The upscale outdoor shopping mall, The Grove, that opened next in 2002 has become such an intrinsic part of Los Angeles’ shopping and social life that it’s hard to picture what used to be there. Fortunately we have this aerial shot to remind us that the site where Nordstrom’s now stands used to be the Gilmore Drive-In Theatre, which opened in 1948 with an Errol Flynn movie called “Silver River.” All that parking we can see at the edges of this photo was for the next-door Farmers Market which, thank heavens, is still around. This image is from 1967. The drive-in closed in the mid-1970s and was eventually razed in 1979. Later this site was home to Mordigan Nurseries before construction on The Grove commenced.

Here’s a satellite image from 2021 showing how that area looks now: