This building, built in 1928, was originally the Christian Science Church. It was modified at one point into office spaces to become the Mavar Professional Building. I don’t know if it’s still a Mavar property, but it looks like a good chunk of the building now belongs to Walker Advertising.
The W in the TV is the company logo. Walker Advertising is the parent company of 1-800-THE-LAW-2, Los Defensores and Allevio Legal. They are legal networks that match people with attorneys. The 1-800-THE-LAW-2 commercials run constantly on TV and one of the most recent ones (below) features a staged accident at the intersection of Cabrillo and 9th St, one block away from the company’s headquarters. The spokeswoman is Mary Ann Walker, the company founder.
The Crowne Plaza is one of three big chain hotels in San Pedro (Double Tree and Clarion being the others), formerly known as the Sheraton. The restaurant was named Juliette’s and the bar was named Romeo’s. About 5 or 6 years ago my friends and I used to frequent Romeo’s on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the weekly karaoke. We pretty much owned the place. That might sound sad to you, but we thought we were cool. We did musical theatre, of course we thought we were cool, right? Anyway, we were used to running into characters at karaoke, one regular being Turbo (Michael Chambers) from Breakin. You might remember Turbo for his famous dance with the broom. Legend is he was the one who taught Michael Jackson how to moonwalk. We always entertained cruise ship passengers who were staying in the hotel before sailing. One night we met a costuming PA working on a movie that was shooting in PV. His name was Toby and he said the cast and crew were staying in the hotel. When he said he was working on a movie called “Pirates of the Caribbean” we laughed in his face. “As in the ride at Disneyland?! Gawd, they’ll make anything into a movie! hahaha”. Then he told us who was in it. Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush. Johnny had rented a house somewhere in town rather than stay in a hotel, but Geoffrey Rush was upstairs. Had I a little more alcohol in me, I would’ve beat the room number out of him. Geoffrey Rush is a personal acting hero of mine. That is my one San Pedro/Hollywood story. Probably not my last since there’s filming going on all the time.
The Big Walk 