The photographer of this 1903 photograph was standing on Flower St while looking at the western end of the newly opened 3rd Street Tunnel in downtown L.A. That mansion on top of the hill stood on Hope St. The tunnel was a boon for drivers because it cut a chunk of time if they were traveling from the east side of the city to the west (or vice-versa.) Back in 1903 “drivers” meant horse-drawn vehicles or those new-fangled horseless carriages, and I think it’s kind of cool that we have one of each in this photo.
Roughly the same angle in June 2021:
In this shot from 1949, we’re seeing Googie’s coffee shop under construction next to Schwab’s Pharmacy at 8100 Sunset Blvd in West Hollywood. Although I’ve seen photos of Googie’s before, viewing it from this front-on angle, it strikes me how weird it must have looked to 1940s Angelenos, all those acute angles and unprecedented shapes. Passers-by must have wondered what on Earth they were building. I also like this photo because it shows the market on the other side of Schwab’s that we never get to see because photographers always focus on the pharmacy. Ironically, the Crescent Heights Market was much, much bigger than its famous neighbor.
The Mt. Lowe railway transported Angelenos from Altadena (just north of Pasadena) to a 70-room Victorian hotel called the Echo Mountain House and its neighbor, the 40-room Echo Chalet. Getting there entailed taking more than one form of railway and crossing what was known as Circular Bridge, which is what we are seeing this this circa late 1890s photo. It all looks rather precarious to me, and as we can see, it’s a long way down if the bridge should fail. As far as I know, it never did, but . . . yikes!
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In 1912, silent film producer/director Thomas Ince built a city of motion picture sets in and around the area where Sunset Boulevard now meets the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH). Having a studio that met his exact specifications probably helped him film over 150 two-reeler movies, mostly Westerns, in 1915. The studio became known as Inceville. Ince would later form the Triangle Film Corporation with Adolph Zukor, Mack Sennett, and DW Griffith. Located in Culver City, it would later evolve into MGM.
In this photo, we’re looking north along Spring St from 6th St in downtown Los Angeles in 1928. Many—most, in fact—photos of 1920s L.A. shows streets with very little traffic and plenty of places to park. Downtown L.A., however, was a different story. Unlike nowadays, back then downtown was the bustling, throbbing heart of the city, as we can see from this shot. Look at the crosswalk at 6th Street – it’s packed shoulder to shoulder, as is the entire length of Spring St. Those vehicles don’t look like they were going any place soon.
From 1931 to 1995, one of the go-to places for Hollywoodites in search of something to read was the Pickwick Bookstore at 6743 Hollywood Blvd. This photo is undated but I’m guessing it was taken in the 1940s because this looks like a Kodachrome photo, whose popularity peaked in the ‘40s. The second story is where they had the second-hand books. I love all that 
It amazes and shocks me to think that Southern California’s Long Beach ever looked like this. It was covered with so many oil wells that you can begin to think of counting them. (I bet somebody probably did, but they must have been at it an awfully long time.) That slightly higher hill on the right is Signal Hill, which acquired the nickname “Porcupine Hill” because of its prickly appearance. It’s still a productive oil field with several wells and derricks, but now has a residential and commercial mix.
In this 1931 shot, we’re looking at the Tower Theatre at 8th Street and Broadway, downtown Los Angeles. It opened on October 12, 1927 and a couple of months later it was where Warner Bros. previewed the “The Jazz Singer” before taking it to New York for their sensation-making premiere. Not only were audiences that night treated to an historical moment, but they also sitting in the first theater in L.A. to get air conditioning. This theater is still standing—but no longer functions as a theater. After a lengthy and meticulous renovation, it’s now home to an Apple Store.
In this aerial shot we’re looking east along the Beverly Hills stretch of Santa Monica Blvd before it makes a slight turn to the right as it enters West Hollywood. It was taken in 1924, when West Hollywood was still going by its original name of Sherman. (The name change came a year later.) At the very bottom center of the photo, we can see the Beverly Hills train station and the tracks running parallel to Santa Monica Blvd . . . and all that empty land it ran through.
It’s not often that I get to post a photo of a Los Angeles building that has remained largely unchanged. This is known as Holmby Hall and stands on the northwest corner of Westwood Blvd and Weyburn Ave in the Westwood area of Los Angeles. Built in 1929, it was the first building of stores (six in all) in the area, and also housed the first dormitory for female student at nearby UCLA. This photo is dated August 8, 1932. The main difference between then and now is that the corner store used to be a Janss drugstore and is now a 7-Eleven.