Noir Settings

[NOIRTRASH]

Los Angeles is prolly the most used location for noir setting. And Tampa, Florida ranks second. I don't know why. But plenty of noir writers make/made Tampa home. Dennis Lehane went to college here, and one of his books is set in Tampa. I just read a Michael Conelly book set in Tampa (he got a street name wrong). Even James Bond spent some time in Tampa. I cant imagine why.

Sixty years ago Tampa was cool and colorful, till LBJ and Urban Renewal bulldozed the cool places and built nigger public housing atop the best real estate adjacent to downtown. It killed the cigar industry and the Latin community of Ybor City. Its all gay bars now, with a fake street car to the cruise ship dock. In the 50s we had real Mafia and real whore houses and great cuisine.

Back then a Cuban Sandwich was roast pork atop Cuban bread, piled high with onion and pepper and cheese. Now its bologna and salami and ham on Cuban bread with a slice of American cheese. Its impossible to find a Deviled Crab Croquette. The old Seabreeze Restaurant usta make them, a whorehouse was upstairs. We usta buy sacks of them to eat across the street at the Causeway Drive In Movie. Its all gone.

The ethnic Spanish restaurants are replaced with SPAGHETTI WAREHOUSE and CHEESECAKE FACTORY etc. Shit fag tourists like.

 

[rjordan]

Los Angeles is prolly the most used location for noir setting. And Tampa, Florida ranks second. I don't know why.

I don't know why either, but I suspect there was a symbiotic relationship between literary noir and film noir.

Many of the early noir books became Hollywood films. The book fans followed the movies and movie fans found the books.

Also, in those days, Los Angeles was more like other large cities with a more definable downtown area, and identifiable landmarks (LA City Hall building featured every week in the opening of Dragnet, and on the LAPD Shield shown at the end). Hollywood provided a lot of scandalous storylines for noir, and downtown LA became the setting.

rj

 

[GoldenMaia]

Crazy...for some reason I thought New York would be a location in those books. Clearly I am not informed.

 

[TxRad]

Crazy...for some reason I thought New York would be a location in those books. Clearly I am not informed.

Neither is he. As usual, he's pulling crap out of his ass and throwing it out as fact. Chicago has a fair number of novels based there, as well as Boston, Kansas City, even New Orleans.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Crazy...for some reason I thought New York would be a location in those books. Clearly I am not informed.

Re-read what I wrote, then leap from the window.

I cant put my finger on where I eliminated any place on Earth.

 

[GoldenMaia]

Neither is he. As usual, he's pulling crap out of his ass and throwing it out as fact. Chicago has a fair number of novels based there, as well as Boston, Kansas City, even New Orleans.

Oohh. New Orleans stories. (Movies) nice setting.

 

[lovecraft68]

Los Angeles and Florida work because the heat and the sex appeal and beaches. "The City of Angels" is an irresistible trope line.

Florida in many parts is virtually lawless and scummy and seedy as all hell. The dregs of humanity run there to escape child support, any type of law enforcement and anyone chasing them.

New Orleans is great if you want to throw a little 'hoodoo' into your stories.

Chicago and New York offer the gritty inner city and you can throw in the elements, the cold and sleet type rain that can add to the atmosphere.

I suppose Boston can be considered that, but having spent a lot of time there and seen some of the alleged 'bad element' I find it vastly overrated.

Too bad its totally neglected because Providence RI could make a nice noir setting, you have some seriously underrated crime and sleaze here as well as a lot of old neighborhoods and historic settings

 

[rjordan]

Neither is he. As usual, he's pulling crap out of his ass and throwing it out as fact. Chicago has a fair number of novels based there, as well as Boston, Kansas City, even New Orleans.

Here ya go.

http://www.akashicbooks.com/subject/noir-series/

Noir books from just about every major city in the world, including Chicago, Boston, KC and NOLO). But if you were to dig a little deeper, you would likely find that Los Angeles and Florida (JBJ singled out Tampa) provide the bulk of the noir settings.

rj

 

[DirtyAllie]

Los Angeles and Florida work because the heat and the sex appeal and beaches. "The City of Angels" is an irresistible trope line.

Florida in many parts is virtually lawless and scummy and seedy as all hell. The dregs of humanity run there to escape child support, any type of law enforcement and anyone chasing them.

