To my way of thinking, this photo is a quintessentially LA photo. There wasn’t much separating these Angelenos swimming at the Echo Park Community Pool from the Hollywood Freeway—just a triangle of grass and a wall. But for inner-city dwellers like these people probably were (Echo Park is adjacent to downtown Los Angeles) it was easier than catching three buses to the beach in the middle of summer. The Hollywood Freeway (aka “the 101”) opened in the early 1950s and this photo was taken in 1958, by which time the freeway saw lots of traffic each day.
Frances J said: “I went there as a kid but soon afterwards I started going to the boys and girls club up in Hollywood with its real pool. This one was more of a wading pool for little tiny kids who couldn’t swim.”
Linda L said: “I swam at that pool every summer growing up in Echo Park. I have great memories being there. Downstairs was a place called ‘Toy Loan’. You could go there and get roller skates, balls, dolls and every kind of toy you could think of. You had to return the toy in 2 weeks. It was great for us poor kids who couldn’t afford toys.”
Henrik H said: “It is now the Echo Park Skate Park.”
This is how that pool looked in 2024. As far as I can tell, it’s now abandoned. On Google Maps’ satellite photo, it’s simply labeled “Old Swimming Pool.”
These three cars are parked out front of CBS Radio’s Columbia Square studios, which opened at 6121 Sunset Blvd to much fanfare on April 30, 1938. It was home to CBS’s Los Angeles radio and television operations until 2007, which is an admirable run by anyone’s standards. It’s a pity we can’t make out who was listed on the marquee so see what show was playing that day, but that red station wagon is a 1955 Ford. By the mid-1950s, CBS was making television at the Columbia Square studios, too.
And from the “They Sure Don’t Make ‘Em Like That Any More” file comes the Fox Stadium Theatre at 8906 W. Pico Blvd, Los Angeles. It opened on March 5, 1931. This photo was taken later that same year, so everything we can see here is brand spanking new. As if the detailing on the main part of the building wasn’t enough, that tower is a masterpiece of Art Deco gorgeousness. And it had beacon at the top to warn low-flying aircraft.
This vibrant Kodachrome color photo is of the Pantages Theatre (back then the “RKO Pantages”) at 6233 Hollywood Blvd half a block east of Vine St. The billboard and marquee advertises movies from three different years: Divorce Italian Style (September 1962) and Yesterday Today Tomorrow (March 1964) and The Pawnbroker (April 1965) so this photo must have been taken ’65. I love checking out the neighboring stores: a personnel agency, and optical company (eyeglasses, I assume?) the Frolic Room (which opened in 1934 and is still around) a greeting cards store, and then much farther down the block is AE England, a Pontiac dealer. I also love that shade of green on the Pantages blade sign.
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This image gives us an idea of what the view across the northern end of downtown LA looked like in the late 1920s. From left to right, we’ve got the Hall of Justice, Old County Courthouse (the corner of Temple & Broadway), and the Hall of Records. And looming in the background is the “new” City Hall. It opened in April 1928, so I’m putting this at circa late 1920s. I don’t want to be Mr. Everything Was Always Better Back Then, but this collection of buildings do make for a more interesting skyline with each building quite different from its neighbor.
I could find scant information about this color photo of a Pacific Electric red car. It was taken on April 13, 1954 as the streetcar was trundling through Beverly Hills. I assume it was running along the Santa Monica Blvd track because those hills in the background look like the Hollywood Hills, which makes sense because the destination sign reads “Hollywood.”
In this May 1932 photo looking east along Wilshire Blvd from Detroit St, a few things catch my eye. Look at all that gorgeous detailing along the top of the building on the right. It almost looks like it’s wearing a crown. And on that streetlamp – they were called a Wilshire Special and were only on Wilshire Blvd – the “Detroit” street sign points north and south is in a style I don’t recall seeing before. And that big white building on the left is the only one in this photo that I recognize. It’s the E. Clem Wilson Building and was only three years old when this photo was taken. It caught my eye because I recently read that it was used as the headquarters of Daily Planet in the first season of the “Adventures of Superman” TV series. I guess that was before they switched to the more iconic LA City Hall.
Imagine driving home one night along Wilshire Blvd, you realize you need to fill the tank, and the next gas station in your headlights has red tiles in a striking geometric pattern and a dome that looks like it had come from a Maria Montez movie set in a Persian desert. This Texaco gas station was at 3237 Wilshire Blvd between New Hampshire and Vermont Avenues. In the 1920s it was under the Calpet brand. I don’t know when it switched to Texaco, but I’m guessing circa early 1930s. I tip my hat to Texaco for not tearing it down. That, of course, would come later.
The Beverly Hills Speedway opened on February 28, 1920 on a lot bounded by Wilshire Blvd, South Beverly Dr, Olympic Blvd, S. Lasky Dr. It was a wood-boarded, oval-shaped race track with seating for an impressive 70,000 race fans. It was only around for 4 years – the final race was held February 24, 1924. It was very popular in its day, but good luck finding your car afterward. You’d be okay if the roof of yours was white, otherwise you’d be smart to allow a couple of extra hours at the end of the day.
One name for this 1896 photo could be “Out with the Old, In with the New.” A new electric streetcar is passing an old cable streetcar at the corner of Spring and 1st Streets in downtown LA, looking south. And on the other side we can see horse-drawn carriages, which were the main form of transport before cable cars. The clock on the right shows the time to have been 8:17, so what we’re seeing here is peak-hour traffic, 1890s style. With so much hustle and bustle, it’s not hard to imagine the noise that must have been filling the air at that moment.