Color photo looking west along Hollywood Blvd toward Highland Ave, Hollywood, December 1953

Color photo looking west along Hollywood Blvd toward Highland Ave, Hollywood, December 1953In this colorful Christmastime photo, we’re standing on the south side of Hollywood Blvd looking northwest past the Highland Ave intersection toward the Hollywood Hotel with the white cupola. Between the different colored cars and the red tiles on the hotel’s roof, we can see how bright and cheery the holidays were in Hollywood back in the mid-1940s, when this photo was taken. I like the addition of the silver bells strung over the boulevard and I’d imagine they caught the lights nicely.

This is roughly how that view looked in July 2024.

 

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5 responses to “Color photo looking west along Hollywood Blvd toward Highland Ave, Hollywood, December 1953”

  1. Martin Pal says:

    Lovely photo today! Martin, last Friday when you posted the photo of the showgirls helping decorate one of these trees I’d read some info that those girls were from Earl Carroll’s nightclub and that the post-war Christmas trees on the boulevard were larger than the previous ones up to 1941.

  2. Tom Chelsey says:

    Thanks, Martin. Outstanding photo, could double as a Hollywood postcard.
    Just a few years after this 1953 photo the famous Hollywood Hotel was demolished in 1956, to make way for for the Federal Savings and Loan at the time. The hotel was built in 1903 and one of its most famous guests was silent star Rudolph Valentino. He may have stayed there when his mansion in the Hills was being built. Another dynamic site is the
    historic white tower bank building at 6777 Hollywood Blvd off Highland. A work of art, built in 1927 as the Los Angeles National Bank, at the time one of the tallest structures in LA. Still fairly impressive today. In 1928, the building that now houses the Wax Museum was built a few doors down at 6767 Hollywood Blvd. Originally a cafe and club for celebs with a secret passagway! Don’t ya love it.

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