Most photographs of the Vine Street Brown Derby usually focus on the restaurant itself. Less frequently do we see the rest of the building to the south as we can in this shot, which also gives us a view of the Satyr Book Shop, which opened around 1926 and was a precursor to the Stanley Rose Book Shop next to Musso & Frank’s on Hollywood Boulevard. Does anybody reading this recall shopping at the Satyr and can share with us what it was like?

The Satyr’s bookplate:

Actor John Boles at the Satyr Book Shop, Vine St, Hollywood, 1931:

The Satyr Book Shop also had a branch at 3929 Wilshire Blvd in the Bilicke Building Satyr adjacent to the Hi-Hat restaurant:

I received this interesting information from Eric Baker:

“The man standing to the right of actor John Boles in front of the Satyr Book Shop on Vine Street is the shop’s owner, William “Milton” Goodhand (1887-1971). Milton was married to my distant cousin, Hazel Baker (1889-1973) who was a co-owner of the shop. Milton was born in Camden, New Jersey. He and Hazel worked together in acting companies that toured the Northeast and Midwest during the Nineteen Tens and Twenties. (Milton was a stage name.) The couple moved to Los Angeles in about 1925.

At some point the shop moved to a new location at the corner of Hollywood and Vine. Milton and Hazel sold their interest in the shop in the early Sixties to Edward Gilbert and the shop became known as Gilbert’s Bookstore.

Milton and Hazel had no children.

The above information was provided to me by Milton’s nephew who is now eighty years old. He lived in Los Angeles during the Sixties and Seventies. He knew Milton and Hazel very well.”