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:
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?
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.
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.
This shot is about as Beverly Hills as a shot could be. The 1957 Ford Thunderbird was zooming by so fast the photographer was lucky to capture him at all. Every street in Beverly Hills has different trees. So although I don’t know exactly where this circa 1960 photo (the blue car is a circa 1959 Peugeot 403) Beverly Drive has a mixture of tall and short palm trees on it so I’m guessing it was there.
Clifton’s was a mini chain of cafeterias that opened in Los Angeles in 1931 at the depth of the Depression. At first glance it might seem that opening a restaurant at a time when people could barely afford to feed themselves might sound crazy, but Clifford Clinton opened the first of his cafeterias shown here at 618 S. Olive Street (this one was called “Pacific Seas” and had a wild façade) with a “pay what you wish” policy, including eating for free if you had no money. Clinton realized that people may not have much, but they still had their dignity and wanted to pay their way if they could, even if it meant handing over one single penny. Many Angelenos may have starved had it not been for this generous man. This photo is dated 1960.
When a building like the Los Angeles City Hall becomes an iconic part of a city’s skyline, it can be easy to forget what came before it. This building, which stood on the southwest corner of Main and Temple Streets in downtown Los Angeles, was demolished in the mid 1920s to make way for the gleaming white skyscraper we all know. I love how the biggest sign on the building says “Painless Dentistry.” This photo was taken in 1920, so I’m not sure how painless it really was—unless he knocked you out first with a baseball bat.