I don’t have a lot of information about this photo (so if you have anything to add, I’d love to hear from you) other than this must be Wilshire Blvd because those street lights were made specifically for Wilshire and were called Wilshire Specials. My guess is that we’re looking east somewhere toward the downtown end of Wilshire. All I know for sure is that I’d love it if traffic along Wilshire Blvd was still like this.
Shawn B. says: “Well, that’s St. James Episcopal Church near the top of the picture on the right side of the street. It’s located at 3903 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, California. So maybe this picture was taken from the newly-finished Wiltern Theater (3790 Whilshire Blvd?” The year of the vehicles and the lighting suggest that this was a picture from the early 30s.”
This link says: “Traffic on Wilshire Boulevard west of Western Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, 1932”
Is the church seen in the upper right-hand side St. James’ Episcopal? If so, the view is looking west from Western Ave.
I believe there is an orientation issue here. My estimation would be looking west along Wilshire on a winter afternoon. Sun angles and shadows say this to me. Also, the church looks to me to be St. James Episcopal at the NW corner of S. Saint Andrews Place at 3903 Wilshire Blvd.. The balcony level of the near building shows the ‘ Wilshire Professional Building ‘ on today’s maps.
Take a look into this and see if you agree.
Is it possible that the image has been reverse printed accidentally at the source site? By flipping it you would still have south-to-north shadows and the group of tall buildings on the horizon would switch to the east toward downtown. (I haven’t taken the time to study the identifiable structures, so it’s just a guess. They’ve occasionally done this before and are very good at fixing the mistake when contacted with a solid explanation.)
The only thing readable is the number 15 on the left, so that seems to be printed properly.
I had considered the same at first but it is not possible it was flipped or cars would appear to be driving on the wrong side of the road
We’ve got an overhead reference shot in here (scroll down) which does in fact confirm this is at Western: https://bizarrela.com/2018/05/life-los-angeles-1930s/
The first thing that I noticed when I looked at the picture was that all the cars seemed to have the same shape and size and silhouette. Probably all the same color, too!