This vibrant color shot shows us one of the more famous corners in Los Angeles: Sunset and Crescent Heights, where two well-known coffee shops stood side by side: Googie’s and Schwab’s. Googie’s opened in 1949, giving a name to the aesthetic that would rise in popularity in the 1950s, and Schwab’s went through a renovation and expansion in 1956, adding that large red neon sign. The Ford entering the picture at the left is from 1957, so I’m pegging this photo as circa late 1950s. I’m curious about that boxy green truck parked out front. Any theories?
Everything you can see in the vintage photo is long gone. This is how that corner looks now. This image is from February 2018:
The truck is an armored truck that picks up money from various businesses and safely, hopefully, transfers it to a bank. I’ve seen these still in operation around Pasadena in the past few years.
That’s what I suspected, but I’ve been caught out before making assumptions about the past that I ought not have made, so I was wondering what other people thought.
The green truck looks like a Brinks truck, or some other truck designed to pick up bank deposits. I went into that Schwab’s hoping to get “discovered” according to folklore. It didn’t happen.
Yes, I figured it was probably something like that.
Brinks?
It does look like some sort of cash-carrying armored vehicle, doesn’t it?
I’m a big James Dean fan, and Googies was his famous hangout. This is a well known shot of Googies, and frankly the only one I’ve ever seen. I’m a postcard collector, and I’ve never seen a postcard of Googies.
You’d think there would be more postcards of this Googie’s – isn’t it the one that started it all?
That Brinks truck brought money to Googie’s and Schwab’s Drugstore, next door.
As night manager of Googie’s for several years in the early and mid-50s (James Dean and M. Monroe era), I often had to open the safe in my office in order for the Brinks guy to leave cash to run the business.
the “after” is pretty dreadful