I know the air quality of Los Angeles grew ever worse in the 1950s, but it must have been an especially heavy smog day when this photo was taken outside Mission Hosiery Mills, 3764 South Broadway Place on December 15, 1952. The L.A. Coliseum is only a few blocks away—can you imagine playing football when the air looked like this? BLECH! Thank goodness someone came to their senses and worked on cleaning up the air.
** UPDATE ** – A few people on Twitter have said that fog was thicker and more frequent back then, too. Other people have said that they remember the smog being bad as far back as the early 50s. I did research this photo and every instance I found said it was smog. But it’s pretty damn bad so it’s probably a bit of both!
It’s not often that I get to post a “now” photo that’s a vast improvement over the “then” photo. This image is from March 2020:
The LA Examiner collection at USC shows this as part of a set entitled Smog Picture. The hosiery business is shown contributing to the problem.
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15799coll44/id/40758/rec/6
A couple of people on Twitter have suggested that this is smog combined with fog, as fog in LA was heavier and more frequent back then than it is now.
Another collection with great pics.
https://waterandpower.org/museum/Smog_in_Early_Los_Angeles.html
Makes me choke for breath looking at some. Vast improvement even from the 1970’s.
I know what you mean, Matt. I’m coughing just looking at photo like these.
There’s a good book about Los Angeles’s smoggy days of yore, called Smogtown. It’s worth a read.