I don’t usually post photos from the 1980s, but this one was an exception. It was taken in 1985, when the neon sign was removed from the Brown Derby on Vine Street in Hollywood. It’s a rare opportunity to see how big the sign actually was. The restaurant didn’t close until 1987, so I don’t know why they would have taken it down when they did, but it’s a good thing because the place caught fire and it would have been destroyed. I’m not certain but I think this is the sign that is now in the Museum of Neon Art in Glendale:
Here we have a central piece of L.A.’s social life under construction: the Hollywood Palladium dance hall at 6215 Sunset Blvd. Built by L.A. Times publisher, Norman Chandler on the site where Paramount Pictures once stood, the place featured a 11,200-square-foot dance floor, eight bars, and room for up to 3,800 people. The project broke ground on June 10, 1940 and had its big opening (which featured Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra and vocalist Frank Sinatra) on October 31, 1940. So this photo was taken during the summer of 1940.
The Bob’s Big Boy restaurant chain started as a 10-stool burger stand at 900 E Colorado St, Glendale in 1936. It found success quickly and grew into full-service drive-in restaurant. This photo was taken in the 1940s when this glorious neon was, I’d imagine, an eye-catching landmark. What I love most about this shot is how the light from the underside of the wraparound porch is reflecting the tops of the cars just enough to silhouette them as the drivers wait for their double-deck hamburgers.
I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t surprised in the least that the first commercial building that went up in Beverly Hills was a real estate office. Going by the cars parked out front, this photo of Beverly Hills Realty was probably taken in the 1920s. The building itself went up in 1907, which is the year after an oil syndicate sunk 30 wells in the Hammel-Denker ranch, came up empty, and turned the area into a real estate development. This building stood on the southwest corner of Santa Monica Blvd and Beverly Drive. It’s a shame it hasn’t lasted but it was rather charming, don’t you think?
Of all the streetcar rides you could take around Los Angeles, I would imagine this one might have been one of the more scenic routes. This is a Pacific Electric Red Car heading south parallel to the Pacific Coast Highway near Huntington Beach on August 24, 1946. This is a time when oil wells still punctuated the landscape south of L.A. Depending on where you looked, you could either see the ocean waves coming to shore or those wells pumping up liquid gold.
If Angelenos ever needed to buy cigarettes or washing detergent or cash a check or fend off an attack of the munchies at 2 a.m., they knew where to go: the ramshackle, sprawling Hollywood Ranch Market on the southeast corner of Vine Street and Fountain Ave. This market’s famous boast – “We never close.” – meant that it didn’t even have doors. And the big clock we can see in this circa 1954 photo was also famous for hands that always ran backwards at high speed.
In this photo from Life magazine, we’re looking west along Wilshire Blvd from around Cloverdale Ave in 1958. It’s hard to count how many searchlights were dotted along Wilshire, but I’m guessing seven or eight. Obviously something big was going on that night. My guess is an event at the El Ray Theatre at 5515 Wilshire, on the north side around halfway along this block. The El Rey wasn’t known as a big movie premiere venue, so maybe it was just a splashy store opening. Whatever was happening, it sure made for a spectacular photo.
The most memorable and eye-catching of all the movie studio entrances is Paramount Studios’ Bronson gate. It stands on Marathon Street, which is a block north of the studio’s official entrance at 5555 Melrose Ave. This photo was taken in 1940, but it could be from pretty much any year because it’s remained the same throughout the decades. Usually we just see the gate itself, but in this photo looking northwest, we get to see the line of (I assume) admin buildings to the west of the gate.
Tobey’s Drug Store, at the northwest corner of Doheny Drive and the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, photographed here in around 1949, had all the trappings of its era: prescriptions filled, a soda fountain, liquor for sale, and of course the ubiquitous Coca-Cola sign. In 1953, it would become Gil Turner’s Fine Wine and Spirits, which it remains to this day.
MGM’s wunderkind production, Irving Thalberg, (who is the subject of my novel, “
