In this evocative photo of yesteryear aviation, we’re watching a ground crew member loading luggage into a Fokker F-32 aircraft at Grand Central Air Terminal in Glendale. Western Air Express bought two of these in the early 1930s for their routes around the West Coast. This was back when we could walk into an airline terminal, walk out of it, and onto the plane. Sounds idyllic doesn’t it…except that the cabins weren’t pressurized, those engines were probably as noisy as hell, and there was no in-flight entertainment unless you brought your own copy of William Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying” or Dashiell Hammett’s “The Maltese Falcon” which were new novels in 1930.

Remarkably the Grand Central Air Terminal is still intact and in great shape. This image is from May 2022.