** UPDATE ** – This photo was taken on September 25, 1954, just before Red Car service ended there.
Oh, how I enjoy a color photo of yesteryear Hollywood. And that goes double if it’s got a Pacific Electric Red Car punctuating the scene with vivid red. We’re photo looking east along Hollywood Blvd from around El Cerrito Place, where the street car is heading west. In particular, I love seeing the sign for the Gotham Deli, which had opened in 1923 and I believe closed sometime in the 1950s. I don’t have a date on this one, but I’m guessing from the cars that it’s circa mid 1950s.
This is roughly how that same view looked in July 2024. Not quite so interesting, is it?
The P.E. car is about to make it’s turn down to Gardner Junction! As many times as I’ve traveled through the area here I don’t think I ever saw what the name of that street, El Cerrito Place, was/is. Interesting that you can take photos from one spot and the First National Bank Building looks a block away and in the other it looks so far away.
Just thinking the same thing. It looks like it’s taken much closer, but even so on Google maps the bank building still seems far away. Guess it’s the type of lens.
Anyone know what that thing is that looks like a parking meter mounted on possibly an island in the middle of the Hollywood Boulevard?
The mounted item is a signal to the Red Car operator re the turn.
Ah, thank you!
It was taken on September 25, 1954, just before Red Car service ended there.