Between the more famous Santa Monica and Venice Beaches is a stretch of Los Angeles called Ocean Park. In this photo we’re looking north along a very, very crowded stretch of Ocean Park beach in 1925 during what I can only assume was one of the hottest days of the year. Too bad if you arrived later than noon and wanted to put up an umbrella. In the distance we can see Lick Pier, where the Rosemary Theater (whose sign we can just see) was a major attraction to the area.Hollywood Storage Co. building, 1025 N. Highland Ave, Hollywood, November, 1929
If this photo is anything to go by, even in Los Angeles in the 1920s, despite all that empty land, storage space was already an issue. This is the Hollywood Storage Co. building at 1025 N. Highland Ave, in Hollywood. We can see that there was nothing much nearby so this building really must have stood out. And the Los Angeles Evening Herald took advantage of the height: they built radio station KMTR at the top. This photo is from November 1929 and the building is still there. The image below is from May 2019:
Tony V says: “When the Times-Mirror Corporation decided to develop a Los Angeles television station in partnership with the Columbia Broadcasting System, that station’s original studios were on the top floors of this building. The television station was KTTV which stood for Times TeleVision, Channel 11. A few years later, the Times sold its share of KTTV, then bought into KNXT, Channel 2 in Los Angeles.”
Howard A says: “This was a block away from my junior high (Bancroft). It was my understanding that movie film was stored there. There were a lot of movie related businesses on Highland Avenue. Richard Pink was in my class. His dad, Paul, founded Pink’s Hot Dogs on La Brea and Melrose.”
Harper Ranch, north of Sunset Blvd and west of Laurel Canyon, Hollywood, circa 1909
Charles Harper moved to L.A. from Mississippi after the Civil War and made his fortune selling hardware. His estate, known as Harper Ranch, occupied a prime stretch of Hollywood. It stood north of Sunset Blvd and west of Laurel Canyon, which later became the start of the Sunset Strip. (By contrast, the Garden of Allah Hotel was south of Sunset and west of Laurel Canyon.) As we can see by this circa 1909 photo (which I can only assume has been hand-tinted, but beautifully so) the view from the Harper manse was picturesquely bucolic.
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Tagged Color photo, Hollywood, Sunset Blvd, The Garden of Allah Hotel
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Warner Bros studios with convention banner, 5800 Sunset Blvd, Hollywood, 1925
Before Warner Bros. took over First National’s Burbank lot in 1928, their main studio was on Sunset Blvd at Van Ness Ave. The façade was an impressive structure built in the classic style intended, I’m supposing, to give the impression of a classy outfit to what was really a scrappy also-ran until they released “The Jazz Singer” in 1927. This photo is from 1925 when they were welcoming attendees to their national convention. I’m curious about that coach out front, and more specifically what those two poles on top of it were all about.
That building is still there. The facilities are now known as the Sunset Bronson Studios. This image is from May 2019.
Haines lemon farm, Coldwater Canyon, Beverly Hills, California, 1910
It’s odd to think of the land in Beverly Hills being used to raise lemons, but back in 1910, this is what Coldwater Canyon looked like. These days, it’s filled with expensive homes, one piled on top of another, and the road going through it is one of the main routes over the Hollywood Hills. After this photo was taken, the Rodeo Land and Water Company later developed the canyon as one of the prime residential areas in Beverly Hills north of Sunset Boulevard. But at the time, this was the Haines lemon farm, where their biggest worry was probably coyotes.
Looking north along Santa Monica Beach toward the Casa Del Mar Beach Club and Santa Monica Pier, 1920
The photographer of this 1920 photo was standing on Santa Monica Beach looking north. In the far distance we can see the Santa Monica pier. On the right are a couple of the large beach clubs that were popular back then. The closest one is the five-story Casa Del Mar Beach Club. Most interesting of all is that vehicle on the left. It is an electric tram that took people for a ride along the walkway.
Disneyland parking lot at the main entrance gate, 1956
This photo was identified as being taken in 1956, which makes it only a year after opening. There are a couple of noteworthy things to mention: look at how close the parking lot was to the main entrance gate! It’s so close you could measure it in feet! (These days, there’s a tram ride you take to get from the parking structure to the main gate.) And as gorgeous as that car in the foreground is, why didn’t that driver park between the lines? I hope they were just stopping briefly to take the photo and weren’t hogging two parking spaces at the front!
Mercury Aviation airplanes and a blimp parked at Chaplin Airfield, Fairfax and Wilshire Boulevards, Los Angeles, 1919
Back when Los Angeles was more open field than urban sprawl, Charlie Chaplin’s brother, Syd, leased property bounded by what is now Wilshire, Fairfax, and San Vincente, and named it Chaplin Airfield. In 1918, Cecil B. DeMille started the Mercury Aviation Company, which offered observation flights for $10. This photo is circa 1919, and it’s his planes we can see parked in this photo alongside a blimp. In the background, oil wells that dotted the landscape for years before the relentless march of development took over.
Looking north up Vine Street from south of Sunset Blvd, Hollywood, 1955
Driving up Vine Street just after dusk in 1955 offered Hollywoodites a streetscape of bright neon lights. Standing south of Sunset you could see the lights for NBC Studios, The Broadway Hollywood department store, Plaza Hotel, ABC Studios, and Wallichs Music City advertising their “Self Service Records.” On the block south of Sunset, we can see a billboard for “Panorama Pacific” which was a magazine style program on KNXT Channel 2 from 1952 to 1964.
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Tagged Color photo, Hollywood, Hotels, NBC Radio / Television, Night photo, Stores and Shopping, Television
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Aerial photograph of Los Angeles taken from a balloon in 1887
At first glance, this photo might not seem too interesting . . . until you learn it’s a shot of Los Angeles taken in 1887 from a hot-air balloon, and therefore quite probably the first overhead shot ever taken of the city. (To orient yourself, left is north.) It’s kind of amazing that that little town down there would grow and grow to a sprawling metropolis covering more than 500 square miles and be home to more than 10 million people, some of whom are the most famous in the world.
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Tagged 1800s, Aerial photographs, Downtown Los Angeles, Los Angeles
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