New Orleans is great if you want to throw a little 'hoodoo' into your stories.

Chicago and New York offer the gritty inner city and you can throw in the elements, the cold and sleet type rain that can add to the atmosphere.

I suppose Boston can be considered that, but having spent a lot of time there and seen some of the alleged 'bad element' I find it vastly overrated.

Too bad its totally neglected because Providence RI could make a nice noir setting, you have some seriously underrated crime and sleaze here as well as a lot of old neighborhoods and historic settings

Rumor has it you're Providence's bad element.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Los Angeles and Florida work because the heat and the sex appeal and beaches. "The City of Angels" is an irresistible trope line.

Florida in many parts is virtually lawless and scummy and seedy as all hell. The dregs of humanity run there to escape child support, any type of law enforcement and anyone chasing them.

New Orleans is great if you want to throw a little 'hoodoo' into your stories.

Chicago and New York offer the gritty inner city and you can throw in the elements, the cold and sleet type rain that can add to the atmosphere.

I suppose Boston can be considered that, but having spent a lot of time there and seen some of the alleged 'bad element' I find it vastly overrated.

Too bad its totally neglected because Providence RI could make a nice noir setting, you have some seriously underrated crime and sleaze here as well as a lot of old neighborhoods and historic settings

Most of George V. Higgins stuff is Boston based. Elmore Leonard used Detroit. But LA and Tampa get plenty because so many noir pulp writers lived here.

 

[SamScribble]

Are we to take it that urban renewal did Tampa no favours, James?

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Are we to take it that urban renewal did Tampa no favours, James?

In Tampa it made Ybor City look like Hiroshima after the bomb, displaced many of the Italian-Cuban population who made the cigars, and brought in 1000s of blacks to the new public housing. Blacks don't make cigars, tho.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

http://www.sabellatours.com/images/ybor.jpg

Old Ybor City-7th Avenue

 

[NOIRTRASH]

http://photonews247.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Street-Cleaner-water-trails-with-no-people-or-cars-on-7th-Avenue-in-Ybor-City-Tampa-FL.jpg


New Ybor City

 

[StrangeView]

For atmosphere and style, I'll take the old one every time.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

http://www.tbo.com/storyimage/TB/20140419/ARTICLE/140429969/EP/1/2/EP-140429969.jpg

The old Centro Asturiano Club in its prime

 

[le_kitty]

http://www.sabellatours.com/images/ybor.jpg

Old Ybor City-7th Avenue

Old pictures are always fascinating, especially when they can reveal how the modern world outside your window was once an entirely different one.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/bf/cb/8d/bfcb8d652d3dac0ad6a878f2b31134e9.jpg

GIBSONTON, adjacent to Ybor City, was a winter home for carnival performers. This guy is 8 1/2 feet tall. The woman is a major character in an old Talmage Powell noir novel.

 

[StrangeView]

http://www.tbo.com/storyimage/TB/20140419/ARTICLE/140429969/EP/1/2/EP-140429969.jpg

The old Centro Asturiano Club in its prime

Oh, I'm lovin' this!! Can't help but think we've lost something along the way somewhere.

 

[le_kitty]

Oh, I'm lovin' this!! Can't help but think we've lost something along the way somewhere.

lol, have you seen Midnight in Paris?

 

[lovecraft68]

As morbid as it sounds-and it is-I have a fascination with those pictures they used to take of the recently deceased. I find them hauntingly beautiful and of course sad. I saw one where it was a mother with her two children who had all died within a coupel days of each other of TB I think.

The definition of train wreck fascination I guess.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

In the old days one place differed from another; today the setting and inhabitants are identical, everywhere.

 

[TxRad]

In the old days one place differed from another; today the setting and inhabitants are identical, everywhere.

Not really, that is if you get out of the big cities. Small towns seem to have different flavors all their own.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

As morbid as it sounds-and it is-I have a fascination with those pictures they used to take of the recently deceased. I find them hauntingly beautiful and of course sad. I saw one where it was a mother with her two children who had all died within a coupel days of each other of TB I think.

The definition of train wreck fascination I guess.

Mortuary photos were very popular.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SqhhJb_P3Kk/S8IGhfa2kXI/AAAAAAAALj8/n034Qx9X-Ro/s1600/girl+with+book.jpg

Typical mortuary photo circa 1900.