This photo of Angelenos strolling along the Venice Beach midway circa 1900s shows that things haven’t really changed much in 120 years. (Well, that is to say apart from the formal way people are dressed while at the beach.) Venice Beach is still filled with strolling tourists and tourist attractions. Those minarets were part of the “Streets of Cairo” attraction. You could take a camel ride down Windward Ave. Closer in we can see a 10-cent experience called “Darkness and Dawn” and features what appears to be a topless woman, which must have been very daring to those Victorians. Next door is the Electric Theater, advertising moving pictures. Being so early in the movies’ history, it was probably at this place that many people saw moving pictures for the first time.
Here are a couple of other views of the Venice Midway:
When Patsy D’Amore moved his popular Italian restaurant from McCadden St in Hollywood to a larger, plusher building a few blocks away at 6735 Yucca, one block north of Hollywood Blvd, it was such a big deal that the opening was televised. That may have something to do with the fact that Frank Sinatra was one of his most frequent customers. That’s his Thunderbird parked out front because when your Sinatra, you get to park wherever you want.
In this atmospheric shot, we’re looking north up Flower Street in downtown Los Angeles with the uniquely striking Richfield Oil Building lit up at night in all its glory. It really must have been a sight to see – day or night – and I’d love to have seen it for myself before it was razed in 1969. I don’t know when this photo was taken but I’m guessing circa 1950s – but if anyone reading this can correct me, I’d love to hear from you.
In this shot we’re seeing the Manhattan Beach pier which stretches in the water from the western end of Manhattan Beach Blvd at Ocean Dr. I wonder if the building on the left is the change rooms, or did people change and shower off the sand in the one marked Bath House on the right. My favorite sign is the one outside the restaurant on the far right. It simply says “EAT.”
Double-decker buses are something I associate with London rather than Los Angeles, but in the earlier part of the 20th century, double-deckers with an open-air top deck were quite a common sight around LA. I don’t know what was going on in this circa 1920s photo of businessmen in their suits and ties and hats and overcoats, but someone thought it worth taking a photo of. Maybe they were going to the Los Angeles Motor Bus Company’s Christmas party and decided it was best if someone else did the driving—even if it was Prohibition!
This 1915 view looking west along Seventh St, past Spring St, in downtown Los Angeles shows us four different types of transportation: streetcars, automobiles, horse-drawn wagons, and pedestrians. Imagine the noises the people in this photo were hearing. Without that traffic cop in the middle of the intersection, woman in the long dark dress would be taking her chances. Near the center of the photo we can see a sign for Bullocks, which was a very popular department store that was on Seventh Street for most of the 20th century.
On May 15, 1927, the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel opened at 7000 Hollywood Blvd. It was financed by a group that included Louis B. Mayer, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Sid Grauman, which possibly explains why the first Academy Awards ceremony took place there. Not long after that, this photo was taken from Orange Drive, which lays directly north of the hotel. As we can see, the street was lined with trees that shaded the locals from the California sun, but it also looks like finding a place to park was challenging even back then!
With so few landmarks to go by, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly where this 1914 photo was taken, but it we do know that it’s looking west from somewhere near the eastern end of Santa Monica Blvd. That peak we can see in the background to the right of those two buildings is Mount Lee, where the famous Hollywoodland sign would go up less than 10 year later. But meanwhile, in 1914, on a road that is constant with traffic these days, there are all of two vehicles and I can’t help but wonder where they were going.
Who even knew they had traffic jams or peak hours back in 1914? In this photo we’re looking at a dozen or so Los Angeles Railway street cars lined up along Seventh St in downtown Los Angeles while waiting their turn to cross busy Main Street. I bet the guy driving the horse and cart is thinking the same thing when I’m on the 405 Freeway heading north and the southbound lanes are clogged to a standstill: “I’m glad that’s not me!”
In this photo of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre taken from the roof of the nearby Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel during the late-summer 1961 seven-week run of “The Young Doctors,” two things stood out to me. All that parking! There’s a lot to the immediate west and east of Grauman’s, as well as that huge lot in the upper right corner. It belonged to the First Federal Bank building, which replaced the oft-lamented Hollywood Hotel, which had fallen to the wrecking ball in 1956. Also catching my eye is the line of stars in the sidewalk. That dedication ceremony for that project took place on November 23, 1960, so those stars we can see aren’t even a year old.
