broadway Theater and Commercial District, the first and largest historic theater district listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). With twelve movie palaces located along a six-block stretch of Broadway, it is the only large concentration of movie palaces left in the United States.
Wine of the Month Club is the oldest sustained mail order wine club in the United States, having been founded in 1972 by Paul Kalemkiarian Sr. and succeeded in ownership by his son Paul Kalemkiarian Jr. in 1989. Located in Monrovia, California, the Club delivers two bottles of wine, one domestic, one international, to the doors of members nationwide every month, every other month, or every quarter. The Club aims to expose members to a broad range of grape varieties and wine regions. Those wines that are featured have had to endure a series of appraisals by the owner and cellarmaster Paul Jr., based on both their quality and their price. Ultimately, only twelve of 300–400 or so wines that are evaluated each month are selected. The Club also offers wine gifts and made-to-order food and wine gift baskets. Along with wine shipments, customers are sent the Wine of the Month Club’s monthly newsletter which provides extensive background information for each of the featured wines.
Fred L. Baker was an industrialist, business owner, shipbuilder, president of the Automobile Club of Southern California and member of the Los Angeles City Council.
Joseph Francis Sartori was a Los Angeles banker and civic leader, founder and President of Security-First National Bank, was one of the founders of the Los Angeles Country Club and the City of Torrance, and was influential in the development of the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel, Subway Terminal Building and Los Angeles Civic Center.
Desmond's was a Los Angeles-based department store, during its existence second only to Harris & Frank as the oldest Los Angeles retail chain, founded in 1862 as a hat shop by Daniel Desmond near the Los Angeles Plaza. The chain as a whole went out of business in 1981 but Desmond's, Inc. continued as a company that went in to other chains to liquidate them. Desmond's stores in Northridge and West Covina were liquidated only in 1986 and survived in Palm Springs into the first years of the 21st century.
Harris & Frank was a clothing retailer and major chain in the history of retail in Southern California, which at its peak had around 40 stores across Southern California and in neighboring states and regions. Its history dates back to a clothing store founded by Leopold Harris in Los Angeles in 1856 near the city's central plaza, only eight years after the city had passed from Mexican to American control. Herman W. Frank joined Harris in partnership 32 years later in 1888.
Boston Stores, originally and later still often called The Boston Store, was a chain of department stores based in Inglewood, California, just southwest of Central Los Angeles, that operated from 1934 through 1996.
Wineman's was a chain of department stores in Southern and Central California which started in Ventura in 1890, and later became iconic local department stores of Oxnard and, later, Huntington Park.
Retail in Southern California dates back to its first dry goods store that Jonathan Temple opened in 1827 on Calle Principal, when Los Angeles was still a Mexican village. After the American conquest, as the pueblo grew into a small town surpassing 4,000 population in 1860, dry goods stores continued to open, including the forerunners of what would be local chains. Larger retailers moved progressively further south to the 1880s-1890s Central Business District, which was later razed to become the Civic Center. Starting in the mid-1890s, major stores moved ever southward, first onto Broadway around 3rd, then starting in 1905 to Broadway between 4th and 9th, then starting in 1915 westward onto West Seventh Street up to Figueroa. For half a century Broadway and Seventh streets together formed one of America's largest and busiest downtown shopping districts.
Palisades Village is a local shopping village located in Pacific Palisades, California, in the downtown area of the neighborhood known as the "Village", from which the shopping center derives its name.
