Raymond Chandler's Header image  


Created and edited by
Loren Latker

 

 



CURRENT LOCAL EVENTS




What YOU know about the early life of

Raymond Chandler

is FLAWED! Durham, MacShane, Hiney, et alii, were a bit OFF!
The full scoop on the Timeline and Residence pages

A request from my daughter led to a history project about "my" Los Angeles. I'm a second generation native Californian and Angeleno. I wanted my grandson Cole to know Los Angeles the way I know it: The whole crazy diverse melting pot that was, is and will always be Los Angeles - even if it comes to a dead halt from too many people and cars, you can't see any of it through the smog and the tears there from, or a MEGA quake reduces it to a 400 square mile pile of rubble! 

The secondary purpose was to have a web site for Raymond Chandler fans not living in Los Angeles, or those living in the Los Angeles metropolitan area not familiar with their city, to get a flavor of the "Los Angeles" Raymond Chandler lived, worked and roamed in from 1912 to 1946. That goal was met with one email!

On June 4, 2007 I received an email from Arnfinn Rong of Norway who wrote in part, "Words can not express my gratitude for your thoroughly research and detailed lay-out with pictures and everything of any angle a Chandlerisque writer or just a die-hard Chandler fan could dream of .... Anyway, you have made a dream come through for me by providing me with all these wonderful pictures. I used to sit at Google Earth and look up the Drexel residence, the 6500 Camino de la Costa and so forth (not to mention the place of Chandler Last Goodbye; Mount Hope), but observing it from space via satellites just didn't do it. You, on the other hand, have now "done" it for me ... Thanks so much once again, you have no idea how you have blessed me. One final example: Today as I have been reading TLG, I have used the books "Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles" by Silvestri and "Chandlertown" by Thorpe as pictorial reference guide to the Mean Streets. Your web site, when I came across it tonight, have made these books practically obsolete in a split second. Thanks a million!"

Rong, Arnfinn. "Re: The Lost Goodbyes." E-mail to web master/author. 06 June 2007.

This retirement history project is such a great adventure that it has turned into "Shamus Town"©®.

Raymond Chandler's Shamus Town©®

Shamus Town is my history of Los Angeles built around the locations where the author Raymond Chandler lived, and the locations he wrote about, 1912-1946. To date I have collected over 1000 original color and black and white postcards and photographs. I have also taken over 3000 original photographs of the places Raymond Chandler lived and places mentioned in his fiction. I have also made time lapse videos of the car rides his fictional characters took, including Philip Marlowe. And, I've just started. There will be much more, including PodCasts, a new Chandler Mystery Map, a DVD and possibly a book.

However, there is more than just Shamus Town here, and not all of Shamus Town will fit on a web site! Originally it was just going to be a DVD based on Macromedia Flash. That was before Apple released the iPod. Everything changes, and so has Shamus Town. You will find the finished parts of the Shamus Town Project here.  You'll also find vintage panoramas, photo art, videos and maybe a few other surprises as well. And the best part - it will continue to grow and expand!

So stay tuned!

WarningIconNOTE: Make sure you are NOT blocking PopUp's! Many pages in this site use popup images, including this page. If you are blocking popup's you may not see the pictures. If there is a red link, there is a good chance it is to a popup picture.

To close an image window simply mouse click anywhere in the image.

Also, the "Close Window" Java command used through-out this site seems to fail after a number of Java Script based images are opened. If the close window button fails, just close the window the old fashioned way.

Regarding the Vintage Maps page, an Adobe Flash based page: Be sure to read/scroll through the comments & credits, which will give page two time to load. IF, when you select the "Explore Maps" button, and page two opens mostly blank, with no menu or picture of Raymond Chandler, it is because the content didn't fully loaded. Simply reload using your browser's "reload" button. The main map page animation will restart and you can again select the "Explore Maps" button. Page 2 will then appear with visible content.

IF the animated map on the first page doesn't load -- you just see a completely blank, or solid blue page with an empty grey square, with or without a "Get Adobe Flash Player" message, you will need to install the current Adobe Flash Player - see below.

Finally, if you navigate to the slide show page, click on the image link and nothing but a blank, or solid blue page opens - no content loads, with or without a large empty grey square - you need the Adobe Flash player, available here:

get Flash Player

Last updated 12/11/2014

Page © 2004 to 2014 Loren Latker
Site © 2004 to 2014 Loren Latker

 
Current Projects
 

Radio Shows:

NPR's Criminal #13


Podcasts:

The Nevada Gas Car Ride - Night complete w/ narration

The Nevada Gas Car Ride - Day w/o narration

The Little Sister Car Ride - w/o narration

7/26/2010 Dr. Annie Show on Cougar love and Cissy & Ray

8/30/2010 Dr. Annie Show with Powers Boothe on Chandler

9/06/2010 Dr. Annie Show on love and Cissy & Ray

9/13/2010 Dr. Annie Show on love, reuniting Cissy & Ray and the court hearing

2/7/2011 Dr. Annie Show on reuniting Cissy & Ray

2/28/2011 Dr. Annie Show on reuniting Cissy & Ray

3/7/2011 Dr. Annie Show on reuniting Cissy & Ray

Raymond Chandler's Nevada Gas Ride

Raymond Chandler's Little Sister Ride

Raymond Chandler's Tour de Los Angeles

 

Traditional and e-Books:

 Stucco Monster