This color photo gives us an idea of what LA’s most famous intersection looked like in around 1941. The photographer would have been standing on the second or third floor of the Taft building on the southeast corner of Hollywood and Vine. He pointed his camera past the ornate streetlight and the semaphore traffic signal to the northwest corner occupied by the Melody Lane diner. It would have still be rather new as it occupied the site from 1940 until 1955, when Hody’s took over. There seem to be a number of patriotic banners flapping in the breeze, so maybe it was the July 4th long weekend.
Color photo looking northwest across the intersection of Hollywood and Vine toward the Melody Lane diner, circa 1941
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It is interesting that Vine Street has the “Go” signal yet vehicles and pedestrians crossing Vine Street have not cleared the intersection.
Evidently those traffic signals were just a suggestion!
There are two flags with lettering. One says 1945 and Hollywood(?) or a word like Holoween(?). And some numbers.
The building housing “Melody Lane” here survived just long enough to be seen in the first Google Street View pass in July (Vine) and September (Hollywood), 2007. By 2009 it was gone and it’s been a surface parking lot ever since.