Looking west along Hollywood Blvd from Cherokee Ave, Hollywood, circa late 1960s

Looking west along Hollywood Blvd from Cherokee Ave, Hollywood, circa mid-1960sIn this colorful, lively circa mid-1960s photo, we’re looking west along Hollywood Blvd from Cherokee Ave. The building on the corner housed the Don Martin School of Radio and TV and its neighbor was the New-View Theater, which had originally opened on May 2, 1940 as a newsreel theatre called the News-View and later renamed the Hollywood’s Newsreel Theatre. Then it became the New-View. Things took a new turn in 1974, when it became the Pussycat, where “Deep Throat” ran for 10 – yes, TEN, years. In the 80s it reinvented itself again becoming the Ritz. Then it became a church, then back to being a theater again when hologram shows were exhibited. That’s quite a history!

** UPDATE ** – It looks like the movie playing that day was The Sterile Cuckoo, which means this photo was probably taken late 1969 or early 1970.

This is that same view in July 2022, when the theater was empty, but the owners had rented out the electric marquee for advertising. Remarkably, though, the building to the east has been fully restored to its original Art Deco magnificence, and is a vast improvement on the 1960s shot.

Check out that grillwork!

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11 responses to “Looking west along Hollywood Blvd from Cherokee Ave, Hollywood, circa late 1960s”

  1. Martin Pal says:

    What is that strange looking vehicle on the street…in the recent photo!?

  2. William Bergmann says:

    Can’t help but scrutinize the cars to see if one is mine. Always enjoyed the Supply Sergeant store.

  3. pdq says:

    That Fab-You-Lous Art Deco building on the corner houses World of Wonder, which is all things RuPaul.

    Sashay Shontae! (Spelling?)

    I really should know how to spell that. I’m letting my tribe down by not being in the know.

  4. Paula says:

    Cool! I love that they restored it.

    But it makes me sad, that this picture looks so old, and I was alive at the time. Ha. I was looking for something this morning and use “vintage” as one of my keywords. I was wondering why all this “new” stuff was showing up under vintage. Guess I’ll have to use “antique” in my search criteria from now on.

  5. Al Donnelly says:

    The “31” seems to be routed to Pasadena via Glendale & Eagle Rock which would be a ride in itself. That means Los Feliz past Mulholland Fountain and out along Broadway or Colorado in Glendale, then Colorado through Eagle Rock going over the Arroyo bridge to enter Pasadena? (I should know this having travelled the route in those days, but they were always “fixing” the lines.) That’s a whole lot of potential things to visit along the way back then. And yeah, supply sergeant really was “the bomb” when they still carried lots of WWII/Korea surplus. “The kids will love it too!”

  6. Al Donnelly says:

    Update…building on left was 1655 N. Cherokee Avenue where the Radio and Television Directors Guild Hollywood Local (A.F. Of L.) was located prior to a move east to the Guarantee Building (sometime before July 1955) at 6331 Hollywood Boulevard Suite 512. The RTDG merged in 1960 with the film directors group to form the current Directors Guild of America (DGA). [And of course, the basement of that Cherokee structure has a punk rock history.]

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