Pandemic 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.
In 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.”
Imagine 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.
I’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!
I 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!
In 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?
I’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.
This 1937 shot of the northeast corner of Hollywood Blvd and Cherokee Ave, Hollywood would be a fairly normal photo of a 1930s Hollywood street: the Jade Café, a United Airlines ticket office, Bradley’s Five and Ten (which, incidentally, wasn’t a five-and-dime store like the nearby J.J. Newberry and Kress’s but was a bar that attracted the sort of menfolk who enjoy the company of other menfolk.) But what about that strange, huge box on the roof of 6619 Hollywood Blvd? It looks like some sort of rear-projection screen, but did they have those in 1937? Ten feet tall? And if so, what did it project? All theories, guesses, and stabs-in-the-dark are welcome.
Driving down Broadway at night in 1956, when this photo was taken, was a wonderland of bright neon light. In this one view alone we can see: Silverwoods (menswear), Desmond’s (menswear, especially hats), the Palace Theatre, Hotel Lankershim, Bullocks (department store), Kress (five-and-dime), the Los Angeles Theatre, Swelldom (women’s clothing), and Hartfield’s (department store.) Even the dentist on that block had a neon sign—he probably needed one just to stand out!
I’m not sure who I’m more envious of in this photo of a Red Car traveling through the Cahuenga Pass en route to Hollywood in 1950: the people riding the Red Car, who didn’t have to deal with traffic at all, or the motorists who only had to deal with a level of traffic that the Hollywood Freeway only sees at 6am on a Sunday morning these days. Either way, I hope these people knew how good they had it.