Here’s quite a breathtaking aerial view. At the bottom we have the Greek Theatre on Vermont Ave (opened September 25, 1930). And perched atop Mt. Hollywood is the Griffith Observatory, which at the time was still under construction. That project broke ground on June 20, 1933 and opened May 14, 1935, so I’m going to say this photo is from 1934.
A view of from inside the Greek Theater in Griffith Park, 1931. Apparently it cost $205,000 to build, which seems inexpensive to me.
This image is from January 2020. So 80 years later, things haven’t changed much, which is something I don’t often get to say about Los Angeles:
July 1975, Friday 18th-Sunday 20th, three appearances of Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons at the Greek. Getty has a shot of Valli at Brown Derby after concert. There’s a ticket flyer on (that selling site) showing all the names playing that season. You’ll never hear it that way again. Oh, what a night! This theater was well worth the investment to build it
The calculators I find say that $205,000 in 1934 is the equivalent of just under $4.5 million today. That does seem VERY inexpensive.
My calculator gave me roughly the same figure, so I’m guessing the building (or at least the original version of it) was a very basic structure.