Greyhound bus depot, corner 6th and Los Angeles Streets, downtown Los Angeles, 1939

Greyhound bus depot, corner 6th and Los Angeles Streets, downtown Los Angeles, 1939From this artfully lit 1939 night shot of the Greyhound bus depot at the corner 6th and Los Angeles Streets in downtown Los Angeles, it’s hard to see that it was on the edge of Skid Row. I can’t imagine many Skid Row buildings had an Art Deco bas relief sculpture carved into its façade. In this one shot we can see the bus depot, the Standard Oil gas station, and an elevated train line, so I’d imagine that this particular corner was busy virtually 24/7. Even more so a few years later when WWII brought huge numbers of people through Los Angeles.

Daniel says: “In the 1930s – 60s the area was really not the same ‘skid row’ as it’s come to be. Downtown was the center of business and that corner was very busy. In the early 1980s to 89 we lived on Spring St. near 6th St. and the owners of the station property were doing a makeover to ‘update’ the building and add retail along the perimeter. The old facade and Streamline Moderne signage was all stripped away and replaced with a hideous illuminated plastic pole sign, the former facade was all but erased in an effort to modernize the building.”

Bill D. says: “Very busy in the mid-50s. The elevated train line was the terminus for southbound and eastbound Pacific Electric streetcars. Across from that was the Pacific Electric subway for northbound and westbound streetcars – around 800 runs per day.”

Ceceline C says: “I remember that Greyhound bus station. My mom and I took a bus to see my brother who was stationed up north. They had little TVs in the seats you could watch for a quarter for 15mins. I believe that bus station took up a whole block.”

Nancy J says: “That’s where Elizabeth Short (The Black Dahlia) checked her suitcase for the last time.”

Andie P says: “In the early ’50s that area was always packed with people at all hours. One of my dad’s friends was a “routing” supervisor for the Pacific region and sat in a room with about 20 people, 2 switchboards and at least a hundred phones that had small light bars above them. That was before the Interstate highways and often buses had to be re-routed from depot to depot because of bad road conditions. My dad and I went there late one afternoon to pick up Stu to go to a baseball game (I think it was the Hollywood Stars) and to me it seemed like pandemonium. There had been some tornadoes that tore up some towns and sections of either 66 or 40 or maybe both. Stu was telling the supervisor on the next shift what to do.”

A close up of that bas relief:

Greyhound bus depot, corner 6th and Los Angeles Streets, downtown Los Angeles, 1939

How that block looked in July 2014:

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4 responses to “Greyhound bus depot, corner 6th and Los Angeles Streets, downtown Los Angeles, 1939”

  1. Gordon Pattison says:

    It’s hard to recognize it for what it once was nowadays. We took bus trips to visit relatives throughout the West from this terminal.

  2. fame says:

    Hi, to continue Nancy J’s remark, in the late ’50s when we arrived in LA, we picked up our suit cases at this Greyhpoound Station, after having given the baggage to a loader, in Chicago, for a couple of bucks. We arrived later, hitch-hiking, and then continued to WeHo, where at a certain time we lived some time…in the Brevoort Hotel (related to a certain Black Dahlia actress) .

  3. Al Donnelly says:

    The lit up area under the PE platforms was a baggage/freight facility. The 7th Street Surface Yard entered straight across from the far side with some tracks (one barely visible next to the upper window of the bus station) all the way to 6th. As buses came in, some were aligned parrallel to the trains on ground where older tracks (out of view) may have been removed. The yard was an original feature that pre-dated the platform for a decade when the terminal was not yet a pass through operation. Is this the bus station with the underground ramps before the new transportation center opened? RTD ran Riverside operations inhereted from PE’s interurban system and you were not allowed to catch Greyhound between those points…what a ride that was. (Shots showing this baggage area are very rare indeed.)

  4. C says:

    In the late 70’s me and a friend worked at this station for 3months. I remember skid row and the bus depot. Moved to Las Vegas and put the images behind us lol

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