All too often these vintage Los Angeles photos I post each day document how much better / cleaner / slower / prettier LA used to be compared to nowadays. So it’s nice to be reminded that some aspects of LA are much enhanced. This photo is a case in point. It was taken on December 11, 1958 and shows a thick layer of smoke hanging over downtown that we no longer have to live with. Imagine working in LA City Hall and staring you’re your window at smog. Sometimes government-enforced are a good thing.
This is the LA City Hall in September 2021. Not taken from the same angle of course, but it does show the startling difference in air quality.
I can attest to the fact that LA had painful lung searing smog in those days.
It does bring back terrible memories. At the time this photo was taken I was commuting from Sherman Oaks to USC daily in my 1955 VW beetle. The smog was so bad on some days I actually had to pull off the freeway and stop, as my eyes were burning so bad I was having a hard time seeing. The image in this photo was a common sight across the basin. Martin you are right, if it were not for government intervention we would be in far worse shape today. Everything from vehicle emissions to no back yard incinerator burning, and even the elimination of smudge pots in our orchards all took the government to create the changes necessary. And, as much as it has improved, there is a more invisible layer that continues to deteriorate this beautiful earth. We need to keep working on the fixes.
I was in kindergarten or first grade, and I remember days when we weren’t allowed to play outside. We stayed at our desks with our heads down.