Until I came across this photo, I didn’t know that Pershing Square had had such a long history of name changes. Originally, it was known locally as St. Vincent’s Park. In 1870, it was officially named Los Angeles Park. In 1886 it was renamed 6th Street Park. And then in the early 1890s it was renamed Central Park, which is what Angelenos called it when this photo was taken in 1909. It went through a final name change to Pershing Square in November 1918 after the end of WWI. The street on the right is Hill Street, which is the only recognizable point of reference. I don’t think that any of the buildings we can see here are still with us—and certainly none of those shady trees. They’re all long gone.

This is a 3-D satellite shot of Pershing Square in 2020:

And this is a colorized version of the 1909 photo, which shows what an oasis of greenery Central Park must have been during that time: