Oil wells dot the La Brea Tar Pits, Los Angeles, 1910

Oil wells dot the La Brea Tar Pits, Los Angeles, 1910Lest we forget that the land north of Wilshire Blvd—now home to the La Brea Tar Pits Museum, the Park La Brea housing development, and The Grove shopping mall—was once empty land, here’s a photo of oil well dotting the La Brea Tar Pits in 1910. At this time, there would have been development much further north along Sunset Blvd and Hollywood Blvd but at this time, Wilshire wasn’t even paved over yet. And it would be another 30 years before developer A. W. Ross saw the area’s potential developed Wilshire as a commercial district which he dubbed The Miracle Mile, a name we Angelenos still use today.

I have no idea if this is in any way accurate, but when I saw this tar pit, I wondered if it’s the same one that’s now outside the museum and which we can see in this satellite photo from 2021:

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Simon’s drive-in restaurant at Wilshire Blvd and Hoover St, across from Lafayette Park, Los Angeles, circa late 1930s

Simon’s drive-in restaurant at Wilshire Blvd and Hoover St, across from Lafayette Park, Los Angeles, circa late 1930sAs far as Los Angeles parks go, MacArthur Park tends to hog the limelight (mainly because someone left the cake out in the rain, if you catch my meaning.) However, four blocks west of it, is a smaller, less-known Lafayette Park, and that’s the park we can see in this photo of the corner of Wilshire Blvd and Hoover St, where the popular Simon’s drive in restaurant stood. Simon’s was a popular chain with more than 20 locations around L.A. in the 1930s and ‘40s. This photo was probably taken from the roof of the Townhouse Hotel in, I’m guessing the late 1930s, which Simon’s was at its peak—but if anyone can tell me different, I’m open to suggestions

That corner where Simon’s once stood is now home to a huge apartment complex. This image is from November 2020.

This is the cover of a 1940s menu of Simon’s showing all their locations. The eight at the bottom feature “Dairy Lunches.” Can anyone tell me what that is? I’m guessing a lot of cheese was involved…?

** UPDATE ** – I’ve had a couple of responses. One person said it meant “no beef, no fowl, no port.” Another person said it was code for “kosher.”

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Aerial view of Metro Pictures movie studios at Cahuenga Blvd and Romaine St, Los Angeles, 1921

Aerial view of Metro Pictures movie studios at Cahuenga Blvd and Romaine St, Los Angeles, 1921In this aerial shot of the Metro Pictures movie studios in 1921, the horizontal street at the top is Melrose; the next one down is Waring, followed by Willoughby, then Romaine. Taken three years before merging with the Samuel Goldwyn Studio and Mayer Productions to form Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and moving to Culver City, the biggest names at Metro that year were Alla Nazimova and a soon-to-be-famous Rudolph Valentino. That long white set near the top left corner was for Uncharted Seas, the movie Valentino was making when he met Natacha Rambova just before the release of his breakthrough role in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

If you’ve read my novel Chasing Salome you might remember that scene where Valentino meets Rambova when he walks into Alla’s office covered in fake snow made of mica.

Advertisement for Metro Pictures in the Motion Picture Studio Directory and Trade Annual, 1916:

 

This

The studio lot is now known as RED Studio Hollywood. This satellite image is from 2021.

 

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Universal Studios on opening day, Universal City, Los Angeles, March 15th, 1915

Universal Studios on opening day, Universal City, Los Angeles, March 15th, 1915Pandemic lockdowns notwithstanding, Universal Studios is a busy, bustling complex of movie studio and theme park. Unlike other studios, Universal’s head, Carl Laemmle, welcomed the general public to come see how movies were made right from the opening day. What we’re seeing here in this photo are those first visitors who came to watch movies being made on the studio’s opening day, March 15th, 1915. Those cars stretch as far as we can see, so Universal managed to pull in a decent crowd, although what they actually got to see on the very first day of operation can’t have been very interesting, I’d imagine.

**UPDATE** – They got to see cowboys and Indians, a courtroom scene, have lunch, and then watch a 130,000 gallon city reservoir get drained to flood the “town” of McRae. Also, a comedy sideshow and airplane flight.

