Photos are great and all, but there’s nothing quite like video clips to show us what a place looked and felt like in the real world—even this one that’s perhaps one second long. This is, of course, the original Brown Derby at 3377 Wilshire Blvd, opposite the Ambassador Hotel in all its Technicolor glory. (And a shout out to that tall street lamp out front called the Wilshire Special, as they were designed specifically to light Wilshire Blvd.)
Fast paced world, people walk so fast back then, LOL. Very cool video.
The Wilshire Special ornamental street lights were installed in stages from 1927 to 1934 between Figueroa Street and Fairfax Avenue. They have a distinctive base and flared shaft. But what makes each one really special is the lamp unit at the top which is composed of cast bronze and glass. When one looks up-close at the top one can see that it is composed of four ladies (one in each corner)–vertically elongated, jazz-age flappers with bobbed hairstyles and nude. In time, most of the original lamps were altered, by retaining the base, replacing the shafts with taller fluted styles, and replacing the lamp units with modern cobra heads. Fortunateley, the City has maintained the original styles between Figueroa Street and Park View Street (Mac Arthur Park).