This image is a still from a 1926 silent movie called “The Roaring Road.” It’s about a 100-mile automobile race, and I guess they end up (or start out?) on Hollywood Blvd. In this still, we’re looking east toward Hollywood and Vine. The tall building in the background is the Taft, which had opened in 1923. It’s interesting to see how busy Hollywood Blvd was. So busy, in fact, that the bank was offering free parking. Even back then, merchants knew it was a way to attract customers.
This is roughly the same view in July 2022. It’s a shame we lost those interesting individual stores on the south side of the boulevard. That building with the Fullers sign was demolished in 1928 to make way for the BH Dyas department store that became the Hollywood-Broadway in 1931.
Speaking of the chain of famous merchants, in the W&P image from three years later (1929) looking up Vine towards the intersection we get a glimpse of the Pig N Whistle vertical signage on the SE corner of the Hollywood Plaza Hotel…a bit tricky to spot, but it’s there. It is in the 12th image down here on page 4 talking about the theater: https://waterandpower.org/museum/Early_Views_of_Hollywood_(1920_+)_4_of_12.html
Martin–I’m not so sure about the building being destroyed. The Dyas corner was still undeveloped when the original construction of these four began on the east end next to that lot and moved westward (Ivar Street improvement was added after.) It looks like the first two structures (east end) were altered and expanded up to new levels with ground floors still serving as shops (one being a restaurant). The upper floors of that most eastward structure may be attached to the Dyas store. The W&P site has a 1949 view looking again at this angle, wherein the false fronts are now hiding all the buildings, but the original structures seem to be there still. And I believe there’s another shot of this set looking at them during an intermediate period. Can’t see why they would remove anything that was only a few years old if they could just add on to it, but that would depend upon the ground level framework.