In this 1968 photo, we’re looking west along Wilshire Blvd outside the Brown Derby restaurant at Alexandria Ave. It’s a shame that the sign is blocking our view from seeing the hat-shaped roof, but it’s interesting to know that at some point they added “Original” to the sign. In the background, we can see the signs for the about-to-be-built bland office tower that replaced the wonderfully atmospheric Chapman Park Hotel. But at least the tower of the Wilshire Christian Church (known today as Oasis Church) at Normandie Ave is still with us.
Roughly the same view in November 2021:
Los Angeles has more than its fair share of iconic buildings (L.A. City Hall, Capitol Records, Griffith Observatory, Disney Concert Hall, Grauman’s Chinese, Hollywood Bowl, to name a few) but there is nothing like the Theme Building that stands in the middle of L.A. International Airport. Work started on this striking building in 1957 and by the time this photo was shot, it unique form had taken shape, so I’m guessing the date is 1960 or ‘61. I also love how the street lamps were laid out in preparation for them being hoisted into place. It makes for such a dramatic photo.
Until I came across this photo, I wasn’t aware that the Roosevelt Highway (now Pacific Coast Highway) had an specific opening day. Turns out it was June 29, 1929 and the event attracted 1500 automobiles because the Malibu stretch of the Roosevelt Highway was the last segment to open to the public. California Governor C.C. Young was on hand to cut the ribbon—and then presumably quickly stepped aside to let those motorists navigate the highway’s many curves and bends.
In July of 1963, Pacific Theatees announced the construction of the Cinerama Dome, a huge dome-shaped theater at 6360 Sunset Blvd, Hollywood, that would showcase Cinerama’s new 70mm single-strip motion picture presentation. (Before then, Cinerama movies were shown using a three-projector process.) A mere four months later, on November 7, the theater opened amid a circus of Hollywood ballyhoo with the world premiere of Stanley Kramer’s star-studded “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.” This photo shows the dome nearing completion and well on its way to become an L.A. landmark. In 1998, it was declared a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.
The Cahuenga Pass has long been one of the main routes connecting Los Angeles with the San Fernando Valley. This photo is circa 1920, after it had been expanded from a dirt track to a streetcar line running alongside a two-lane roadway. And not a very packed one, which is good because it didn’t even have lanes painted on it.
Here’s a terrific icon-in-the-making image: the Hollywoodland sign under construction. I would have thought they’d have built each letter before moving onto the next. But the “L” and the “A” look like they’re only partially constructed, so maybe they left the two letters closest to the tractor path until last. The sign was illuminated for first time on Saturday December 8, 1923, so I’m guessing this photo was probably taken in the late summer.
The caption on this photo read “Palm trees on North Canon Drive, Beverly Hills, circa early 1930s.” Without any other geographical markers to verify it, it’s hard to know for sure if this is actually a picture of N. Canon, but wherever it was, I think somebody went a little overboard in the palm tree planting department. Perhaps only planting every third tree would have been enough, do you think? And I wouldn’t want to be the person whose job it was to pick up all those fronds during the windy Santa Ana season.
Here we have a rather grand aerial of what was the first of many incarnations of the movie studios at 9336 W. Washington Blvd in Culver City. This photo is from 1918, which is the year Thomas Ince built them. He owned them until his death in 1924, when they became the (Cecil B.) DeMille Studios. In the bottom center of the photo you can see the iconic administration building, which is most recognizable to moviegoers when David O. Selznick took over the lot in 1935 and used it as part of his logo. These days, it’s now called the Culver Studios, which were recently taken over by Amazon. But my goodness, look at all that empty land to the south!