Looks like it was a wild and woolly winter’s day in downtown Los Angeles. This is the corner of 7th and Hill Streets, downtown Los Angeles, January 1938. I love that dark-colored two-door car pulling up at the dual-light semaphore traffic signal. It’s very 1930s LA – especially when across the street at the Warner Bros. Downtown Theater they’re playing “Hollywood Hotel.” That’s the film where the hotel in the movie resembled the real Hollywood Hotel in absolutely no detail, facet, or decor in any way.
Before the Hollywood Hotel was razed to make way for that gaudy, cylindrical record company building about 1955 or 1956, I was fortunate to have explored the lobby and public spaces of this grand old hotel on one of my many weekend forays down from Monterey. This special place was where all the Hollywood legends either hung out or lived. Wish I had taken more photographs. Why don’t they pass a law against tearing down special places such as the Hollywood Hotel, Pickfair, etc. Probably because “money, money, money makes the world go ’round.’ ” Ya reckon’ ?
This is a shot that’s got every element you would want for a great movie scene…but imagine it at night with neon reflecting in that downpour. And all the traffic beams cutting through. Action!………Cut!! It’s a wrap!!!
Looks like it was a wild and woolly winter’s day in downtown Los Angeles. This is the corner of 7th and Hill Streets, downtown Los Angeles, January 1938. I love that dark-colored two-door car pulling up at the dual-light semaphore traffic signal. It’s very 1930s LA – especially when across the street at the Warner Bros. Downtown Theater they’re playing “Hollywood Hotel.” That’s the film where the hotel in the movie resembled the real Hollywood Hotel in absolutely no detail, facet, or decor in any way.
Before the Hollywood Hotel was razed to make way for that gaudy, cylindrical record company building about 1955 or 1956, I was fortunate to have explored the lobby and public spaces of this grand old hotel on one of my many weekend forays down from Monterey. This special place was where all the Hollywood legends either hung out or lived. Wish I had taken more photographs. Why don’t they pass a law against tearing down special places such as the Hollywood Hotel, Pickfair, etc. Probably because “money, money, money makes the world go ’round.’ ” Ya reckon’ ?
Yep, that’s pretty much it. “Follow the money.”
This is a shot that’s got every element you would want for a great movie scene…but imagine it at night with neon reflecting in that downpour. And all the traffic beams cutting through. Action!………Cut!! It’s a wrap!!!