Hollywood Hotel as seen from Highland Ave, Hollywood, 1937
How nice it must have been to go to the Hollywood Hotel at the corner of Hollywood Blvd and Highland Ave and just park your car at the curb right outside the hotel and pop inside to meet with your visiting friend who’s staying there (after you’ve bought them some flowers at the Hollywood Hotel Florist, of course.) I suspect its decline didn’t start happening until after the war (it was razed in August 1956) but this photo was taken in 1937, when the hotel probably still a popular place, so my reverie of having lunch in the restaurant can remain daydreamily alluring.
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Tagged Hollywood, Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood Hotel, Hotels, Stores and Shopping
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Sunset Boulevard., Los Angeles, 1903
If the caption to this photo is accurate, what we’re looking at here is a stretch of Sunset Boulevard in 1903. It’s hard to say which stretch it is, exactly, or which road is Sunset, but I’m guessing it’s that straight one on the far left with streetlights. The dearth of houses seems about right for the early 1900s and it would have made for a nice drive in the country in your spanking new Ford Model A, which began production that year.
Central Park (later Pershing Square), downtown Los Angeles, 1909
Until I came across this photo, I didn’t know that Pershing Square had had such a long history of name changes. Originally, it was known locally as St. Vincent’s Park. In 1870, it was officially named Los Angeles Park. In 1886 it was renamed 6th Street Park. And then in the early 1890s it was renamed Central Park, which is what Angelenos called it when this photo was taken in 1909. It went through a final name change to Pershing Square in November 1918 after the end of WWI. The street on the right is Hill Street, which is the only recognizable point of reference. I don’t think that any of the buildings we can see here are still with us—and certainly none of those shady trees. They’re all long gone.
This is a 3-D satellite shot of Pershing Square in 2020:
And this is a colorized version of the 1909 photo, which shows what an oasis of greenery Central Park must have been during that time:
Gotham Delicatessen, 7050 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, as seen in RKO’s “Nocturne” (1946)
Yesterday, I watched a second-rate film noir from RKO called “Nocturne” (1946) because it starred George Raft and I wanted to see what the guy most famous for knocking back roles that made Humphrey Bogart a star was like. Turns out, he’s woefully wooden. But they did shoot on location a fair bit, including this scene at the Gotham Delicatessen. The Gotham opened in 1923 at 7050 Hollywood Blvd on the SW corner of Sycamore. It served breakfast, lunch, dinner, cocktails, and takeout, including the Gotham Special Sandwich, which it advertised as being big enough for two. One account I read said: “There was no food on the face of the earth better than Gotham’s. You could get everything there. The food was unequaled. It was just like it was a banquet.” It was listed in the 1956 L.A. City Directory, so it had a long run. You can see more photos and a menu for its $1.25 4-course “dinner de lux” from 1941 HERE.
Does anybody reading this remember eating there? I’d love to hear about your memories.
That building is long gone, replaced by a generic skyscraper. This is how it looked in April 2018:
A view of Hollywood from the Bernheimer mansion (now Yamashiro restaurant) in 1929
It took three years (1911 to 1914) for the Bernheimer brothers to build their mansion – a replica of a Japanese palace – atop the hillside that overlooks Hollywood. And it’s not hard to see why they chose that location: the view is pretty spectacular. This shot (I suspect has been hand-tinted or recently colorized) was taken in 1929. On the left we can see the Hollywood First National Bank building, which was only a year old at the time, and to its right, the red roof of the Hollywood Hotel. Between the two palm trees, we can see the back of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre (then only two years old), and to the far right, the Roosevelt Hotel (which hosted the first Academy awards that year.) Of those four buildings, only one is gone, which aren’t bad odds if you ask me.
Bernheimer brothers Japanese mansion, Hollywood. It is now Yamashiro restaurant.
