In Praise of Mosaic Mary Poppins
Reader Monica sends in a fine capture of the exquisitely-tiled Poppins @ sunset and vine…
i’m ready to accept a cowboy mosaic a la catholic church, but there’s something very weird about julie andrews/mary poppins in mosaic. this thing is part of two wall pieces outside the washington mutual on sunset and vine. i can’t even start on the majesty that is the stained glass art that composes the whole entrance/door/middle wall, which looks like it’s depicting some sort of oppression/escape era, and i think i spotted an angry whale and a monster in the scrambling glass pieces, all very Not in the Biblical Sense but Very in the Biblical Sense. So here you go – Mary Poppins in the Biblical Sense.
Kudos Monica for not only isolating Mary, but also reminding us where Hollywood was born: WaMu at the corner of Sunset and Vine. Snippet from USC’s ever-reliable Ruth Wallach after the jump.
Untitled
1970, designed by Millard Sheets and Susan Herte. Executed by Dennis O’Connor. Former Home Savings and Loan, corner of Sunset and Vine.The plaque on the street corner by this mural reads: On this corner in December 1913 Hollywood was born with the filming of the first full-length feature movie, The Squaw Man. For 26 years this famous corner was the symbol of another entertainment medium, as NBC broadcast to the world from radio and television studios located here. On February 15, 1954, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and the Hollywood Radio and Television Society recognized the importance of Sunset and Vine by choosing this site for the entertainment industry’s time capsule, to be removed from beneath this plaque and opened February 15, 2004.
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zounds! was it opened in 2004? it looks pretty intact to me. my friend pointed out that there’s a fountain depicting zeus and (greek god i totes forgot/blanked on! thank you college!!) too. AFFILIATED WITH TIME CAPSULE? DO TELL, SOMEONE, RUTH, ANYBODY.
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Can someone explain the naked lady riding a bull backwards at the same Washington Mutual? (The “TIME CAPSULE”) I heard from a schyzophrenic guy in 1996 that the sculpture depicts the whore of Babylon from the Book of Revelations and that it indeed contains a time capsule underneath with a bunch of christian “artifacts”. I’d like to believe the pschyzophrenic. I’m not a biblical expert so if there are any of you readers that are well versed on “The Rapture” or even Omen movie aficionados, please explain this. Your own interpretations are ok. Speaking in tongues will be allowed only in this comment stream. Losanjealous eagerly awaits the 411.
People, people. Has Ruth Wallach ever steered you wrong?
The handle of Mary Poppins’ umbrella was a parrot head, it sometimes talked to her. I personally think of her as the Blessed Virgin Mary Poppins, Holy Nanny of Jesus, so rendering her in stained glass is highly appropriate. At least to me.
I’m sorry, but the schyzophrenic’s tale seems more plausible and far more entertaining than Ruth Wallach’s. I don’t remember that time capsule being opened either. There are usually a bunch of sinister looking crows perched on it, though.
My favorite mosaic is the one at the bank at the corner of Laurel Cyn and Ventura in Studio City…The Catholic padre holding the cross over the heads of the Indians was surely meant to be seen as inspirational, but my thought at first seeing it was that he was going to pummel them to death with it…
THE SCULPTURE INSIDE THE FOUNTAIN “EUROPA AND THE BULL” IS BASED ON GREEK MYTHOLOGY (THE BULL IS ZEUS)…….IN 1928 A SMALL MAQUETTE OF THE SCULPTURE WAS SHOWN AT THE BRAXTON GALLERY DOWN THE STREET ON VINE, WHICH WAS DESIGNED BY R.M. SCHINDLER
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