In this rather amazing aerial photograph, we looking east from Beverly Hills. That main street is Santa Monica Blvd and what used to be known locally as “Little Santa Monica Blvd” is where those train tracks are. (The small building right at the bottom in the center is the Beverly train station.) All that development in the distance is Hollywood. This photo is from around 1924, so Hollywood would have been fairly well established. But look at all that empty land between Beverly Hills and Hollywood. Empty, unused, and available to be picked up for a song!
This is roughly how that view looked in January 2024.
Great matching aerial photos, now and then! Because the Beverly Hills City Hall isn’t in the period photo, I looked up to see when it was built; 1932.
It was all a lumber yard in there. Looking 3/4 of the way up on the rail lines, at the bend, we see the Sherman yards complex (now W. Hwd.) which is a reminder that this had all been something of an industrial and commercial sector even before the film industry arrived. The old agricultural district was going down fast. Without all that “ugly stuff” along the entire stretch back then, there would be no Beverly Hills or Hollywood today. And Amazon would have no one to deliver to. So everyone making stuff on foreign shores would still be plowing fields with an animal up front. And the B.H. city hall would be in a tent.
I worked one summer at The Broadway in Century City (1972?), and our orientation presenter mentioned Little Santa Monica since it was the northern boundary of the center. I was surprised the others didn’t know what she meant. Maybe they were from out-of-town or other parts of town?
I used to work at the Robinsons-May near the Beverly Hilton, and met my share of “Old Hollywood” stars… Debbie Reynolds during my first week, later Ann Miller, Cyd Charisse and Mitzi Gaynor to name a few.
Used to buy gas at that Unocal 76 across from the Beverly Hills City Hall.
Great memories! 🙂
Lucky you!
Nice! I went to a screening at AMPAS’s Goldwyn Theatre some years ago. It was a rather obscure 1956 Nicholas Ray widescreen color movie titled Bigger Than Life starring James Mason, who is taking an experimental drug that starts weirdly affecting him. There’s a scene of him exiting this Robinson’s-May Co. store (opened 1952) as the drugs are causing his mind to…wander, let’s say. I recall a panning shot showing the entrance and the Hilton Hotel (opened 1953) next door. Makes sense they’d use this location as it wasn’t far from the 20th Century Fox Studio lot down the street.
Hmmm, that’s a movie I’ve never heard of!
It’s definitely worth seeing, Martin. Along with Mason, who’s excellent as always, there’s Barbara Rush, an underrated and intelligent actress who probably would have had a bigger career had she not begun hers just as the studio system was entering its decline. Nicolas Ray’s use of color is striking and the script is one of many from the 1950s that hints at darker things bubbling under the surface of the idealized American family that was pushed so hard on TV at the time.