Intl. Notebook | Oct 28 2011 |
![THE LIFE AQUATIC](/images/headline/1475.png)
This shot of an Aqua Maiden in the pool of L.A.’s Town House Hotel, circa 1951, certainly evokes an era that has vanished in the mists of time. For tens of millions of Americans the ’50s were nothing to romanticize, but for some it looked like this. The Town House was once considered one of the finest hotels in California, if not the entire U.S., and was well known not just for the Aqua Maidens paid to entertain guests with their watery frolicking, but for its bar/club The Zebra Room. The hotel and the surrounding neighborhood eventually fell into disrepair, and for a while the Town House was used as subsidized housing. Today the structure is on the National Register of Historic Buildings, but the Maidens and the famed Zebra Room are long gone.