It’s hard for me to imagine a streetcar rattling through the sedate heart of Beverly Hills, but this photo shows the Beverly Hills station which stood on the corner of Cañon Drive and Santa Monica Blvd. The photographer was facing east because we can see the tower of the gorgeous Beverly Hills City Hall in the background through the spiderweb of overhead electric lines that powered the streetcars.
This is (very) roughly that same view in November 2023.
Trying to figure out where exactly the older pic was taken from. I see the old post office in the back ground. In google pic it is on corner. I did not know that Santa Monica Blvd had a S Santa Monica Blvd right below. Is that where the tacks were?
The tracks ran parallel to North Santa Monica Boulevard right through to West Hollywood, which accounts for the very wide median to Doheny and beyond. The picture was taken about a block east of Cañon, but is hard to tell today because the tracks were removed and their median was redeveloped.
Hi David, I found a 1926 arial pic of the location, that helped a lot, with street names and places added. Burton way is or was little Santa Monica Blvd. Google has it as S Santa Monica. Confusing to me from past to present trying to figure it out.
Going by Google Maps it looks to me like the station was on the North West Corner of Canon and Santa Monica Blvd across the the street on Canon from the Post Office. I imagine the government owns that entire island the Post Office is on and the Pacific Rail Road would have it’s own property.
In the old photo we can see the left side of the City Hall building and that would put the Depot where the tall white building is across from the Post Office so I think the photo was taken on the most Southern corner of that Big White building across the street South West of the Post Office .
The car is arriving from a cutoff above Ivy, but before Sherman, that acted as a Beverly Hills direct short line. This avoided any need to run all the way up to the Santa Monica line and turn westward. These two lines will join just beyond the photographer’s position. The SantaMonica mainline is largely out of view on the left (north) of the station site. IIRC, a deli came to occupy this building at the arches end.
That should be Vineland, not Ivy.
As far as I know, Little Santa Monica and South Santa Monica are the same street, running alongside Santa Monica Blvd.
The building in the modern view is seen above the trolley in the vintage image..across (eastward) from the station. The layout in an earlier era (and the posting also links to a reverse view on the opposite side of the station): https://martinturnbull.com/2019/12/06/looking-northeast-from-cañon-dr-at-south-santa-monica-blvd-past-the-new-beverly-hills-station-built-by-the-american-railway-express-co-beverly-hills-1926-2/