This is one of those photos where it’s hard for me to believe it’s the same city. In this circa early 1900s shot, we’re looking south down Spring Street from First Street in downtown LA. There are only two forms of transport in this photo, and neither of them are around anymore: streetcars and horses. And can we talk about that gorgeous cupola on top of that building on the left?!?!
Nothing in the vintage photo is still there. It’s almost like the old Spring St never existed. This image is from June 2021.
It’s all about the hidden levels. To create all the modern buildings they had to add basement floors that held massive boilers and water chilling units for the air cooling systems. Add in the fire sprinklers with roof tanks for gravity flow. Throw in the fear factor of falling bricks in earthquake country and there was little support for keeping any of it. Then finally spice it up with inflated future projections of property values. Soon enough, each of those old places was deemed unsuitable and they fell to the wrecking ball one-by-one. The real question is what’s next and how do you get rid of these ones. Unfortunately, the old ones will only come back on the holodeck of the Enterprise…which is itself only an imaginary world.
Yes, it might be imaginary but I’ll take it!
Perhaps..but I want self polishing furniture and no holo dust to contend with. “Make it so”, said Jean Luc.
That’s a fantastic shot! What I’m amazed about is the angle the photographer captured at that time. It’s not at ground level but up fairly high in the air. With the big, bulky large format cameras of that time, how did he get the camera that high in the middle of the street. Was there a bridge over Spring Street near First?
I wondered about that too, wondering what the photographer was standing on.