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.Hollywood stars gather to welcome home Marion Davies at the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, 1928
You knew you’d made it into the Hollywood A List if you scored an invite to one of Marion Davies’s parties. And she’d throw one for pretty much any reason. This one was thrown in the French room at the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard. The room was decorated like a Parisian Café and dubbed “Chez Marion” because the point of the party was to welcome her home after a three-month trip to Europe in 1928. Standing, left to right are
- Lorraine MacLean (actress and costume designer)
- Matt Moore (actor)
- Aileen Pringle (actress),
- Louis B. Mayer (head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)
- Gloria Swanson (actress)
- Harry D’Arrast (director)
- Marion Davies (actress and mistress of William Randolph Hearst (but don’t use the “m” word out loud!)
- Louella Parsons (gossip columnist)
- Ricardo Cortez (actor)
- Charles Chaplin (actor/director)
- Norma Shearer (actress)
- Irving Thalberg (head of production at MGM)
- Harold Lloyd (actor)
- Robert Z. Leonard (director)
Seated in foreground are: Harry Crocker (actor), left, and William Haines (actor.)
Looking west along Hollywood Blvd from Wilcox Ave, Hollywood, California, circa 1930
It looks it was a quiet day on Hollywood Boulevard when this photo was taken looking west from the Wilcox Ave corner. I’m guessing it was summertime or the weekend because the guy on the left isn’t wearing a jacket or even a hat, which was de rigeur back then. Mr. Casual is walking in front of a building with the word “ITALY” on the front. I’m guessing it’s a Bank of Italy branch. It changed its name to Bank of America on November 1, 1930, so perhaps this was taken during the summer of 1930. Hmmm, I wonder what was playing at the Iris Theatre half a block away. Maybe that’s where Mr. Casual was headed.
That same view in April 2019 – note how much greener Hollywood Blvd is now compared to back then. So much more shade from the relentless California sun!
Three vintage Fords get to be the first vehicles to ride a new freeway extension, Los Angeles, 1962
This was a cute idea – to celebrate the opening of a freeway extension by getting a trio of vintage cars to kick things off in 1962. My friend at the Petersen Automotive Museum on Wilshire Blvd tells me that they’re all Fords. The one on the far left is a circa 1907 Model N while the others are Model T’s built between 1908 and 1916. I can’t imagine they led the pack for very long. Even in 1962 I’m sure that L.A. motorists were keen to get where they were going.
Andie P says: “That was an invitation only gathering and my dad was there with Ernie Bernardi, his friend of many years. There were vehicles from each decade, Ernie had a ’56 Chevy and my dad had a ’49 Packard (that he rarely drove). The freeway wasn’t officially opened until the next day. Ernie was a City councilman for more than 30 years, for the Valley and championed anything that made the Valley more accessible and more enterprising.”
Schwab’s Pharmacy menu, 8024 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, circa 1940s
When the Schwab brothers – Leon, Bernard, Martin, and Jack – opened their newest location at 8024 Sunset Blvd, I can’t imagine they had any idea it would become one of the iconic locations during studio-era Hollywood. But it did, and ever since it opened in 1932, it fed the dreams and stomachs of Hollywood hopefuls and those who made it. I’ve often wondered what they served at Schwab’s and yesterday I came across a menu from the 1940s. I think I’ll start with a Mexican Tamale with chili, then move onto the Club Style Sandwich No. 3, and end with coffee and a Black Beauty for dessert. And what’ll you have?
The front of the menu also lists their location at 401 Bedford Drive, Beverly Hills. For a larger version of the menu, click HERE.
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California State Route 1 runs along pretty much the whole California coast but takes on different names at different stages. In Los Angeles, it’s known as the Pacific Coast Highway, but back when this photo was taken in 1938, it was still known by its original name, the Roosevelt Highway. (The name-change happened in 1941.) In this stretch, some lucky Angelenos built their homes right on the beach (Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg among them), but as we can see from this Life magazine photo, traffic didn’t choke the streets like it does now.
In this photo, we’re looking west along Wilshire Blvd toward Western Ave from about Oxford Ave. That tall building on the left is the Pellissier building, which houses the beautiful Art Deco theater, the Wiltern. It opened in 1930, so I’m guessing this photo is circa early 1930s. On the left we can see a big sign for “Stevens quality ice cream” – does anybody reading this remember them? Were they as good as Curries or Wil Wright’s?
Here we have a sad piece of Hollywood history. The estate that was once owned by John Paul Getty but which we all know as Norma Desmond’s mansion in the 1950 movie, “Sunset Boulevard” is shown here being demolished in 1957. There were actually three mansions used during filming. The one on the Paramount studio soundstage; the one whose driveway William Holden ducks into at 10060 Sunset Blvd; and the one used for the exteriors, which is the one shown here. Technically the address was 641 S Irving Blvd but the estate lay at the corner of Irving and Wilshire Blvd. In the foreground we can see the swimming pool, where it all ended rather badly for Mr. Joe Gillis.
This modest little sign belies a much-needed service provided to servicemen passing through Los Angeles en route to the Pacific Theatre during WWII. Anne Lehr, the wife of the vice president of United Artists, saw that servicemen didn’t have anywhere to sleep while on leave, so she leased a mansion at 1284 N. Crescent Heights Blvd (near the Garden of Allah Hotel) and on May 15, 1942, opened the Hollywood Guild & Canteen, which became known as Mom Lehr’s. Securing funding from movie studios and private organizations, she turned the former home of Dustin Farnum (he starred in “The Squaw Man” which was DeMille’s directorial debut and the first feature film to be shot in Hollywood) into a huge dormitory where each night she provided 700 men with a meal and a place to sleep. That number swelled to 1200 on the weekends. When Bette Davis and John Garfield saw what a huge need there was, it inspired them to create the Hollywood Canteen, which opened on October 3, 1942. Farnum’s mansion was torn down in 1948 to make way for an apartment building.
In this stunning aerial view, we can get a bird’s eye view of what Westwood Village looked like in 1936. There’s as much empty land as there is development. In the upper left, we can see the iconic Fox Theater, which opened in 1931 and became a favorite venue for big movie premieres. And in the center we can see the sun shining off the dome of the Janss Dome, which was the first building erected in Westwood Village, in 1929. But what really caught my eye is near the bottom: the silhouette of the blimp from which this photo was taken.