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:
A good atmospheric night shot reminds us that photography is about the shadows as much as it’s about the light. This one was taken in 1948 of The London Shop—a chain of upscale menswear—at 303 N. Rodeo Drive, in Beverly Hills, at the corner of Dayton Way, which puts it kitty-corner from where the Two Rodeo Drive shopping mall is now. I love that ye olde worlde light fixture above the door and how the window display lighting spills out across the sidewalk.
The photographer who took this photo of the Hollywood and Vine intersection in 1948 was probably standing on the 2nd or 3rd floor of the 12-story building at Hollywood and Ivar. We’re looking east toward Vine where we can see the Equitable building on the left, the Taft building in the center, and the Broadway Hollywood department store on the right. All three buildings are still there. On the far left we can see a marquee for what was then the Admiral Theatre at 6321 Hollywood Blvd, which then became the Vine Theatre, which eventually devolved into a two-buck grindhouse. It’s hard to tell from the marquee, but it looks like that the day this photo was taken, the double bill was “The Razor’s Edge” (1946) starring Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney, and “The Housekeeper’s Daughter” (1939) starring Joan Bennett and Adolphe Menjou.
In this photo we’re seeing a group of seven men from the Auto Club of Southern California’s Engineering Department beneath the then-new Hollywoodland sign. The sign went up in 1923 and this photo was taken in 1924. If we were to go to same spot where they’re standing on Mulholland Highway I doubt we’d easily be able to see sign as that area is now covered with large homes and tall trees. Equally amazing is that these guys would traipse around in the dirt wearing three-piece suits.
Sunset Blvd opened to the public on May 14, 1904, allowing the lucky few Angelenos who owned one of those new-fangled horseless carriages to go for a drive. This photo was taken that day looking west at the intersection of Sunset and Glendale Blvd (then known as Lake Shore Ave) in Echo Park. It looks like the single driver on the left is going so slowly that the dog is easily able to keep up with him.
Yesterday’s photo of three unchanged buildings on Sunset Blvd contrast with these ones along Hollywood Blvd circa 1952. The Bank of America building on the southeast corner of Highland Ave is now a Ripley’s Believe It Or Not attraction and has a huge, green dinosaur on top of it. The Coffee Dan’s (a popular chain of coffee shops) is now a McDonald’s. The Hollywood Theatre is now a Guinness World Records Museum. And the Drake Hotel is now a Church of Scientology building. I don’t know about you, but I prefer the 1952 version. Can someone please put it all back the way it was?
This is how that corner looked in April 2019. (I wasn’t kidding about the green dinosaur but it must have been Easter because they even added bunny ears to him.)
It’s not often I come across a photo of any building, let alone three in a row, which are in as good condition now as they were 80 years ago. The trio (photographed here in the early 1940s) stands near the western end of the Sunset Strip at Carol Drive. They’re all professional buildings which, I imagine, have been home all sorts of businesses over the years. Currently the one on the corner houses the office of Ron Burkle’s foundation. There was a time when many of the buildings along the Sunset Strip looked like these. What a sight that must have been, but at least we still have these three.
A couple of days ago, I posted a photo of Hollywood Blvd in which I noticed for the first time that the streetlights in the 1960s each had five gold stars on them. And now I find this one from around the same time that also shows streetlights with the same decoration. This one is outside the famous/infamous Frederick’s of Hollywood. It opened in 1947 in the old Kress department store building by Frederick Mellinger, whose big claim to fame was that he invented the push-up bra. The store sold bras, panties, corsets, bedroom slippers, a vast array of hosiery, bridal lingerie, special occasion lingerie, and more. They also did a huge mail order business.
This image of the Kress building and the blue-tiled one next door is from April 2019:
At first glance this photo looks like it may have been taken in London during the Blitz when people took shelter in the Tube stations. But no, this was taken on April 25, 1958 in the Pacific Electric Hill Street subway station in downtown L.A. It was an air raid drill—in fact it was the first building-wide evacuation in Los Angeles, during which these people were treated to a talk on civil defense. Given that this was during the Cold War, I’m guessing the authorities thought it necessary to come up with a contingency plan in case the Reds decided to drop the bomb on us.
