Back in the first half of the 20th century, the busiest intersection in Los Angeles was Broadway and 7th in downtown LA. I don’t know what #2 was, but sometimes I wonder if it was Sunset Blvd and Vine St in Hollywood because so many photos were taken of it. This one captured traffic on Sunset heading east as it approaches Vine St. with the iconic NBC studios in the background. But what catches my eye in this photo are the two signs on the left. One of them is pointing along Sunset Blvd to California US Highway 101, and the other is a charming “Vine St” street sign with some lovely curly decoration. My friend at the Petersen said that the car in the lower left is a Buick that could be anywhere between 1942 and 1948.
This is roughly how that view looked in December 2024.
Shield sign and arrow is telling you Hwy. 101 lies ahead. It ran all down Cahuenga to Santa Monica where it met Route 66. With the new freeway connections, 101 would be shifted over there.
On the left corner of the picture is Wallich’s Music City. I had no idea it existed in the 40s. I know it from the early 60s when you could take a 45 rpm record and go into a private sound booth and “preview” the record to see if, indeed, you’d want to splurge and spend the 98 cents to purchase it.
I wonder if you could do that in the 40s with the 78 rpms.
Why oh why did they tear down the NBC Radio City Studio? It was a good example of the streamline modern style popular in the mid 1930s, designed by John Austin who also designed the Griffith Observatory and City Hall. The Chase bank now occupying that lot is not an improvement imho.
I’d guess if you watch Hitchcock’s Strangers On A Train (Farley Granger et al) they’re likely to be using the 78’s in the sound booths scene. RCA only brought in the 45 format player around ‘48 and the shellacs were still big even when Elvis was first tossin’ tunes. When Rocket 88 came out it was only on 78’s so the 45 singles were a later re-issue in limited quantity, making the recognized 1st Rock ‘n Roll song very difficult to obtain on the vinyl disc. Music City was a dealer in Magnavox equipment. Even into the late 60’s those big living room console players had the 78 selector option along with 33 & 45 (which required the hand-placed fat spindle jackets). And there was still loads of backstock on old format records since so much jazz and solo artist material had already been pressed on them. 1970 was around the kill zone for that stuff. And, yeah, those booths along the south wall were totally somethin’ else…like aquariums for tropical music fish.