I don’t know if that circa 1960 Thunderbird in the foreground of this photo was cruising Burbank on a Saturday night, but that sure is the vibe I’m getting from this image. Bob’s Big Boy with their “original double deck hamburger” is still around at 4211 W Riverside Dr, in Burbank. It’s the oldest remaining Bob’s Big Boy location and was declared a historical landmark by the state of California in 1993. I doubt that hormonal teenage boys still cruise the boulevards of the San Fernando Valley on the weekends, but the big tradition at Bob’s is on Friday nights when dozen of classic car enthusiasts meet there to show and check out each other’s classic American cars. You can see pics of it HERE.And here is Bob’s Big Boy in January 2021
I do like the way this photographer has framed this shot. It’s a circa 1900 photo of the California Limited train during its stop at the Pasadena depot of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway en route to Chicago. He was standing in the waiting room facing north, and that building on the left was the Hotel Green. At this time, the trip from L.A. to Chicago took around 68 hours, which is a long time to be sitting around in those tight Victorian clothes, but still, I’d love to have experienced it just once.
The (third) Los Angeles Times building on the corner of Broadway and First Street in downtown Los Angeles looked more like a dance hall on a pleasure pier when it was lit up at night. The locals certainly knew where they were. (circa 1912)
When William Selig moved his Selig Polyscope moving picture company from Chicago to 1850 Allesandro St (later Glendale Blvd) in the Edendale section of Los Angeles in 1909, he created In L.A’s first permanent movie studio. (Among other firsts, he also made the first movie version of “The Wizard of Oz.”) In this photo we see what is most likely a circa 1910 Cadillac or Studebaker pulling out of the studio and onto a unpaved road. Behind the high wall we can see a filming stage with all-glass walls. Before effective lights were developed, early filmmakers had to rely on sunshine, which is what helped make California such an attractive place to film.
I’m impressed that the Young Women’s Christian Association had a seven-story building on Hill Street in downtown Los Angeles. On second thoughts, single women trying to make their way in the world in the early 1900s when this photo was taken would have faced all sorts of obstacles; a place like this would have filled a need for shelter, food, and companionship. And if the YWCA took the trouble to build a seven-story facility, I’m guessing there was a great need. I tried to find out how much they charged back then, but couldn’t find any information. I do, however, like that mixture of horse-drawn and horseless carriages parked out front.
Most photos we see of the Crossroads of the World (America’s first outdoor shopping mall) are taken from the main entrance on Sunset Blvd, so it’s nice to find one taken at the northern end on Selma Ave, looking south. (We can see the entrance’s iconic globe peeking over the roof on the left.) Crossroads opened in 1936 and by the staged look of this photo, my guess it was taken around the time of the opening as a promotional shot. It does look like a tranquil oasis in the middle of busy Hollywood.
At 5.55pm on March 10, 1933, a 6.5 magnitude earthquake hit Long Beach, shaking the bejesus out of the city and surrounding communities. (6.4 is a fairly big one; it was strong enough to be felt in Hollywood where movie sets shook during takes.) One of those nearby neighborhoods is Santa Ana, which is roughly 15 miles west. This photo shows the damage to the Woolworth’s 5, 10, and 15 cent store at 201 W. 4th Street. I hope nobody was standing under that awning. There looks to be a fair amount of rubble on the side walk, so I imagine Woolworth’s front window didn’t survive unscathed either.
For a Pacific Electric Red Car to be able to go around a corner, it needed two fairly wide streets to intersect. In this circa 1940s photo (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong about the date), a streetcar coming out of the San Fernando Valley and heading for the subway terminal in downtown LA is at Santa Monica Blvd and Highland Ave. In color shots like this we can see how eye-catching that red is—you could see them coming from miles away. As much as many of us miss the Red Cars, I don’t think any of us pine for the days when all that electrical wiring stretched overhead. It is a bit of an eyesore, isn’t it? The other detail that caught my eye is the typewriter store on the left. That’s something you never see anymore. In fact, I wonder if they still even make typewriters…?
The Sunset Strip section of Sunset Blvd is known for its nightclubs, restaurants, and gambling backrooms, but for a while – mid-1930s through to the ‘50s – there also was a mortuary. The Utter-McKinley Mortuary offered a 24-hour service, which I’m guessing came in handy if you overestimated your ability to party at 3 a.m. on the dance floor of Ciro’s. It would also have been convenient for mobster Mickey Cohen, who for a few years in the late 1940s owned the building next door. One report I read said that this was the funeral parlor from which director Raoul Walsh and a couple of pals took John Barrymore’s corpse and propped it up in Errol Flynn’s favorite chair as a practical joke they played on Flynn. The rather lovely French Colonial building is long gone and the site is now largely occupied by the Book Soup bookstore.
The Earl Carroll Theatre at 6230 Sunset Blvd, just east of Vine St, sure must have been a sight to see when all lit up at night like this—especially that enormous neon head on the side of the building ringed the theater’s famous slogan: “Thru These Portals Pass The Most Beautiful Girls In The World.” Judging from the cars, this photo was probably taken some time in the early 1940s.
