California State Route 1 runs along pretty much the whole California coast but takes on different names at different stages. In Los Angeles, it’s known as the Pacific Coast Highway, but back when this photo was taken in 1938, it was still known by its original name, the Roosevelt Highway. (The name-change happened in 1941.) In this stretch, some lucky Angelenos built their homes right on the beach (Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg among them), but as we can see from this Life magazine photo, traffic didn’t choke the streets like it does now.