It looks like the well-dressed Angeleno-about-town was wearing the Timely Clothes brand back in 1943. Or at least that’s what the folks at the Mullen and Bluett department store thought, when putting together the window display in their store at 610 S. Broadway in downtown L.A. I wonder what the $35 mentioned in the back bought you. I’m guessing a three-piece suit?
A little part of my heart aches when I see some of the buildings Los Angeles has lost. This building served as Los Angeles City Hall and stood at 226 Broadway between 2nd and 3rd Streets from 1888 to 1928, when it was replaced by the iconic 28-story white building we have today. Yes, I know it wouldn’t have been earthquake resistant, and that chimney on the right could have done some real damage if it toppled to the street below, but still. It’s a shame we had to lose it. This photo is from 1889.
Tony V says: “The bricks taken from this city hall when it was demolished, were used to build Anthony Heinsbergen’s studio which still stands at 7415 Beverly Boulevard, down the street from El Coyote. Heinsbergen and his crew painted murals inside the current city hall, the Biltmore Hotel and most of the movie palaces on Broadway.”
This image from April 2019 shows us what 226 Broadway looks like nowadays:
This photo shows what a beacon the Carthay Circle Theatre (1926 to 1969) must have been at night. Look how brightly that light shines atop the tower, and the neon sign proclaiming FOX CARTHAY CIRCLE meant that anybody with a mile or two knew where they could catch a double feature. Silhouetted in the foreground, we can see Henry Lion’s statue of a gold prospector. It was later moved to a nearby park:
It’s photos like these that seem to burst from the screen with chatter, music, and festive hubbub. What we’re looking at is the Navy Relief Ball held at the Cocoanut Grove at the Ambassador Hotel on June 12, 1942. This was six months after Pearl Harbor, so support for a cause like this would have been very strong, as evidenced by that dance floor. Look how packed it was! Now known as the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society, it provides financial, educational, and other assistance to members of the U.S. Naval Service and survivors when in need.
Out of curiosity, I put the photo through one of those auto-color websites. The result isn’t perfect but I did a pretty good job bringing the image to life:
I haven’t been able to establish where this photo was taken other than it was somewhere in Los Angeles. To my mind, the location is beside the point. What’s striking about this image is the contrast between the sprawling, luxurious mansion set up on a hill with statues bordering the front steps, and the six (that we can see) oil wells surrounding it. I’ve never been up close to oil wells, but I assume they’re noisy and smelly and not the sort of thing you’d want in your backyard – even if they’re what funded the mansion you live in.
**UPDATE** – Mystery solved! The Facebook hive mind found it pretty quickly. This is a page from a book called “Signal Hill” by Ken Davis and the Signal Hill Historical Society, published by Arcadia Publishing in 2006.
This pair of Pacific Electric streetcars were on Glendale Boulevard in Echo Park when this photo was taken on November 3, 1950. In the background we can see the dome of the Angelus Temple, which was the 5,300-seat spiritual home of radio evangelist, Aimee Semple McPherson. The streetcars are, of course, long gone, but the temple is still there and still home to the Foursquare Church that she founded. It now has a capacity of nearly 9,000 people.
In this circa 1930s photo, we’re looking east along Wilshire Blvd from Masselin Ave. On the left, with the canopy extending across the sidewalk is the Wilshire Bowl, which was a nightclub popular with the Hollywood crowd. In 1942 it became The Louisiana before transforming into Slapsy Maxie’s. On the right, that white tower was Desmond’s department store and in front of it Silverwoods, an upscale menswear store. Those streetlights were exclusive to the boulevard and were called “the Wilshire Lantern.” I wish they were still around today.
These days, Los Angeles International Airport (aka LAX) is a sprawling, bustling complex of nine different terminals, seven parking lots, and traffic that never stops. What a contrast to this shot taken in 1959 of the TWA Terminal. It all looks so low-key, as though it were instead the Greyhound bus depot in Rancho Cucamonga.
Tony says: “It is important to note that this was the Los Angeles International Airport terminal area at its original location south of Century Boulevard and east of Sepulveda Boulevard. It had evolved from Mines Field which opened in 1930. Today’s terminals began to open in 1961 more than a mile away, on the west side of Sepulveda Boulevard. This original area is now used for some cargo operations.”
Andie P says: “It was low key and easy in, easy out, from Sepulveda Blvd. and one could get in “the back way” if Sepulveda was jammed, as sometimes happened. I often flew down from San Francisco on a 3-day pass, flying PSA and my dad would pick me up on his way home from his construction “yard” in Long Beach and drive “over the hill” to his home in Sepulveda. He knew what time the PSA flight landed (4:10 P.M.) and would wait for me at the curb at 4:30 because that’s all the time it took to deplane and walk through the terminal.”
MGM executives would have been pleased to see the line forming outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre to see an early evening showing of “Captains Courageous” starring Spencer Tracy and Freddie Bartholomew. Or maybe these people knew that the movie would only play there for a week because Jean Harlow’s final picture, “Saratoga” was coming in the following week. This photo was taken on July 17, 1937 – back in the days when that canopy extended all the way from the front door, across the courtyard to the Hollywood Blvd curb.
In the 15 years I’ve been researching and writing about the Garden of Allah Hotel, one thing I’ve learned is that you never know when things will come to the surface. Back in December 2012, I posted a photograph from 1960 showing that of one of the original hotel signs had found a home in Michigan. In 2016, I found a wonderful photo from 1951 showing the sign in all its glory. I never did find out how it came to be in Michigan and worried that its exposure to that extreme weather might be the end of it. And then, out of the blue earlier this week, a collector contacted me to let me know that he now had the sign and it was sitting in his garage until he had the time to restore it. I asked if he would send me a photo – and he did. I’m so relieved that it’s still around and that we might one day see it restored to its former glory.
He’s also got the original neon tubing! He said it mostly broken into pieces but will make recreating it a lot easier:
This is the 1960 photo taken in Michigan:
This shot is from 1951 showing the sign in its original location:
It looks like the well-dressed Angeleno-about-town was wearing the Timely Clothes brand back in 1943. Or at least that’s what the folks at the Mullen and Bluett department store thought, when putting together the window display in their store at 610 S. Broadway in downtown L.A. I wonder what the $35 mentioned in the back bought you. I’m guessing a three-piece suit?
A little part of my heart aches when I see some of the buildings Los Angeles has lost. This building served as Los Angeles City Hall and stood at 226 Broadway between 2nd and 3rd Streets from 1888 to 1928, when it was replaced by the iconic 28-story white building we have today. Yes, I know it wouldn’t have been earthquake resistant, and that chimney on the right could have done some real damage if it toppled to the street below, but still. It’s a shame we had to lose it. This photo is from 1889.
This photo shows what a beacon the Carthay Circle Theatre (1926 to 1969) must have been at night. Look how brightly that light shines atop the tower, and the neon sign proclaiming FOX CARTHAY CIRCLE meant that anybody with a mile or two knew where they could catch a double feature. Silhouetted in the foreground, we can see Henry Lion’s statue of a gold prospector. It was later moved to a nearby park:
It’s photos like these that seem to burst from the screen with chatter, music, and festive hubbub. What we’re looking at is the Navy Relief Ball held at the Cocoanut Grove at the Ambassador Hotel on June 12, 1942. This was six months after Pearl Harbor, so support for a cause like this would have been very strong, as evidenced by that dance floor. Look how packed it was! Now known as the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society, it provides financial, educational, and other assistance to members of the U.S. Naval Service and survivors when in need.
I haven’t been able to establish where this photo was taken other than it was somewhere in Los Angeles. To my mind, the location is beside the point. What’s striking about this image is the contrast between the sprawling, luxurious mansion set up on a hill with statues bordering the front steps, and the six (that we can see) oil wells surrounding it. I’ve never been up close to oil wells, but I assume they’re noisy and smelly and not the sort of thing you’d want in your backyard – even if they’re what funded the mansion you live in.
This pair of Pacific Electric streetcars were on Glendale Boulevard in Echo Park when this photo was taken on November 3, 1950. In the background we can see the dome of the Angelus Temple, which was the 5,300-seat spiritual home of radio evangelist, Aimee Semple McPherson. The streetcars are, of course, long gone, but the temple is still there and still home to the Foursquare Church that she founded. It now has a capacity of nearly 9,000 people.
In this circa 1930s photo, we’re looking east along Wilshire Blvd from Masselin Ave. On the left, with the canopy extending across the sidewalk is the 
These days, Los Angeles International Airport (aka LAX) is a sprawling, bustling complex of nine different terminals, seven parking lots, and traffic that never stops. What a contrast to this shot taken in 1959 of the TWA Terminal. It all looks so low-key, as though it were instead the Greyhound bus depot in Rancho Cucamonga.
MGM executives would have been pleased to see the line forming outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre to see an early evening showing of “Captains Courageous” starring Spencer Tracy and Freddie Bartholomew. Or maybe these people knew that the movie would only play there for a week because Jean Harlow’s final picture, “Saratoga” was coming in the following week. This photo was taken on July 17, 1937 – back in the days when that canopy extended all the way from the front door, across the courtyard to the Hollywood Blvd curb.
In the 15 years I’ve been researching and writing about the Garden of Allah Hotel, one thing I’ve learned is that you never know when things will come to the surface. Back in December 2012, I posted a photograph from 1960 showing that of one of the original hotel signs had found a home in Michigan. In 2016, I found a wonderful photo from 1951 showing the sign in all its glory. I never did find out how it came to be in Michigan and worried that its exposure to that extreme weather might be the end of it. And then, out of the blue earlier this week, a collector contacted me to let me know that he now had the sign and it was sitting in his garage until he had the time to restore it. I asked if he would send me a photo – and he did. I’m so relieved that it’s still around and that we might one day see it restored to its former glory.
