52 Ancestors: Land - Sig's scrapbooks

This weeks' blog prompt, LAND, immediately reminded me of my paternal grandfather, Sig Levy, who spent much of his life selling commercial real estate.  He and his three brothers opened the firm Levy Brothers in the early 1900's.  Unfortunately, due to some family "disagreements" that I don't thoroughly understand, they didn't stay together throughout their lives.

In the letters between my grandparents in 1916-1919, he often mentioned a "big deal" he was working on but as of yet, I haven't learned any of the specifics of these deals.  But as I've stated on numerous occasions, he was an avid scrapbooker - maybe the love of scrapbooking is what brought my grandparents together? 

For this blog, I pulled out one (out of about 10-12) of his scrapbooks and decided to take a closer look.  It will take A LOT of time to digest everything that's included in the books but that is far down on the list of to-do items.  So for today I thought I'd just include a few articles that might have some interest in the history of Fresno.

Here's a sample of one of the pages.

You can see that the articles are glued, some folded, and even some staples in there which makes scanning difficult.  But the Flip Pal Mobile Scanner came to the rescue!

Fresno Bee, March 16, 1961

This is hard to read but it says:

CHANGES IN TRAFFIC:  This photo shows the one way street pattern which will being in downtown Fresno March 26th between Shields Avenue on the north and San Benito Street on the south.  Southbound traffic will flow from Wishon Avenue to North Fulton Street and then across Fulton Lane, now under construction, and onto Broadway.  Northbound vehicles will travel along Van Ness Avenue to North Van Ness Avenue and onto Moroa Avenue.  Fulton Street will carry two way traffic with Divisadero Street as the exit for northbound traffic.  Bee aerial photo by Loyal Savaria from a Whirl-Wide Helicopters, Inc, aircraft.

Being that I haven't been to Fresno in close to 40 years, I have no idea how this compares to the traffic pattern today.  But I do remember hearing several of those street names as a child.

Fresno Bee, March 21, 1961

For those in Fresno, is the Mayfair Market still there?

60 unit Marlo Carousel Motel under construction near Roeding Park
date unknown

Here's how it looked after completion.

On June 11, 1971, The Fresno Bee reported on Page C4:  

"There are six, maybe eight, fine restaurants in the area to which one can take visitors from San Francisco and Los Angeles and not have to apologize," says R. 'Bob' Duarte, operator of the Carousel Restaurant in Carousel Motel across from Roeding Park Playland on West Belmont Avenue... The facility is unique in the Valley because of its merry-go-round lounge complete with horses and calliope music. Hanging brass chains and bas-reliefs give the lounge and restaurant an almost haunting air. A decade ago the Fresno architectural firm of Robert Stevens Associates was cited by the San Joaquin Chapter of the American Institute of Architects for the design."

Per Wikipedia, the Hotel Fresno was built in 1912 and is the oldest surviving hotel in Fresno.  It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.  But how many people realize it was sold to Northern Realty in 1961 for $500,000?

It's a long article so I have just included the first part here

Wikipedia also states that it was vacant for 30 years beginning in 1983 and in 2019 was under renovation to become affordable housing for 79 families.  I'll bet that hotel would have a lot to say if walls could talk.

So, so much more that my grandfather kept all these years and one day, if I live long enough, I will get through it all.