Most photos I’ve come across of the Hollywood Hotel on the northwest corner of Hollywood Blvd and Highland Ave are in black and white, so I’m always happy to find a genuine color shot. This one was taken in 1950, when the hotel was only six years away from succumbing to the wrecking ball. In reality, it had started to go downhill, but you wouldn’t know it from the exterior we can see here. It was a lovely, atmospherically rambling place so it was a shame we lost it. But the place had no private bathrooms, and by the 1950s, travelers weren’t prepared to put up with trotting down the hall when a block away was the Christie Hotel which offered en suites to all rooms.
Here are some interior photos of the Hollywood Hotel:
This is roughly how that view looked in July 2024.
You rarely see inside photos of the hotel for some reason. I have to laugh when I watch the movie Hollywood Hotel. The film has a scene filmed outside in front of the hotel when Dick Powell arrives to check in. It’s a great location shot, facing east and you can see down the Blvd. a bit. Then, when he enters the hotel it’s a massive art deco wonder, nothing like the actual interiors and even to accommodate the lobby it would’ve had to be some stories high. I wonder if anyone who watched the 1937 film came to Hollywood and actually thought the hotel would look like it did in that film!
I have no doubt that quite a few people walked into the Hollywood Hotel expecting to see that set!
On the right of the photo in the row of double windows, in the center two windows the one on the left has a reddish square, like a sign about…something. I wonder what that could be?