We 21st century Angelinos are so used to looking south down Vine St past Yucca St, Hollywood and seeing the circular Capitol Records building that it can be easy for us (well, for me, anyway) to forget it wasn’t always there. Opening in 1956 between Yucca St and Hollywood Blvd, it became an instant icon of the Hollywood skyline. This photo (I’m guessing circa 1930s) was taken well before that, when the site was a parking lot and home of the Hollywood Barn that now stands across the street from the Hollywood Bowl. In this photo was can see the streetcar tracks that stretched along Vine St before turning east on Yucca.
This is how that same view looked in August 2022. That (Art Deco? Streamline Moderne?) building on the southeast corner is still with us and in excellent condition.
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Great photo! Looking down Vine Street past Hollywood Blvd., what do you suppose that tallish building on the right in the distance is?
Is it perhaps the El Royale Apartments?
You mention the “Hollywood Barn.” You are referring to the Lasky-DeMille Barn that was originally on Selma and Vine ( a horse stable built in 1901) where the first feature length Hollywood film was made by Cecil B. DeMille in 1912 and was the beginning of Paramount Pictures. It was later moved with Paramount to their new lot where it was many things, including a gym for the actors and a backdrop in many films. When Paramount closed down its back lot the Barn was saved and moved across from the Capitol Records building on Vine Street until it was “purchased” by Hollywood Heritage and moved to the lot where it now sits as the Hollywood Heritage Museum across from the Hollywood Bowl on Highland Avenue. The Barn is a historic California Landmark. Great place to visit to learn about the early Hollywood motion picture industry, and a lot more. The Barn’s history is a lot more nuanced as it is the oldest and largest existing artifact of the Hollywood motion picture industry that remains and can be experienced.
In the area out of view to the left came to be a large food market operation with an open air face onto Yucca. (Hollywood’s post-agri era is one of a residential community with Craftsman style homes, before studios and big apartment complexes. So you’ve got to feed people beyond restaurants.) This was the 1940’s in to the early ‘50’s before the Stax o’Wax building went up. Earlier, during the ‘30’s, we find in images a Hollywood Grand Central Market located on the extension of Ivar below Hollywood Boulevard. Thanks to J.H. Graham’s documentation, we know that during 1925 the H.G.C.M. name appeared as a replacement to the drive-in market complex a bit east of Vine (where the Blue Mill had been located too). [It became a Chevrolet dealership later in the year, so maybe the H.G.C.M. was relocated at that time.] The name Grand Central Market shows up in many towns and cities, including downtown Los Angeles, but I don’t know if this was ever a true chain organization like Safeway/Piggly Wiggly or A&P. Smaller markets were also scattered about Hollywood. Then came freeways and superburban market chains. And some of them even had record sections, carrying vinyl platters from Capitol. And now that’s gone too. Like the old architect says in Breathless, “Don’t be silly. Nothing lasts.”.