Updating the search for Warren Zevon's Gower Avenue

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Re:Pioneer Chicken Stand & Other Landmarks
Â« Reply #1 on: Feb 24th, 2005, 5:42pm Â»
Q: Gower Street? Is that the name of the â€œAvenueâ€ in Desperados Under the Eaves? Why did WZ change the name?

A: Exercising artistic license, WZ changed it from â€œGower Streetâ€ to â€œGower Avenueâ€ to better fit the melody.

In May 2004, medrec01 (Stacey) posted this:

There has been only one other post mentioning Gower Avenue on this board when I did my search. It is a significant post to me. It gave me a good starting place to find out about Gower Avenue.

That post was by someone that lives in that area. Here is his post:

General / Warren Zevon / What did you do...? Nov 9th, 2003, 1:17pm Started by WeldonK | Post by WeldonK
When you heard of Warren's passing, what did you do? I went and stood on the center divider in front of the Hollywood Presbyterian church. From this less-than-scenic vantage point, I could "look away down gower Avenue." I stood there and let "Desperadoes Under The Eaves" run through my head.

Then I went and had lunch, in the hopes of enjoying another sandwich. It was an off day for the Arby's on Sunset and Bronson, though, so that detracted from the symbolism of the enterprise.

And in the evening, I loaded up the CD changer with the man's music and just sat alone in the dark.

I did a map search for Arby's in Los Angeles and found one with a Gower Street, not Avenue, listed nearby. The poster above said he went to Arby's on Sunset and Bronson and Gower Street is shown on the map in the area of that Arby's.

Then I looked up the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel and found it is now the Princess Grace Apartments and that the address is 1801 Yucca Street. I did another map search and found it all right here: link to map expired

It shows the address of the apartment building at the top of the map, then you see Sunset in the middle horizontally, then Gower Street is listed at the outer right edge of the map, running vertically.

I also looked up the Hollywood Presbyterian Church that the poster said he went to and yes, there is Gower Street right there too. I don't think I'll change the lyric when I sing (or hum) along to DUTE next time, which will be in a minute.

So the name is Gower I'd say with certainty, if that was the question, but it is really a street, not an avenue. Maybe it worked better in the song that way.. I had always thought he was saying Goward and had read other people questioning the same somewhere some time ago. I can see now that I was wrong.
Â« Last Edit: Feb 24th, 2005, 5:43pm by Lucy Â» IP Logged
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Re: Pioneer Chicken Stand & Other Landmarks
Â« Reply #2 on: Feb 24th, 2005, 5:44pm Â»
Q: Is there really a Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel? Where is/was it located?

A: Legend has it that the HHH is now the Princess Grace Apartments, but during a BB discussion, Jordan (who should know) said, " Believe what you want, but it's now a mall. Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello filmed videos there."

So, apparently, WZ paid his bill, since the hotel is no longer standing.
Â« Last Edit: Jun 8th, 2005, 2:26pm by Lucy Â» IP Logged
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ere is a Gower Avenue in LA, but warrenzevon.com contains this following posting in its discussion forum...

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Topic - Updating the search for Warren Zevon's Gower Avenue - dave c 16:51:58 03/14/06 (1)

"look away down"... looking into the past... - dave c 17:12:58 03/14/06 (0)

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