From Dave DeCaro’s always-fascinating Davelandweb.com site, comes this interesting shot. If you’re American Airlines and you want the public to see your latest aircraft, you need to find a location with plenty of space. The gardens out front of the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Blvd had oodles of space to park an aircraft. Judging from this 1936 photo, it had space for several, but this photo leaves me wondering how the heck they got the plane there. It’s not like the could run it along Wilshire and up the driveway. I guess they flew it in…???
RJ said: “If this is an American Airlines aircraft, it’s probably a DC-3 since Douglas designed the wider DC-3 specifically at the request of American Airlines to accommodate sleeper berths. It was wider than a DC-2 and would have been introduced around 1935-1936.”
**UPDATE** – Thanks to Al Donnelly, here’s a photo of the plane being transported to the Ambassador. It is identified as being taken on March 10, 1937. (found here)
They probably removed and reinstalled the outer wing sections.
Ah yes, that makes sense. Thank, Jay.
dosent look like much room inside the plane, maybe it was economy seating only
Back in 1936, there was only one class of seating.
You have a point there. What’s on the property now?
A very large high school.
The “DST” Daylight Sleeper Transport was a flying Pullman. Like the DC-2, it held fewer passengers (maybe 14?) than the conventional DC-3 with seating for 21. American used DC-2’s for those city-to-city links, but the new planes gave a shot at those longer routes that once were pionered with air & rail combined services of the fore-runner of Transcontinental & Western Air (TWA) where Grand Central in Glendale was the Pacific terminus. A.A. held the southern cross-country link in those days of grandfathered routes awarded for mail services, but they also branched out. The entire collection of the guy who ran the Tucson office in this period (circa 1936) was once available in a small store in Pasadena near the Green Hotel. This dude had everything from pencils to prints, all new still and including stuff that Pan American had sent to A.A. (box and all). I still have his wood desk name plate and four unused napkins from these planes. I traded some old metal toy cars to the woman that owned that shop and held the collection.
Anything from American Export or American Overseas in the 1940s?
Paper, long stashed somewhere in one of the buckets. Got it 30+ years back in a Grants Pass junk store. I doubt dining pieces would be very easy to find for AE or AOA.
Sorry, Douglas Sleeper Transport….had nothing to do with daylight as it could travel at night.
A link to This Day in Aviation showing that first A.A. DST with the upper birth slot style windows: https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/tag/douglas-sleeper-transport/
The SFO museum site on FB has an interior view of a standard model DC-3 with the 7/14 seating arrangement (21 total) belonging to United. The tail end contained the galley and the stewardess is seen at work. A color shot of one of those food bars can be found in old issues of National Geo.
The National Air Races were held in Los Angeles in September 1936, and the inaugural ball was conducted in the Fiesta Room of the Ambassador Hotel. The program (posted online) does have a shot of an A.A. transport, as Douglas was a major sponsor of the event. However, 10 March 1937 is the date on a news photograph for a night shot of a Douglas DC-something being towed down Wilshire to the hotel. It is on Calisphere here: https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/21198/zz0002vgnz/
What great work, Sherlock Donnelly! That’s great to know. Suddenly everything in the top photo makes sense!