This aerial view is looking west across Beverly Hills from where Santa Monica and Wilshire Boulevards cross. It was taken in 1928, and I am shaking my head at the sight of all that empty land. It must have felt semi-rural driving through this area at that time. Then again, most of Los Angeles probably looked like this.

Comment from reader: “By the time we got to California (late 1937 or early 1938), there was a wonderful fountain on the NE corner which went though the colors of the rainbow and I was always fascinated by it. On the NW corner there was a gas station – Polly gas, I think. And behind that a putting green which we walked to when I took golf for PE at Beverly Hills High School. Speaking of looking empty, you should have seen the San Fernando Valley then.  25 acre lots and lots of nut trees.”