<sigh>  What I wouldn’t give for the opportunity to spend an afternoon walking down Broadway in downtown Los Angeles in the late 30s such as what we can see in this photo looking north from 6th St. In this shot alone we can see signs for Le Roy’s, a jewelry company, Kress, a five-and-dime, Swelldom, which sold women’s clothing, and the Los Angeles Theater where the first “Blondie” film is showing. It played in theaters in December 1938 and must have done well for Columbia because 27 more films in the series followed until “Beware of Blondie” came out in 1950.

Chris D says: “I said something similar recently to a friend of mine and he said you wouldn’t last an hour in 1937 Los Angeles. Your asthma would put you right in the hospital from the particulates of the air, the smell of an entire city full of people most of whom didn’t use deodorant and of course, of course, thick clouds of cigarette smoke filling the air and making your clothes stink. They were used to that type of world back then. Hopefully we will never be. Oh and I forgot to include the occasional rotting pile of horse dung. But enjoy yourself anyway!”

And this is what the same view looked like in January 2023. A far cry from the bustle of the late 30s, isn’t it?