In order to film “The Thief of Bagdad” Douglas Fairbanks bought several acres of land behind the Pickford-Fairbanks Studios south of Santa Monica Blvd in West Hollywood, which he co-owned with his wife, Mary Pickford. They needed that land for the spectacular set that we can see in this photo. And no wonder, too, as it required 700,000 feet of lumber. Back in 1923, when this photo was taken (by Captain A.W. Stevens for the US Navy) much of West Hollywood would have still been undeveloped, so this mammoth set would have REALLY visible from all directions.
That land is still home movie studios. It’s had a number of incarnations since the days that Fairbanks and Pickford owned it. Current it goes by the (rather unremarkable) name of “The Lot Studios.”
During the heyday of LA’s drive-in restaurants (roughly 1930s to 1960s—would you agree?) one of the biggest chains was Stan’s, who at one point had over a dozen locations. Four of them were on Sunset Blvd (which is a very long street), and one of them is the restaurant pictured here. This is the Stan’s that stood on the southeast corner of Sunset Blvd and Highland Ave in Hollywood, which put it kitty-corner from Hollywood High School. That neon sign must have really stood out at night, and I love those three public phone booths next to it. This photo is circa 1966.
This shot gives us a soon-to-be-demolished glimpse of what Bunker Hill at the northernmost end of downtown Los Angeles looked like in 1955. The two streets we can see here are Olive St and 2nd Street, where downtown was still residential. But this stage, most of the homes had been divided up into boarding houses and the like. As we can see, the area was becoming rather rundown and neglected, and not long after this photo was taken, the razing and leveling of Bunker Hill got underway. But as we can see in the background, Los Angeles City Hall dominated the skyline, no matter which direction you were looking in.
Here’s a gem of Los Angeles architecture I didn’t know about until yesterday. Imagine this being your local movie house – it almost looks like a medieval church. It opened at 857 S. La Brea Ave (on the corner of 9th St) in 1926 as Chotiner’s La Brea (the Chotiners were brothers), but by 1934 it had been taken over by Fox West Coast Theatres and became known as the Fox La Brea. Since then, it has gone through a number of incarnations, including during the 1960s, when it became the Toho La Brea Theatre and ran Japanese films, which seems at odds with that ornate architecture.
In this colorful photo, we’re watching an electric LA Transit Lines trolley coach (a successor to the LARY streetcars) approach the intersection of 5th and Hill Sts in downtown Los Angeles. However, I’m more interested in the background – specifically that bold red sign for Union Cigars. You still see tobacco stores around LA, but of course back then they would have been a much more common sight. (And no vaping!) I also can’t help but admire that beautiful detailing on the corner building, especially the paneling along the top of the ground floor. And get a load of those gorgeous Juliet balconies. Hardly essential, but don’t they add to the building’s splendor? I wonder if the people who worked in those offices ever used them. I’ve been told the gray Chevrolet behind the black Ford looks to be circa 1953, so let’s call this photo circa mid-1950s.
I’ll gladly take any photo of a Brown Derby restaurant, but especially one in color. My friend who works at the Petersen Automotive Museum tells me that gorgeous blue-and-white car parked out front is a 1955 Buick, so let’s call this circa mid-1950s. By then, the Derby was quite the operation: it had the Coffee Shop, the restaurant, the Record Room, and on the far right, an entrance for guest parking. Their tenant, Maurice Inc, was smart to paint their store white—I assume to make it stand out. It was my understanding that they sold knitwear, but their awning has the word “jewels” so now I’m not so sure. Does anybody reading this remember?
Though dimly lit and hard to make out, this photo glows with atmosphere. The (rather brave, I think) photographer was standing on the tracks that those four Pacific Electric Red Cars were about to take to Glendale and Hollywood. This photo was taken in the Subway Terminal building, which was Pacific Electric’s streetcar hub at 4th and Hill Streets in downtown Los Angeles. I couldn’t find a date on this image, but this was a busy operation from 1925 to 1955, constantly filled with Angelenos coming into downtown for work, entertainment, and shopping because up to, during, and immediately after WWII, downtown LA was the center of the city and subways were a convenient way to get there.
A couple of days ago, I featured a photo of Newman’s Drug Co on the southwest corner of Hollywood Blvd and Western Ave. What I didn’t mention was how the building was the Hollywood & Western Building, which housed a couple of organizations important to the film industry. Built by MGM’s Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg, it opened on December 8, 1928 and housed the first offices of Motion Picture Association of America, which administered the Hay’s Code (of film censorship.) The MPAA also established Central Casting in an effort to regulate the hiring of extras. What we’re seeing in this photo is Central Casting’s office, so when all those thousands and thousands of Hollywood hopefuls called in to see if there was any work for them, it was (I’m guessing) one of these people who, more often than not, told them to “try later.”
This image is actually a screengrab from a documentary called “Los Angeles Plays Itself” which is a 2003 film that looks at all the ways Los Angeles has been depicted (as itself and other locations) in the movies. I freeze-famed on this shot from “Double Indemnity” (1944) when we could see Newman’s Drug Co at the southwest corner of Hollywood Blvd and Western Ave in Hollywood. I liked how it gave us a glimpse into what a corner drugstore in the mid-1940s looked like—as well as treated us to a semaphore traffic signal. (If you’d like to see “Los Angeles Plays Itself”, here’s the link 