Looking east along Hollywood Boulevard toward Carl Laemmle’s building on the Vine Street corner, 1931
This is a screen-grab from a British short called “Round About Hollywood” which travels around Hollywood in 1931 in a two-color process known as Cinecolor. As the camera approaches the Hollywood and Vine intersection, it passes that building on the left. In 1932, it became the Richard Neutra designed CoCo Tree Café, but before that, it was owned by Universal Pictures’s Carl Laemmle, who put up billboards to advertise his latest films. On the far right, we can see “The Bad Sister” which is significant in that it was Bette Davis’s film debut, as well as the first (of seven) times she appeared in a movie with Humphrey Bogart.
My thanks to Philip Mershon of Felix in Hollywood Tours for alerting me to this short, which you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPT1K7s9lzo
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Tagged Advertisement, Color photo, Hollywood and Vine, Hollywood Blvd, Movie Stars, Restaurants, Universal Studios
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Aerial shot of Echo Park and the downtown Los Angeles skyline, April 9, 2020 during the Covid-19 lockdown
I usually post vintage photos of Los Angeles but I came across this one on Facebook and wanted to share it with you. And also have this one published for the record, lest we forget. With the ongoing Covid-19 lockdown in place together with the atmosphere-cleansing rains we’ve been having lately has resulted in the clearest skies over Los Angeles in years. This photo was taken on April 9th, 2020 with Echo Park in the foreground with the downtown LA skyline in the background. Kind of amazing, isn’t it?
By contrast, this is what the view usually looks like. This photo was taken in 2018:
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Tagged Aerial photographs, Color photo, Downtown Los Angeles, Los Angeles
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Curious Angelenos explore the Mulholland Dam and Hollywood Reservoir on opening day, Los Angeles, March 17, 1925
In this photo, we catching a glimpse of around 40 Angelenos checking out the Mulholland Dam and Hollywood Reservoir on the day it open, March 17, 1925. These days, the reservoir is more often referred to as Lake Hollywood and the road that follows the waterline is a popular walking path. The dam was named after William Mulholland, who was ran the Bureau of Water Works and Supply, a predecessor the L.A. Department of Water and Power. These days, those empty hillsides are dotted with homes and the Hollywoodland sign that we can just see in the distance was only a couple of years old and still in fairly good condition.
Here’s a shot of the actual dedication ceremony. There are at least half a dozen chaps on horseback! As far as I can see, only two women were there.
Los Angeles Railway (aka Yellow Car) en route to downtown Los Angeles, April 9, 1956
At first glance, I took this photo to be of a bus but then I saw it was running on tracks. It was taken on April 9, 1956 (exactly 64 years ago today) which explains why it doesn’t look like the street cars from older photos. It’s a Los Angeles Railway car (aka “Yellow Car”, also aka a Streamliner) en route to downtown Los Angeles, where passengers could – as the sign says – “Take this car to Bullock’s Downtown” which was one of the main department stores at L.A.’s center. Well, they could if the car was accepting passengers except that there is a sign in the front window saying “Next car please” which makes me wonder why all the lights are on inside.
Panoramic photograph looking north toward the Hollywood Hills where several large signs are visible, 1924
Although the Hollywoodland sign is the most famous and durable of the large signs erected in the Hollywood Hills, it wasn’t by any means the only one. In this 1924 photo looking across the northern end of Hollywood into the hills, we can see the (then brand-new) Hollywoodland sign on the right. We can also see “Bryn Mawr” which was a hillside subdivision which had opened west of Hollywoodland. And in the middle, is a lone “H” although what that was advertising I haven’t been able to figure out. If anybody reading this knows, I’d love to hear from you.
David G. says: “The street that goes down the center in the lower part of the image is Ivar Ave. Ivar stops at Franklin, I’m assuming, but the Hollywood Freeway goes through that part now and those houses on Franklin were demolished for the freeway. That apartment building on the right side of Ivar (corner of Ivar and Franklin), with the round turret-like structure on the corner, is still there.”
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Tagged Aerial photographs, Hollywood, Hollywood Hills, Hollywood Sign, Hollywoodland
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