The Hollywood Reporter owner, Billy Wilkerson, opened his Café Trocadero at 8610 Sunset Blvd on the Sunset Strip on September 18, 1934, transforming the warehouse where he’d stored alcohol after the repeal of Prohibition. It was right there on the Sunset Strip, so had an ideal location. The swanky, French-inspired club it was an instant hit with the It Crowd and stayed that way for four years. But then Wilkerson sold it/had to sell it/forced to sell it, which he did in 1938 and the new owners gave the facade a makeover, which is what we’re seeing in this photo, and reopened on May 18, 1938. Those new owners were gangsters Bugsy Siegel and Mickey Cohen, and in 1940 it was raided twice for hosting illegal gambling. Not unsurprisingly, people stayed away. (But Wilkerson didn’t—in the mid-1940s, he went into business with Bugsy Siegel to build the Flamingo in Las Vegas. It didn’t go well.)

This is what that corner looked like in July 2022. Oddly, the building there now looks more like the original Cafe Trocadero, but what a shame it’s dominated by that enormous billboard. Then again, this is the Sunset Strip, which is famous for its billboards.