Two Brown Derby restaurants, Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, circa 1937
This is one of the most extraordinary finds I’ve come across in all the years I’ve been collecting and posting vintage photos of Los Angeles: TWO Brown Derby restaurants on Wilshire Boulevard! According to the research I’ve done, in 1926 (or 1929, accounts differ), the original Brown Derby opened, facing due south at 3427 Wilshire between Mariposa & Alexandria. In 1937, it moved half a block east to 3377 Wilshire, oriented to the northeast corner of Alexandria. I just assumed they moved the building from one location to the other, but clearly the first one stayed open while a whole new one went up. As we can see from this photo, the new Derby was taller and rounder and came with the “Eat in the Hat” sign on top.
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I’ve seen this Life magazine photo, and although I’m not sure, I think it’s a doctored photo the magazine did for effect for the article. Supposedly the original hat at 3427 Wilshire had to vacate in 1931 after Chapman bought the former Alexandria Hotel (1906) and the entire block was used for the U.S. women’s village for the 1932 Olympics before it became the Chapman Hotel in 1934. In 1931, there was briefly a Brown Derby at 3927 Wilshire in the newly built Bilicke Building. It was quickly replaced by the Hi Hat and just as quickly replaced by the original Perino’s. There’s a cool photo of the second hat building construction at 3377 Wilshire taken on 3/23/1937 (construction began on March 16th) and you can see the basic frame of the new (larger) dome building (and adjoining restaurant building)
Hi Gary, and thanks for this thought-provoking theory. I suspect you might be right. At the time I originally posted this, I’d forgotten about the quick side-trip that the Brown Derby made to the Bilicke Building. I guess it doesn’t make sense that there would be two simultaneous, fully constructed Brown Derby restaurants on Wilshire.
I wish I could find any photo of when that block was the 1932 Olympics US Women’s village. Have you ever seen one? The Brown Derby company had their hands full by the late 20s, opening Hollywood in 1929 and both the Bilicke spot at 3927 Wilshire as well as Beverly Hills location in 1931. It seems to make sense that they let that first one at 3427 Wilshire go in 1930 to the village while they managed everything else…finally getting around to building the 2nd hat from the ground up at 3377 Wilshire in 1937.
I saw on the Chapman family archive that they took over the previous hotel in 1930 to lease to the Olympics (maybe the Chapmans evicted the Derby!) then made the Chapman Park Hotel Pueblo after the Olympics. I know that you know the pics of the Zephyr Room fronting Wilshire and Alexandria. Their family archive dates those early ones as 1934…so, if correct, that double pic can’t be real in 1937.
Lastly, I think some information has been accidentally combined about the history of that block. Although it did indeed sit on Alexandria STREET…not sure if that was the “Alexandria Hotel” was the name of the previous hotel on the north side of the block at the time of the first Derby (hotel located on the SE portion at 6th St. and Alexandria St.) or not…I think maybe an accidental association was made with the famous Alexandria Hotel downtown at Spring and 5th (built in 1906). Making it more complicated because THAT historic hotel was sold by the widow of the owner (who died on the Lusitania!) to the owners of the Ambassador Hotel….across the street from the Brown Derby! Were there two Alexandria Hotels in the 1920s? Was the one behind the Derby called something else? Confused? I know I am!
You put forward a very strong case for this photo being doctored, Gary. I didn’t think they did sort of thing back then. Obviously, fake news isn’t a modern phenomenon.
The closest photo I’ve got is this:
https://martinturnbull.com/2015/04/17/wilshire-blvd-brown-derby-restaurant-under-construction-march-1936/
Yes, that was the photo I was referencing in my first comment above. But that is a photo 5 years later of the 2nd hat construction on the EAST side of Alexandria St in March 1937. I was saying that I’ve never seen a photo of the block west of Alexandria (between Mariposa) when the US women’s village occupied that entire block for the Olympics in 1932 (and possible construction in 1931)
I looked through all my Wilshire Blvd Brown Derby photos and that was the only “under construction” one I could find.