Here are two shots I’ve stitched together of the same store. Gibson Inc. was a tailor and shoe store at 6329 Hollywood Blvd, which put it around the corner from the Knickerbocker Hotel. I don’t have a date on either of these pics, but I’m guessing circa 1930s. If you ask me, the real feature of this store is that marvelous Art Deco style sign and how the tower on the roof also lit up at night.
The sign on the grillwork across the front of the store reads “FRENCH SHRINER & URNER SHOES” which I’m guessing was a brand of footwear? This is an advertisement for the opening of Gibson Inc. from the Friday, November 3, 1933 edition of the LA Evening Citizen News.
And of course they had matchbooks!
That sign deserves a close-up!
And here’s an interior shot:
Nick R says: “The L.A. Evening Citizen News tells us that it opened in November 1933 with that logo intact and operated through the end of the decade. It quietly disappears from print advertising after 1940.”
This is how 6329 Hollywood Blvd looked in August 2023, though I can see no trace of Gibson’s store.
I want that couch and chair from the interior shot!
Happy Thanksgiving, Martin.
Looks like crap now. I will bet it was a classy place in the 30s. Maybe Larry Fine (3 Stooges) shopped there since it was so close to his home in the Knickerbocker Hotel.
What are the strange fixtures to either side which culminate in fountain like appurtenances (hope I got past the spelling bee this time)? On the right, about half way up, there seems to be a connected conduit for electricity or natural gas. Are these lights or tiki-like torches? And why were they even there to begin with?
Good question, Al. I really don’t know but maybe one day someone will find this page and know exactly what they are.