I don’t know exactly when this photo of the Los Angeles Times building, corner of 1st and Spring in downtown L.A. was taken. That tower in the background to the right is the microwave tower atop the AT&T Madison Complex Tandem Office on Grand Ave. It opened in 1961 so I’m guessing this photo is circa 1960s. But in a way, I think a photo like this is almost timeless, the way the city bathed in a black-and-white dusk.
David G says: “I think it’s indeed the late 1960s, because by the early 1970s the sign at the lower left read “Security-Pacific Bank” due to a merger-acquisition.”
Robert K says: “I have always loved the Pacific Bell tower (as I remember it) It looked amazing at night when cruising around Bunker Hill in my stroller in the early 60s. You could see the lights all over the downtown area then, not that many, but they really stood out. Richfield building tower, edison building, a giant red Pegusas, KKRD towers with blue globes. The area had magical views then for a toddler coming home from the library at dusk, I always tried to get Mom to stop at the Pershing Square fountain so I could see the colored lights in it. Didn’t know it was opened in 61, I was born at Queen of Angels in 1960, but lived on the hill until they forced us out circa 1962. Oh, and the Christmas shopping on Broadway and the daily trips on Angels Flight to Grand Central.”
In 1924, after a disastrous shoot in Italy, MGM made the expensive decision to bring their mammoth production of “Ben-Hur” back to Los Angeles and start over. To film the spectacular Circus Maximus chariot race in which Ben-Hur (Ramon Novarro) faces off against the villainous Messala (Francis X. Busman), MGM built an enormous set where La Cienega and Venice Boulevards meet. Even though only half the Circus was needed for filming, the set was so vast that MGM had trouble filling it with enough extras (the pay was $5 a day and a boxed lunch) so they ended up filling the gaps with store window mannequins.
This shot of the entrance to the Ambassador Hotel at 3400 Wilshire Boulevard is undated and without a car in the frame, it’s hard to pinpoint when it was taken. But in a way, it doesn’t really matter because the entrance to the hotel remained largely unchanged. That tall, white column alerted drivers that they had found the place and sculpture of woman at its based greeted customers from 1921 to 1989.
In this shot from 1954, we’re looking east along Wilshire Blvd from Vermont Ave toward to buildings that are still with us: the Bullocks Wilshire department store and the Town House hotel. The store is now a law library and the hotel is now a low-cost housing community, but they still punctuate the Wilshire skyline.
McDonnell’s was a mini chain of around half a dozen drive-in restaurants around Los Angeles in the first half of the 20th century, when many places like this had very tall towers to help them stand out. This one was at the corner of La Brea Ave and Beverly Blvd and when I looked at the signage, I thought “I love the retro font they used.” But then I realized this photo was taken in 1930, so the font wasn’t retro at all — it was current!
In this photo, we’re looking north along Rossmore Avenue as it makes that curve to the right before hitting Melrose Ave and becomes Vine Street. At first I thought the shot was taken from the roof of the El Royale Apartments but this is from 1925 and the apartments didn’t go up until 1929. That large block of empty land will soon become home to the Ravenswood Apartments (opened 1930.) The building with the round turret is the Christ the King Catholic church, which is still there. And in the far distance, we can see the Hollywoodland sign and the Mulholland Dam, both of which were fairly new in 1925.
I guess if you stuck a pair of (too short) wings on either side and a propeller at the front, you get to call your joint the Airplane Café. Apparently this place was somewhere on Ventura Blvd, which is the longest road through the San Fernando Valley so it could have been in any of a dozen different areas. But it was around in the 1920s, so I’m guessing it was around the eastern end. I love that sign: REAL CHILI (as against fake?), GOOD COFFEE (as against bad?) and SPECIAL PREPARED HAMBURGER, which makes me wonder how many different ways is there to make hamburger?
In this photo from July 1920, we can see a 15-foot portrait of Harold Lloyd hanging outside Sid Grauman’s Million Dollar Theater, 307 S. Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. What’s interesting is that Lloyd’s movie, “High and Dizzy” was the supporting short (26 minutes) for the main feature, which was “The Fighting Chance.” But it’s Lloyd’s picture they figured would bring in the customers. I don’t know what the “Cinema Temple” sign refers to, other than perhaps Grauman’s advertising that his Million Dollar Theater was so lavish that it resembled a temple.
This photo encapsulates an interesting dichotomy in L.A. during the Great Depression. Here we see a line of men (no women, so maybe they’re lining up for possible work) in Los Angeles in front of a billboard for “The Champ.” It was a huge hit, earning MGM more than a million dollars in profits, and was one of 7 movies that MGM had in the top 10 money earners for 1931. The early depression years were great for MGM – they had 7 movies in the top 10 for 1932, too. Meanwhile, life wasn’t so great for the guys in this line. This was 2 years after the stock market crashed and they’re still showing up in jackets and hats.
The Cahuenga Pass section of the Hollywood Freeway connects Los Angeles with the San Fernando Valley. With so little traffic, I thought perhaps this was a shot of the day it opened on June 15, 1940. But turns out this was taken 9 years later in 1949. You could almost count the number of vehicles on the road and not a streetcar in sight. Right now (April 17, 2020) Los Angeles is on lockdown because of the Covid-19 pandemic so if a photographer stood in the same place this morning, it wouldn’t look all that different.