In this photo we’re looking west along Hollywood Blvd from the Egyptian Theatre. The movie “Hawaii” was playing at the Egyptian Theatre, which means this photo was taken during the holiday season of 1966. The Christmas trees along the boulevard have a different design from the ones I’m used to seeing in vintage photos of this area. These ones look like they were triangles lit from within, and criss-crossed with tinsel and electric candles. The Egyptian Theatre is still around (now owned by Netflix) and the Hollywood Inn (which used to be the Hotel Christie, is still around—well, the building is. It’s no longer a hotel; the Church of Scientology now owns it. So the view these days isn’t largely different from how it looks in this photo.
Roughly the same view in 2021:
The Hollywood down by Coffee Dan’s was the second theatre to be built in tinsel town, dating to about 1913, two years after the first opened. That van parked by the Egyptian is certainly a preview of coming attractions that would explode across the roads of America within a few years. Captain’s chairs in the shaggy carpet lounge area anyone? Or will a double decker waterbed suffice? Hey, Steely Dan’s playing on the eight track!
When I was a kid in the 1940’s, there was a Pig n Whistle restaurant right next to the Egyptian, with a glass door exit onto the walkway up to the ticket booth and theater lobby. My granny and I used to have lunch there and take in a matinee. My favorite lunch was an egg salad sandwich, a malted and some kind of pie. Granny always had fruit salad and iced coffee, plus whatever pie appealed that day.
It was still the Pig n Whistle up until recently when it was taken over by new management and converted into some sort of place I’ll never go to.