In this slice-of-life photo taken on November 10, 1952, we’re seeing Angelenos getting on and off a Pacific Electric Red Car at North Hollywood. It was on the Southern San Fernando Valley line which went from the San Fernando Mission at the northern end of the valley to the Subway Terminal Building on Hill Street in downtown Los Angeles. The streetcar line is now a busway (a road reserved only for buses that take people to the North Hollywood Metro subway station) and the station is now a Groundwork coffee shop.
I took this photo of the station myself on March 23, 2020 not long into the Covid lockdown.
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.
A good atmospheric night shot reminds us that photography is about the shadows as much as it’s about the light. This one was taken in 1948 of The London Shop—a chain of upscale menswear—at 303 N. Rodeo Drive, in Beverly Hills, at the corner of Dayton Way, which puts it kitty-corner from where the Two Rodeo Drive shopping mall is now. I love that ye olde worlde light fixture above the door and how the window display lighting spills out across the sidewalk.
The photographer who took this photo of the Hollywood and Vine intersection in 1948 was probably standing on the 2nd or 3rd floor of the 12-story building at Hollywood and Ivar. We’re looking east toward Vine where we can see the Equitable building on the left, the Taft building in the center, and the Broadway Hollywood department store on the right. All three buildings are still there. On the far left we can see a marquee for what was then the Admiral Theatre at 6321 Hollywood Blvd, which then became the Vine Theatre, which eventually devolved into a two-buck grindhouse. It’s hard to tell from the marquee, but it looks like that the day this photo was taken, the double bill was “The Razor’s Edge” (1946) starring Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney, and 
In this photo we’re seeing a group of seven men from the Auto Club of Southern California’s Engineering Department beneath the then-new Hollywoodland sign. The sign went up in 1923 and this photo was taken in 1924. If we were to go to same spot where they’re standing on Mulholland Highway I doubt we’d easily be able to see sign as that area is now covered with large homes and tall trees. Equally amazing is that these guys would traipse around in the dirt wearing three-piece suits.
Sunset Blvd opened to the public on May 14, 1904, allowing the lucky few Angelenos who owned one of those new-fangled horseless carriages to go for a drive. This photo was taken that day looking west at the intersection of Sunset and Glendale Blvd (then known as Lake Shore Ave) in Echo Park. It looks like the single driver on the left is going so slowly that the dog is easily able to keep up with him.
It’s not often I come across a photo of any building, let alone three in a row, which are in as good condition now as they were 80 years ago. The trio (photographed here in the early 1940s) stands near the western end of the Sunset Strip at Carol Drive. They’re all professional buildings which, I imagine, have been home all sorts of businesses over the years. Currently the one on the corner houses the office of Ron Burkle’s foundation. There was a time when many of the buildings along the Sunset Strip looked like these. What a sight that must have been, but at least we still have these three.
A couple of days ago, 
At first glance this photo looks like it may have been taken in London during the Blitz when people took shelter in the Tube stations. But no, this was taken on April 25, 1958 in the Pacific Electric Hill Street subway station in downtown L.A. It was an air raid drill—in fact it was the first building-wide evacuation in Los Angeles, during which these people were treated to a talk on civil defense. Given that this was during the Cold War, I’m guessing the authorities thought it necessary to come up with a contingency plan in case the Reds decided to drop the bomb on us.
In this slice-of-life photo taken on November 10, 1952, we’re seeing Angelenos getting on and off a Pacific Electric Red Car at North Hollywood. It was on the Southern San Fernando Valley line which went from the San Fernando Mission at the northern end of the valley to the Subway Terminal Building on Hill Street in downtown Los Angeles. The streetcar line is now a busway (a road reserved only for buses that take people to the North Hollywood Metro subway station) and the station is now a Groundwork coffee shop.