I’m sure that the big white slab holding Ralph’s vertical blade sign has a technical, architectural name—but I don’t know it. Whatever it’s called, I like the way adds a little dramatic oomph to an everyday business like a supermarket. This building was on the northeast corner of 3rd Street and Wilshire Blvd in Santa Monica, and this photo was taken in 1940.
Developer Abbot Kinney had a grand idea to build a seaside amusement complex. He called it Venice of America and, complete with canals, it opened in 1905. This photo of St Mark’s Hotel was taken that same year. That bunting draped across the hotel was probably for the grand opening, which was on July 4th, 1905. The hotel stood – as the building still stands today – on the northwest corner of Windward and Ocean Avenues, although it’s probably been a while since it saw a horse-drawn wagon like the one parked on the left hand side of this photo.
Until I came across this photo the other day, I didn’t even know there was such a fancy bridge in Los Angeles. It’s called the Shakespeare Bridge (named after you-know-who but I’m not sure why—maybe someone was a Shakespeare fan?) and it’s at the easternmost end of Franklin Ave in Los Feliz. (This view is looking west.) It was built in 1926, designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1974, and rebuilt in 1998 after the Northridge earthquake, which is good news because it means it’s still around today. This photo was taken in 1926, when there wasn’t a lot of development yet.
I’m guessing this photo was taken circa 1930s:
Roughly the same view in August 2020. (Photo credit Sarah Trainor.)
In this photo from 1933, we’re looking east along Wilshire Blvd from La Cienega Blvd. That theater was the Fox Wilshire, which opened in 1930 with the premiere of Marx Brothers’ “Animal Crackers” and over the next few decades was Fox’s premier first run venue. I’d never heard of Berk’s before but I’d imagine they did a brisk pre-show trade. In between them is a Sontag drug store, which is a name you don’t see anymore. But what really catches my eye is the large “20” painted on the road. I assume it’s a speed limit, but I don’t remember noticing it before.
Roughly the same view in December 2020:
Two of the most popular posts on this website have been about the Getty mansion on Wilshire Blvd that was used as a filming location for the Paramount movie Sunset Boulevard (1950). You can see the posts here and here.
I was recently contacted by Teresa Peters who told me that her grandparents, Cletus and Della Peters were the caretakers of that mansion, and asked me if would I like to see some family photos of their time there. Naturally, I told her that I’d love to see them. I was expecting 3 or 4 shots, but she sent me 25, all of which appear to have been taken when Sunset Boulevard was being filmed, which dates these shots somewhere between April and June 1949. At the time, their son, Bernard – Teresa’s father – would have been 13 years old. What an amazing place to grow up!
It took a lot of people to film those scenes. Here’s the crew on a meal break:
Norma Desmond’s magnificent luxury car in the movie was a 1929 Isotta-Fraschini 8A . You can learn more about it here.
Sunset Blvd didn’t come out until August 1950, fifteen months after these photos were taken. Little did 13-year-old Bernard know what a soon-to-be-iconic car he was sitting in.
Paramount released Streets of Laredo, also starring William Holden in May 1949, so I’m guessing it was one of their big releases when Sunset Blvd was in production. Never one to miss a publicity opportunity, the studio put the poster on one of their crew trucks. I don’t know what’s on the back of the truck – I’m guessing maybe some sort of power generator? – but if anyone reading this can tell us, we’d love to know:
The story I’d always heard was that when Paramount wanted to use the exterior of the mansion in their movie, the owner at the time was an ex-wife of John Paul Getty, the oil baron. Teresa told me that she’d heard that Getty used the house as a place to store his artwork. The place was so big that both could be true at the same time.
I also heard that Getty’s ex-wife agreed to let Paramount film there, but only if they built her a pool. Presumably the one that Joe Gillis (William Holden) falls into after Norma Desmond loses her marbles. Here is Della taking a relaxing float in one of filmdom’s most famous pools.
Teresa said her grandparents moved out of the mansion when they bought a house in 1954, and assumes they gave up the care-taking job then as well. In 1955, the house was used again for filming, this time for Warner Bros.’ Rebel Without a Cause, starring James Dean. And in 1957 it was demolished.
I’d like to thank Teresa Peters for sharing these precious and rare family photos and letting me post them online for all of us to enjoy.
** UPDATE August 26, 2024 ** – Barry Daigle kindly sent me this photo overlay showing where the position of the Sunset Blvd mansion and garage sat on the current-day property.
The caption on this photo read simply “Ventura Blvd, circa 1930.” I assume it’s accurate but it’s hard to know because there are no landmarks to orient us. These days, Ventura Boulevard is one of the longest thoroughfares of contiguous business – from Calabasas at the western end to Studio City at the eastern – 18 miles of shoulder-to-shoulder business, restaurants, gas stations, mini malls, and office blocks. To see it with only four cars on the road and barely a building in sight is pretty wild. By 1930, the eastern end of Ventura Blvd would have started to become a lot more built than this, so I’m guessing this photo was taken somewhere down the western end.
In the 1920s, Santa Monica beach had several beach clubs lining the shore: the Breakers, Edgewater, Del Mar. This photo was taken in a pavilion at the Edgewater Beach Club, whose address was listed as “1855 Promenade” which doesn’t even exist anymore—not according to Google Maps, at any rate! It was taken in 1926, so this was the height of the Roaring 20s. It seems like such a civilized way to spend a day at the beach, doesn’t it?
It wasn’t until I had it auto-colorized that I realized that someone had taken a fine black marker and gone around the edges of the three people in the foreground. I’m not sure why they thought it was necessary.
I know the air quality of Los Angeles grew ever worse in the 1950s, but it must have been an especially heavy smog day when this photo was taken outside Mission Hosiery Mills, 3764 South Broadway Place on December 15, 1952. The L.A. Coliseum is only a few blocks away—can you imagine playing football when the air looked like this? BLECH! Thank goodness someone came to their senses and worked on cleaning up the air.
** UPDATE ** – A few people on Twitter have said that fog was thicker and more frequent back then, too. Other people have said that they remember the smog being bad as far back as the early 50s. I did research this photo and every instance I found said it was smog. But it’s pretty damn bad so it’s probably a bit of both!
It’s not often that I get to post a “now” photo that’s a vast improvement over the “then” photo. This image is from March 2020:
Back in 1905, when this photo was taken, going for a Sunday drive (or any day of the week) along the California coast on Route 1 aka Roosevelt Highway aka Pacific Coast Highway aka PCH was not for the faint of heart. This was a stretch north of Santa Monica. One lane, unpaved. I don’t know what you would have done if you had encountered a vehicle coming the other way around that bend. Not that there would have been much chance of that happening in 1905, but still. Reversing along this roughly hewn path can’t have been much fun.
This was a Jewish synagogue on the northeast corner of 9th and Hope Streets in downtown Los Angeles. This photo is from 1926. The synagogue was built in 1896, replacing L.A.’s first synagogue at 214 Fort Street. This building lasted until 1927 – not a long life – when it was demolished. (The Temple B’nai B’rith moved to its present home on Wilshire Boulevard in 1929, rechristened as the Wilshire Boulevard Temple.) L.A. is a buffet of architectural styles, but we don’t see many onion domed buildings. It’s a shame this striking building hasn’t been allowed to remain with us.
A remnant of the red sandstone temple is displayed on the central path at Home of Peace cemetery in East Los Angeles. https://www.facebook.com/esotouricbusadventures/posts/10158806988729596
That same corner in April 2019. The building is so tall that it was impossible to get the whole thing in the frame!
