The Players Club and Chateau Marmont, Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, circa 1940s
Without a motorcar to help us, it’s hard to pinpoint when this photo of The Players Club and Chateau Marmont on the Sunset Strip was taken. Movie director, Preston Sturges, opened the nightclub in 1940, so I’m guessing it’s not long after that because the sign directing people to the parking lot up the hill looks fairly new. With no minimum, no cover, and parking, it seems like a good deal to me. The Chateau Marmont is still around, of course, but The Players lasted until the mid ‘50s. Its current incarnation is decent Mexican restaurant called Pink Taco. You can’t miss it—it’s VERY pink!
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Tagged Chateau Marmont, Hotels, Nightclubs, Restaurants, Sunset Blvd
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The Igloo ice cream store, 4302 West Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, circa 1928
If you’re going to open an ice cream store, why wouldn’t you build it in the form of an igloo? Makes perfect sense to me. The Igloo ice cream store stood at 4302 West Pico Boulevard, not too far from the Miracle Mile section of Wilshire Blvd. This photo was taken in 1928 and I don’t know how long it lasted, but it’s a darned sight more cheery than the dreary mini mall that’s there now.
That same location in March 2019:
Charlie Chaplin’s Italian villa-inspired building at 624 S. La Brea Ave, Los Angeles, circa late 1920s
The location on La Brea Ave most famously associated with Charlie Chaplin is his film studios at 1416 N. La Brea Ave, which he built in 1917 and which now home to Jim Henson’s Muppets. But at 624 S. La Brea is another building that Chaplin also built. Whereas the studios resemble his native England, this building which Chaplin built in 1928 as a business investment was inspired by Italian villas. Going by the cars parked out front, this photo was probably taken not long after it opened. In the 1980s, it was a La Brea Bakery café, in the 1990s, it was a wonderful Italian restaurant called Campanile, and today it’s a café called Republique. It’s one of the few places in L.A. that remains largely unchanged and has retained its charming atmosphere.
This is that same view in January 2020:
A Goodyear blimp hovers over Hughes Airport, Playa Vista, Los Angeles, circa late 1940s
One of these days, I’d love the chance to ride in a Goodyear blimp over Los Angeles. It’s virtually impossible to get a seat on one of those things so I’ll have to make do with photos like this. Here we see the blimp hovering over Hughes Airport (as in Howard Hughes’ private airfield, which was in the Playa Vista area of Los Angeles, just north of L.A. International Airport. The runway was just south of where Jefferson Blvd runs these days.) In this photo we’re looking northeast toward the Hollywood hills. This photo is undated but the best guess is that it was taken in around the late 1940s, which is an even better time to take a ride in a Goodyear blimp, if you ask me.
This map from Wikipedia shows were the Hughes Airport was in current-day Playa Vista:
A crowded dance floor at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub, Ambassador Hotel, Wilshire Blvd , Los Angeles, 1949
I don’t know what was going on at the Cocoanut Grove this night in 1949, but oh boy, look at that dance floor—it’s packed. Considering those palm trees had been standing there since the place opened in 1923 (having been repurposed from Valentino’s 1921 movie, “The Sheik”), they look like they’re still in pretty good shape. (Unless, of course, they’d been replaced at some point.) But I can’t see any of the toy monkeys that used to hang from their branches. Perhaps by this point they’d all been “souvenired.”
The toy monkeys even featured on their matchbooks:
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Tagged Ambassador Hotel, Cocoanut Grove nightclub, Hotels, Nightclubs
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It’s hard to imagine a more Hollywood photo than this. Here we have legendary director, Ernst Lubitsch, in 1923 on the set of his Warner Bros. picture, “The Marriage Circle.” (1924) He’s wearing the standard silent movie director uniform of jodhpurs and flat cap, and he’s holding a megaphone, which is how the extras at the back of the set could hear him. And if that wasn’t enough, someone’s painted the word “HOLLYWOOD” on the side. By the way, the kid next to him is a young Henry Blanke, whose career producing movies spanned 33 years and 90 films.
Carl’s Drive-in restaurant stood at the corner of S. Figueroa and S. Flower Streets which would have been a great location as it was right near both the campus of the University of Southern California and the L.A. Memorial Coliseum. So I’m pretty sure this place would have been hopping all day, every, and every night. When I see photos taken in 1941, as this one was, I can’t help but wonder about the people in them and how they were only months away from seeing their country plunged into war. Enjoy ye burgers while ye may.
This circa 1910 photo reminds us how much the movie-going experience has changed since the early days. I couldn’t find out where the Vendome movie house was but it doesn’t look like it was much more than a barn turned into a theater. And it seems the movie people had to share it with the vaudeville people: the banner on the left reads, “Vaudeville tonight, Big 5 cents show, Sunday Special.” But I really like their motto: “The Vendome, better than some and as good as the best.”
The Music Box opened at 6126 Hollywood Blvd in 1926 as a live theater venue. Clark Gable played there in “Chicago” in 1927. It also presented revues – the sign on top says “The Pick of the World in Girls.” But in 1931, when this photo was taken, a Clara Kimball Young picture called “Women Go On Forever” was playing. None of those names featured out front were in the movie, so I’m guessing there was also a live review as part of the program. None of the remarkable detailing on the façade of this theater has survived, the theater itself is still around, known today as the Fonda Theatre, names in honor of Henry Fonda.
By the 1920s, Los Angeles had one of the most comprehensive network of public transportation in the world. Like most things, though, it had a humble beginning, and this photo shows us how it all started. On September 22, 1873, the Pioneer Omnibus Street Line opened for business with a horse-drawn vehicle that followed a regular schedule and a fixed route, taking riders between Olvera Street and Washington Gardens, popular beer garden and fairground located at the corner of Washington and Main.