This aerial view of the Capital Records building near Hollywood and Vine (this photo is looking south) was taken in 1956, the year that building opened. What surprised me a little was how the area was already a sea of parking lots. LA’s freeway system was just getting going in the 50s so I don’t think of LA being quite so car-dependent at this time, but I guess I was wrong. BTW, that dome-roofed building to Capital’s left was an independent studio that became KFWB. The building to the right, now known as the Hollywood Palace nightclub, back then was called The El Capitan Theatre and was where Richard Nixon delivered his famous “Checkers speech” on September 23, 1952.