We don’t have many of these sorts of drive-in sandwich stands anymore, so I do love finding photos of them—especially if I’ve never seen or heard of them before, like this one. P.K. Sandwich stand stood at W. Vernon Ave and Crenshaw Blvd, and this photo was taken in 1930. It looks to me like they only had around a dozen items on their menu, but if you do them all really well, a dozen is all you need. Oh, and a shout out to those tiles. I wonder what color they were.
I don’t know which corner of Vernon and Crenshaw that P.K. stood, but I’m wondering if it was this corner where a rather unusual Chase bank branch now stands. This image is from February 2021.
** UPDATE ** – SF Historian on Twitter said: “That is the correct corner. P.K. Sandwiches stood at 4405 Crenshaw Blvd.”
Looks like the design for a Carpenters. Might there be some relationship? And there’s some very odd wiring network on the left at the rear, with what might be rails below it all.
I was looking at photos from Water and Power Associates Early Drive-ins. I also was thinking Carpenters, but I see there were a lot more drive-ins of that period that had the same design. But Carpenters looked just like it. And for the Tiles they used, I would think they would be reddish like the tile used in buildings of that era, Like Warner Bros. I have always liked that style, I guess you would call it Mission style?
I feel so slow on your pics- I now see what tile your describing! I bet they were colorful?
I hope they were!
What a building! Could you eat upstairs I wonder? Where did I put that Time Machine?
I assume the current building (not bad) was something else before Chase bank took it over. (J.P. Morgan) Chase Bank seems to have taken over many former smaller-bank buildings after the big takeover of 2008. I had been unaware that there was such a thing as as a “Chase Bank,” but now they are everywhere. Boo!
Looks like there might be an electric railway crossing through here. The Inglewood/Hawthorne service of LARy ran out on Santa Barbara Boulevard turning down on Liemert (a shorter section then). It seems to have been an inheritance of the older of two lines of the Los Angeles & Redondo Railway which had electrified their steam operations in response to the newly rising threats of electric streetcar franchises. Henry Huntington, after a timely grab, had split the system giving northerly segments to his city trolley system, while turning the rest over to the post-1911 (new) Pacific Electric interurban complex. The various road maps aren’t exactly consistent over time, but it might be a diagonal projection of rails through here behind the P.K. joint. On another map of businesses, there is shown to be a Bank of America which might have sat on that drive-in lot, where Chase is now. Again, the maps are a bit tricky with name changes and street alterations in play.
I was able to locate a detailed topo map from the Angelus Mesa era which showed the yellow car line coming on down Liemert toward Torrance and points between, did have a junction below here where another line split off turning back north (aligned west) to stop across from Liemert Park. (Don’t know if it was a freight siding or a possible remnant of the old Redondo roadbed.) Can’t say if that’s what we’re seeing here as whatever is to the right out of frame is unknown so far. And the various maps just keep getting more confusing. A lack of a good photographic base in this sector doesn’t help much either.