This photo seems to sum up the whole classic Hollywood era. Taken in 1938, a guy in a fedora walks past one of those old semaphore traffic signals at the corner of Hollywood and Vine. In other words, it’s me in a past life.

A note from reader, Elizabeth: “Just found your wonderful photo album site…and praise you for such a brilliant and well-organized gallery. Note to you – did you know that those semaphore stop signals also made a clear bong-clang sound when they changed from Stop to Go? Old timers like Moi also recall that as traffic increased, it grew harder to hear…but the clang was clear indeed. I remember an air raid test alert one time in the 1946-7 period and all the traffic had to stop wherever they were and wait for the All Clear. The stop signals went on regardless, and the sound of their brave bong-clang up all the streets at all the corners…ah magical!”