Henry McRae's "flood scene' accidentally inundates much of the back lot during the opening day festivities at Universal City

Newspaper article about the opening of Universal Studios, Universal City, Los Angeles, March 1915

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The newly constructed Hollywoodland sign overlooks Beachwood Canyon, Los Angeles, circa mid 1920s

The newly constructed Hollywoodland sign overlooks Beachwood Canyon, Los Angeles, circa mid 1920sIn November and December 1923, the Hollywoodland sign was erected to advertise an upscale hillside housing development. (It was illuminated for the first time on December 8th, lighting up in sequence: Holly—wood—land, and then the whole name.) Given how new and clear the sign looks in this photo, and given that maybe half a dozen houses have popped up in a landscape that now has hundreds of homes, I’m going to guess this photo was taken probably 1925, but let’s go with a cautiously vague “circa mid 1920s.”

Here is what the sign looked like at night:

HOLLY-WOOD-LAND night lighting

Advertisement for “Homes for sale in Hollywoodland”, Los Angeles, circa mid 1920s:

Advertisement for "Homes for sale in Hollywoodland", Los Angeles, circa mid 1920s

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Looking east on Sunset Blvd from Serrano Ave, Los Angeles, 1931

Looking east on Sunset Blvd from Serrano Ave, Los Angeles, 1931Imagine a Los Angeles where all the main thoroughfares were as wide open as Sunset Blvd was when this photo was taken in 1931. We’re looking east from Serrano Ave and not a single car is in the eastbound lane. Not that there are any lanes, as such. Just a line of those little bumps in the road telling you that you’ve veered too far to the left. As we can see, this stretch of Sunset was still a residential area. I don’t know when it changed to a commercial strip but I would imagine not long after WWII.

**UPDATE** – The little bumps are called Botts Dots, named after Elbert Botts, who was an engineer at CalTrans.

That same view December 2020. Ironically, Sunset Blvd is equally empty. That doesn’t happen often so I assume this image was taken on a Sunday morning.

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A slice of life at the corner of Hollywood Blvd and Vine St, Hollywood, 1940

A slice of life at the corner of Hollywood Blvd and Vine St, Hollywood, 1940I’m always grateful for photographers who take slice-of-life photos like this. Nothing special was happening on the southeast corner of Hollywood and Vine outside the Owl drugstore that day in 1940, but the photographer captured the moment anyway. The postal worker is collecting the mail near a girl who is waiting for someone. Meanwhile, three sets of guys are having a chat, all nattily dressed in suits, collars, ties, some of them in hats. Those women stepping off the curb, I wonder if they’re crossing Vine Street and heading into the Broadway department store. I wonder if it was Dollar Day!

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A color shot of Westwood Village, Los Angeles, circa 1950s

A color shot of Westwood Village, Los Angeles, circa 1950sI love this circa 1950s shot of Westwood Village (next to UCLA) mostly because it feels so very 50s: those big cars, the Standard Oil gas station, lots of room on the roads, that old-style Ralphs supermarket sign. Although it’s now dwarfed by a huge office tower, that lovely Ralphs building is still around, as is the domed Bank of America building on the left, and tower in the middle. Three out of three is a rare trifecta here in Los Angeles so let’s all do a collective high-five!

The Ralphs building in May 2019:

The Bank of America building. It no longer has its soaring tower, but it’s still there and sounded by a grove of palm trees:

And here’s the tower also in May 2019:

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Third Street in Santa Monica before it was made into a pedestrian promenade, California, circa mid 1950s

Third Street in Santa Monica before it was made into a pedestrian promenade, California, 1950In terms of attracting money-spending foot-traffic, one of the best things Santa Monica did was to convert Third Street into a pedestrian-only zone between Broadway and Wilshire Blvd. The city cut off all vehicular traffic in the mid-1960s so by now, it’s such a well-established part of the Santa Monica cityscape that it would be hard to imagine it as a regular street. Fortunately, though, we have photographs like this to remind us that Third Street used to look like any other street in the USA. This shot is from the 1950s. I do like those right-angle signs along the store roofs on the right. We don’t see them much anymore, do we?

Third Street Promenade in December 2020:

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Walking the shoreline of Newport Beach, California, circa 1890s

Walking the shoreline of Newport Beach, California, circa 1890sI’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I really don’t know how the Californians of the 1800s went to the beach dressed like this. I know it could have been winter and I know it was a more formal time, but imagine walking along Newport Beach as this woman was in the 1890s in long sleeves, long skirt, probably boots and probably a corset. It’s interesting how stores were lined up along the walkway including…a post office, a steam laundry, and—oddly—a sign advertising the San Francisco Chronicle.

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