Downtown L.A.
The Mystery of Speakeasies
Theatres &
Jessie Elovitz | Tina Ly | Jessika Wang
Digital Humanities 199
Abstract
This project was inspired by Downtown Los Angeles’ historical theatres and their potential connection to the culture around alcoholic bootlegging through tunnels and speakeasies during Prohibition. Though speakeasies are secretive by nature, we investigate suspected operating speakeasies inside historical theatres and the culture around Prohibition as a whole. Using mapping technology, individual sources, and thorough research, we create a plausible argument that Downtown L.A. theatres hid speakeasies during Prohibition. The questions we want to address are: “Is there evidence of speakeasies in theatres during the Prohibition era in 1920-1933?” and “How was the culture around theatres and speakeasies affected both during Prohibition and today?”.
About us
Jessie is a senior American Literature and Culture major, who’s double minoring in Digital Humanities and Professional Writing. Her participation in this course was prompted by an interest in the theatres of downtown Los Angeles, as well as a natural curiosity about speakeasies during Prohibition. For this project, Jessie was mainly responsible for the creation of CARTO maps, as well as writing summaries and conducting research.
Tina is currently a senior majoring in Statistics and minoring in Digital Humanities. She was particularly interested in seeing what could be uncovered as there is no current comprehensive research around theatres and possible tunnel systems that were used for the purposes of speakeasies. For this project, Tina helped with sourcing and finding tunnel locations to create the CARTO maps, contacted various individuals to find more about speakeasies, and contributed to CARTO map explanation and concluding thoughts.
Jessika is a senior majoring in Communications and minoring in Digital Humanities and Entrepreneurship. She has a love for history and architecture, allowing her to dive into the background and social implications of historical L.A. theatres. For this project, Jessika researched the Prohibition era and its relationship to speakeasies and theatres, and designed the website.