In this photo we’re looking southeast down Rodeo Dr from Santa Monica Blvd in Beverly Hills. It was taken in 1932, back when Rodeo Dr. wasn’t home to blocks of high-end stores that 99% of people can’t afford. It was a regular local street with regular local stores and cafes, which is why it looks so clean and uncluttered. I don’t know what sort of trees lined the street, but their uniformity almost makes it look as though they’re pointing to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel that back then would only have been four years old.
This is how that view looked in November 2023.
This shot is an odd one. I couldn’t find this image posted anywhere else online, nor could I find “2334 Washington Blvd” on a map. I did, however, find a listing for Bay Cities Laundry at 2334 Washington Blvd in the Santa Monica and Venice 1936 City Directory online, so I know it existed and that the caption gave the right address, but that’s all I know about this place. But in a way, I don’t mind. The image is dripping with so much atmosphere that it pretty much speaks for itself, if you ask me.
The Life magazine photographer who snapped this image was standing in the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, whose Chinese-themed box office that stood at the edge of the sidewalk. Past it is Hollywood Blvd, and on the far left, we can see the columns of the Masonic Temple (these days, Jimmy Kimmel broadcasts from there.) Strung across the boulevard is a banner with Warner Baxter’s name because the movie playing that week was MGM’s “Robin Hood of El Dorado” which means this photo was taken in May of 1936. My favorite detail of this photo is the well-dressed woman who’s just bought a ticket and is heading to see the double feature with MGM’s “Moonlight Murder” and a Disney animated short called “Three Little Wolves.”
I love seeing photos of visiting Shriner conventioneers marching through the streets of LA , especially when they go to the trouble of decorating a — I don’t even know what to call that vehicle. A miniature car? A maxed-out go-cart? — with a giant fez. Behind it are the proud members of the Tadmor Shriner Temple in Akron, Ohio marching along Fifth St in downtown LA in 1925. In the far distance we can see the arched windows of Southern Pacific Railway’s Central Station where 5th Street dead-ends at Central Ave.
I’ve posted a number of photos of this magnificent building before, but I don’t think any of them were as remarkably crisp as this one. It’s the Los Angeles County courthouse at the corner of Temple Street and Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. It was taken circa 1899, and the only forms of transportation we can see here are horse-drawn carriages and that streetcar on the left that’s heading south down Broadway. (It’s so early, in fact, that it might even be a cable car.) And look at that pair of matching palm trees on the corner. I’m guessing they were only just planted. But most impressive (to me, at least) are the two water sprinklers on the Temple St lawn. I’d have thought they were a 20th century invention.
These days we take ice for granted. We just open our freezer and there it is. But way back when, ice was a precious resource that had to be renewed often. And so, since 1882, Angelinos had turned to the Union Ice Company to make and deliver their ice to them. Back in 1913, when this photo was taken, deliveries were made by horse-drawn wagons. Here we have ten wagons, each pulled by a pair of horses, parked outside the Union Ice depot on Santa Monica Blvd. I assume the building behind them is where the ice was manufactured because in the Southern Californian heat, it didn’t last long, and if you’re traveling by horsepower, you’re not going very fast.
This vibrant color photo gives us a glimpse of what it was like to cruise along Ocean Blvd in Long Beach sometime during the early 1960s. This was back when the Red Cars were still running, and they stopped in 1961. I don’t know what model that orange/red car and that blue convertible were, but they sure popped with color, didn’t they? Even that yellow fence on the shoulder does! (I couldn’t determine where on Ocean Blvd this photo was taken, so if anyone can figure it out, I’d love to hear from you.)