This photo of an early model automobile (can anyone ID the make?) was taken outside the Automobile Club of Southern California Club headquarters at Eighth and Olive Streets in downtown Los Angeles. The year was 1912, so I can’t imagine the club had too many members. For all I know, maybe we’re seeing the entire club membership in this photo!
I don’t know which corner the club’s headquarters stood on, but if past history of LA is anything to go by, it’s probably this one with the Dunkin Donuts.
** UPDATE ** – It turns out I made a good guess. The club’s headquarters was on the north east corner, so the vintage photo was taken over to the right.
Here’s some speculation. The two gents in the car are just posing for the photo. The operator (maybe owner) is the man behind them in a driving jacket and chauffeur’s hat. Or, maybe he is the mechanic accompanying the chauffeur who is the tall Black man standing to his right also in a chauffeur hat. At this early stage a mechanic often accompanied the driver.
I came to much the same conclusion. The guy in the driving jacket looks much better prepared for driving in an open-air vehicle like that, doesn’t he?
A LMU website has a 1930s era picture of the current AAA site with some background information (tl;dr northeast corner, only there between 1911 and 1914):
In its early years, the club’s first headquarters were rented at 307 O.T. Johnson Building [what and where was the O.T. Johnson Building??]. They remained in that space for approximately two years, but beginning in 1909, the club’s rapid growht necessitated a series of moves to larger and larger offices. In 1909, they moved to 323 South Hill Street, and again to 754 South Hill Street in 1910. They relocated again in 1911 to the northeast corner of 8th and Olive Streets, where they remained until 1914, when the club built a completely new facility at 1344 South Figueroa Street. In 1920, the club recognized that they would continue to need more space, and authorized the purchase of property at the southwest corner of Adams and Figueroa Streets, using funds acquired from the insurance plans offered by the club. The building was designed by architect Sumner P. Hunt in a Spanish baroque style, and was completed in 1923. It became their final headquarters, although it was expanded to double its original size by 1931. The traffic signal pictured in the intersection was developed by the Automobile Club of Southern California between 1928 and 1931.
https://digitalcollections.lmu.edu/Documents/Detail/headquarters-building-automobile-club-of-southern-california-los-angeles-california/25078
AAA history page indicates that the O.T. Johnson was on Broadway downtown.
“1904 – First office opens at 356 S. Broadway, in the O.T. Johnson Building.”
https://news.aaa-calif.com/news/110-years-of-service-an-auto-club-188717
And more: the O.T. Johnson Building was designed by famous LA architect John Parkinson, and used to be 7 stories, but “somewhere along the way, it lost five of its seven stories.” A 2007 fire seriously damaged it and the building to the north.
The owner mentioned in this article about the fire still appears to own the building, per his company website.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-feb-06-me-fire6-story.html