It’s funny now to think that Beverly Hills ever looked like this sparse, but this photo was taken in 1923, the same year that Beverly Hills became an incorporated city. Maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised. After all, the official population of Beverly Hills in 1920 was 634. We’re looking up Beverly Dr. north of Santa Monica Blvd. With literally nothing and nobody around, I wonder if the car we can see parked on the side of the road belongs to the photographer who thought to get out and take a photo of not much except a curving street lined with baby palm trees.

And this is roughly that same view in January 2021.