Winner, winner, chicken dinner! I have an extensive list of restaurants and bars from L.A. in the 1920s through 1950s) on my website – https://martinturnbull.com/hollywood-places/ – but the one that gets the most reaction is this place: King’s Tropical Inn which stood at 5741 West Washington Blvd in Culver City. The food was along the lines of southern fried chicken, fries, biscuits with honey, which isn’t very tropical but was evidently deeeeelish. (Someone said to me once: “Yes, Mildred Pierce might have owned it.”) The tropical part was the décor. The tables had little bamboo huts on them and overhead, a painted night sky featured moving stars and clouds. This photo is from 1928. I have collected a bunch of photos on the place, which you can see here: King’s Tropical Inn.
And now that site is home to a paint store, which seems a crying shame, doesn’t it? (May 2018)
If you’re going to open an ice cream store in Los Angeles, of course you’re going to build it in the shape of an iceberg with a chimney on top. Especially if you’re going to label your product “fancy” because nothing quite screams “fancy” than a Californian iceberg. I found a listing for “Chapman’s Ice Creams” in the Westwood Hills City Directory for 1933-1934 at 951 Westwood Blvd, which would put in right in the heart of Westwood Village but it doesn’t say “Fancy” so I can’t be sure that it’s our iceberg.
Most of us never had the opportunity to dine in the Fox Film’s studio commissary in the 1930s, so this is our best opportunity to get a feel for what it was like. As you can see, everybody is dressed very nicely in jackets, ties, and hats, which was de rigeur back then. We can even see a couple studio pages dressed in their natty uniforms. It opened in 1928 but this photo must have been taken in or after 1932, which is when the mural on the wall was created. It was the work of Haldane Douglas, who would later receive an Oscar nomination for Art Direction on 1943’s For Whom the Bell Tolls.
I don’t know who printed up this postcard showing the southeast corner of Hollywood and Vine in the 1940s, but seeing as how it prominently shows the Owl Rexall drug store, I’m guessing maybe they did. But what caught my eye was the sign on the 3rd floor of the Taft building for the Warner Brothers radio station, KFBW. The station began broadcasting on March 4, 1925 but I’ve often wondered what that electronic scroll curved around the corner of the building was called. We can see from this image that it was called a ‘flashcast.’ Mystery solved!
I found precious little information about this remarkable construction so I’m not even sure that the meager facts I did find are correct. But it looks like this ice cream and candy shop made in the shape of a woman in a hoop skirt, holding a fan, and wearing a hat was called “Betsy Ann” after the owner, Betsy Ann Hisle, who founded her company in 1938. Signs on either side of her read: “We manufacture our own ice cream and candies,” below that, another sign reading, “Betsy Ann fancy ice cream & candies,” and “Good old Eastside. The perfect brew. We serve cold drinks of all kinds.”
We can see that back in 1928, when this image was captured, Universal Studios was still surrounded by the citrus orchards that used to blanket the entire San Fernando Valley. These days, the studio grounds probably cover most of the land we can see in this photo. But I do wonder if the people working there at the time could smell the oranges and lemons growing on the other side of the fence. Assuming, of course, that there even was a fence!
These days, Angelenos are getting used to seeing light rail stops around town but this one was a double-whammy. It was known as the Culver City-Palms station, serving both the Pacific Electric Railway Company and the Southern Pacific Railroad. At 9013 Venice Blvd, it was half a mile from M.G.M. studios so I’m guessing more than a few studio workers got off here each day. This photo is circa 1940. The land is now a huge parking lot for a mini mall but running alongside it is the Expo light rail line.
My thanks to J. Yuma for bringing this photo to my attention. On November 30, 1951, two armed gunmen held up the Garden of Allah Hotel and got away with $500 cash. Obviously, they didn’t bring along a photographer to document their daring escapade so this must be a recreation. I’m not sure why someone felt it was necessary to restage the holdup but I’m glad they did because it gives us a rare glimpse at what the hotel’s front desk looked like. All that fancy grill work must have been gorgeous in person.
They really don’t make buildings like this any longer, more’s the pity. This was the Fox Movietone studios, where the Fox Movietone News newsreels were put together. It had a longer run than most studios, from 1928 to 1963. This photo was taken on Orton Ave in Century City at around Fox Hills Drive in around 1928. The building, which was absorbed in to Twentieth Century-Fox and also housed dressing room at one time, is still standing, albeit in a stripped down version.
In 1935, the struggling Fox Film studios merged with Twentieth Century Pictures and created Twentieth Century-Fox on Pico Blvd in Century City. (And also gave us the world’s most famous fanfare.) Previously, the studio lot was known as “Fox Hills Studio” whose name was taken from the owner, William Fox and the nearby suburb, Cheviot Hills. William Fox opened this studio lot in 1923 but by the time this photo was taken circa late 1920s, Fox Films’ greatest successes were behind them and William Fox was on the verge of losing most of his fortune in the stock market crash. I don’t know what’s going on in this photo but it looks like a bunch of chauffeurs are gathered on the right, which would explain what a solitary motorcycle is double parked along Pico Blvd. (My thanks to David Ginsburg for helping me piece together this history.)