Whenever we hear the name “Schwab’s” we immediately think of Schwab’s Pharmacy, which is understandable because it was the most famous drug store in Los Angeles. But this image reminds us that there was another Schwabs (no apostrophe) that opened in Hollywood six years before the pharmacy opened on Sunset. Schwabs was a men’s shop (i.e. menswear) at 6358 Hollywood Blvd which put it on the south side between Cahuenga and Ivar. To publicize their opening in 1926, they somehow managed to nab a “souvenir section” in the March 26 edition of the Hollywood Daily Citizen. (Note the newspaper’s motto: “Striving to be clean, seeking to be fair, hoping to be helpful.”) I’d love to window-shop in their plaza of glass cabinets and check out the prices. (In 1931 the Hollywood Daily Citizen would merge with Hollywood News to become the better-known Hollywood Citizen-News which would stay in circulation until 1970.)

Miraculously, those wonderful arches at the front of Schwabs Men’s Shop are still with us. This is how they looked in July 2024.