In this photo, we’re looking north along Spring St from 6th St in downtown Los Angeles in 1928. Many—most, in fact—photos of 1920s L.A. shows streets with very little traffic and plenty of places to park. Downtown L.A., however, was a different story. Unlike nowadays, back then downtown was the bustling, throbbing heart of the city, as we can see from this shot. Look at the crosswalk at 6th Street – it’s packed shoulder to shoulder, as is the entire length of Spring St. Those vehicles don’t look like they were going any place soon.
Roughly the same view in February 2021.
I worked at 4th and Spring for several years while City Hall was undergoing earthquake retrofitting in the latter half of the 1990s. The sidewalks did not look like this then!