In 1915, Thomas Ince partnered with D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett to form The Triangle Motion Picture Company. It’s not hard to see where they got the name: the triangular shape of their studio lot bordered by Washington Blvd on the left (north), Culver Blvd on the right (south), and Overland Ave along the bottom (west.) This photo was taken circa early 1920s, by which time Sam Goldwyn owned the studios. By 1924, he was gone and the studios became Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which would soon boast that it had “More Stars Than There Are in Heaven.” It’s now Sony Pictures Studios, but it’ll always be MGM to me.
You can see the triangular lot in this satellite photo taken in 2021. Note how every square inch of all that empty land has been filled in!
This is a 1946 photo of the Crosby Building at 9028 Sunset Blvd, at the western end of the Sunset Strip. It got that name from Bing Crosby whose company was headquartered there from 1936 to 1977. More than “just a singer,” Bing’s company perfected audiotape, and later videotape recording. Also housed in this building was Finlandia Baths, which was a popular Finnish bathhouse, which opened in 1937 and quickly became a place where many Hollywood stars—Humphrey Bogart and his pal Peter Lorre were frequent regulars—came to relax in the steam room and sauna, and maybe get a massage—or just get away from the unrelenting pressures of being a public person.
I was yesterday years old when I learned that chariot racing was an actual thing in Los Angeles—and I don’t mean while filming “Ben Hur.” From what I can gather chariot racing was part of the annual Rose Parade festivities in the early 1900s. They took place at Tournament Park in Pasadena and gauging from his photo, thousands of people turned out for it.
The next time you have a bad day, ask yourself if it’s a run-your-car-up-a-telephone-wire bad. You have to wonder how fast this motorist was going as she (it was 63-year-old woman) turned off Sunset Blvd and ran her car up the telephone wires. (I’m also wondering how it stayed there and how they got it down.) But you also have to marvel at the irony if the sign on the bus stop bench: “For Peace of Mind.” I imagine this motorist didn’t find any of that until she got home and fixed herself a double whiskey. This image is from 1955.
In this circa 1927 aerial photograph, we’re looking at the studios freshly built by Mack Sennett, aka Hollywood’s ‘King of Comedy’ in the area known as Studio City in the San Fernando Valley. These days, all that vacant land you see is filled in with homes (fun fact: the street in the top right corner is Dilling St, which is where the Brady Bunch house is) but back in the 1920s, the valley had more orchard trees than people. The glimpse of road in the bottom right corner is Ventura Blvd and that strip of land where the “Studio City” sign stand is now shoulder-to-shoulder restaurants and small businesses. By 1935, the lot was home to Republic Studios, who were there until in 1958. In 1963, it became CBS Television and is where a number of TV shows were filmed. (Bonus fun fact: the Gilligan’s Island lagoon was located at the northwestern edge of the lot.) My thanks for David Ginsburg for finding this photo and identifying details.
In this circa 1927 photo, we’re looking west along Hollywood Blvd from the Hillview apartments (at 6533 Hollywood Blvd, now known as the Hudson apartments) on the Hudson Ave corner. Built in 1917, it was the first apartment building that would rent to those denizens on the bottom of the social totem pole: movie actors. Apparently, some of the early residents include Mae Busch, Stan Laurel, Barbara La Marr, Joan Blondell, Clara Bow, and Mary Astor. As we can see, the Boulevard was much less packed, with far fewer cars and buildings crowded along it. We can even clearly see the tower of the First National Bank of Hollywood building in the background.
This photo shows us an important moment in Grauman’s Chinese Theatre’s history: CinemaScope had arrived to lure moviegoers away from their TV screens. The first movie to be shown in the wide-screen format was “The Robe.” The theater closed down for three days (September 21 through 23, 1953) to install the necessary equipment. We can see part of the sign of the previous film, “Gentlemen Prefers Blondes,” which had enjoyed an 8-week run, ending September 20. On the 24th “The Robe” had its splashy premiere ahead of a 13-week run during which time it was the only cinema in L.A. to run CinemaScope’s first outing.
I always get a kick out of finding a photo of Schwab’s Pharmacy on Sunset Blvd that I’ve never seen before. This one is dated 1945. Past the palm tree on the right was the Garden of Allah Hotel. If the photo was a little bit wider, we could probably see it a little more clearly. I do like seeing those public phone booths next door, and I assume that contraption on the left is a weighing machine. (Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, though.) For the record, that big sign and the vertical one were dark blue with a light blue border and white writing.
