This busy street scene outside the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Blvd was captured some time in the 1940s. There’s so much going on you’d almost think it was staged. I’ve never seen those luggage racks on taxis before – were they designed to accommodate traveling trunks? The Rotary sign is very prominent – you really can’t miss it. It looks like The London Store (“Ye Shoppe for Men”) is going in to the space that now has a bar. And I love the guy in the hat on the left reading a newspaper – I wonder if he’s trying to ignore the one in the white jacket who looks like he’s saying “Hey, buddy…” And I also love the woman and the boy in the foreground. Was grandma taking the little tyke for a hot fudge sundae at CC Brown’s across the street? But more importantly, we can see what the sidewalk looked like before the Walk of Fame stars were installed.

Andie P. says “It’s obviously summer as there are a couple of “Panama” hats on two men and the women are in summer dresses. The Roosevelt Hotel and others each had a fleet of vehicles that picked up patrons at the train stations well into the ’50s. They had fold-down racks on the back for trunks and larger suitcases. The Biltmore Hotel downtown had custom-built long multi-door passenger/luggage vehicles that would function like today’s limos.”

Bob H. says: “Those taxis w/rooftop luggage racks, may be special railroad limos, dedicated limos, to take hotel guests to Union Station, or, Pasadena, or, Glendale, or other suburban Los Angeles railroad stations. The concept of hotel to railroad stations dedicated limos goes way back. Hotels at one time hired special horse drawn carriages to take their guest to/from railroad stations. The classier the hotel, the classier, the carriage. These horse drawn carriages eventually were replaced by, motor driven ” Station Wagons ” . When air travel stated to dominate long distance travel in the USA, a vehicle called the, ” Airporter Limo ” appeared. These vehicles were not limos, nor, taxis, nor buses, but rather, extra long, extended wheelbase station wagons, often manufactured by the Checker Motor Company of Kalamazoo Michigan, to take airport passengers to/from their hotels.”

Outside the Roosevelt Hotel in January 2021: