In this age of smartphones and Spotify and headphones, listening to audio entertainment has become an individual thing. We can easily forget that less than 100 years ago, it was very much a communal experience. This photo shows us a crowd of people gathered outside the Collins’ Radio Shop listening to the World Series in 1926, which leads me to presume that none of these men (and note, it’s all men!) even had a radio set at home. The address given for this shot is 223 South San Fernando Boulevard, which I assume means the one in Burbank. That whole block is now a parking structure.
2 responses to “A crowd of listeners outside Collins’ Radio Shop at 223 South San Fernando Blvd in 1926, listening to the World Series, Burbank, California, 1926”
According to the City Directory for 1930 Mr. Fred Collins owned that shop on what was then called East San Fernando Blvd. It seems he also owned a restaurant nearby, maybe the one in the picture.
Thanks, John. It looks like Fred had his radio store for a while. Also, I didn’t know that the San Fernando Valley city directories were printed on pink paper!
In this age of smartphones and Spotify and headphones, listening to audio entertainment has become an individual thing. We can easily forget that less than 100 years ago, it was very much a communal experience. This photo shows us a crowd of people gathered outside the Collins’ Radio Shop listening to the World Series in 1926, which leads me to presume that none of these men (and note, it’s all men!) even had a radio set at home. The address given for this shot is 223 South San Fernando Boulevard, which I assume means the one in Burbank. That whole block is now a parking structure.
According to the City Directory for 1930 Mr. Fred Collins owned that shop on what was then called East San Fernando Blvd. It seems he also owned a restaurant nearby, maybe the one in the picture.
http://rescarta.lapl.org/ResCarta-Web/jsp/RcWebImageViewer.jsp?doc_id=040428be-8b21-4de1-9b1e-3421068c0f1c/cl000000/20150604/00000005&pg_seq=240&search_doc=&query1_modifier=AND&query1=collins%20radio&query1_field=CONTENT
Thanks, John. It looks like Fred had his radio store for a while. Also, I didn’t know that the San Fernando Valley city directories were printed on pink paper!