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.
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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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