The NBC radio (and later television) studios got the lion’s share of attention from photographers, but two blocks east along Sunset Blvd were CBS’s facilities. Known as ‘Columbia Square’ it opened in 1938. Judging by those nifty cars parked out front, I’d say this shot was taken circa 1955, by which time radio was on the way out and TV was now king. This building is now home to NeueHouse, which is a shared office space facility and a restaurant called Paley.
Photo album cover for KNX, Columbia Broadcasting System, 6121 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood:
The building doesn’t look that much different today:
This photo is quite remarkable when you know the context. This is the evening peak hour on L.A.’s Arroyo Seco Parkway on November 27, 1954. You’d think that it was taken at 7pm but in fact it was taken just before 5pm. Why does it look two hours later than it should? Because the smog was so thick that it induced an early dusk. Thank goodness someone decided that Los Angeles needed to clean up its air!
Tony says: “I respectfully question how much of the darkness in this photo is directly attributable to smog. Keep in mind that in November, in Southern California when California is on Pacific Standard Time, sunset is around 5:00 pm. Several sources from an almanac to the National Weather Service confirm this.“
Bob says: “Yes. And visibility was 10 miles in LA. Additionally that date was a Saturday, 2 days after Thanksgiving, so the amount of traffic seems odd. Not that the smog wasn’t bad in those days.”
On May 16, 1929, members of the newly convened Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gathered in the Blossom Room at the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Blvd for the first Academy awards ceremony. Douglas Fairbanks presented each of the awards to the winners, which had already been announced in the press. This photo of the Blossom Room wasn’t taken that night, but it was circa 1929, so this is how that historic space looked at the time. That night, the room was lit by Chinese lanterns and each table was decorated with candles and candy replicas of the gold statuette. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.
Advertisement for dancing to Henry Halstead’s Orchestra in the Blossom Room at the Roosevelt Hotel, Hollywood:
In this colorized (probably hand-tinted) postcard, we’re afforded a glimpse of how Abbot Kinney originally envisaged his “Venice of America” development. We’re looking northwest across the lagoon and that canal in the background was known as Coral Canal, which was later filled and renamed Main Street. I know there were a number of practical reasons why Venice, California couldn’t hold onto its charming network of canals, but if this image is anything to go by, I sure wish we could have found a way to keep them.
And this is a map of the original development for Venice, California, which was founded in 1905:
In this circa early to mid-1960s photo, we’re looking eastward along the main drag of Pasadena, Colorado Blvd from Oakland Ave. This section of the boulevard is part of this historic Route 66 before it turns south on the Arroyo Parkway. The building with the turret is still there, and the Pasadena Star-News is still around even if that radio tower and signage has gone. Jan and Dean’s song “The Little Old Lady from Pasadena” came out in 1964 so it could well have been selling by the truckload in that records store on the left.
What a crazy, loopy, wondrous day it must have been when this photo was taken. News that Japan had surrendered, putting a celebratory end to the second world war. Angelenos took to the streets and it looks like a ton of them ended up at the corner of Broadway and 7th in downtown L.A. The noise must have been deafening! I imagine that those two cars in the foreground were stuck there for quite some time, and the streetcars in the background weren’t going any place either. And I bet nobody bothered going to see Peggy Ann Garner in “Junior Miss” in a double feature with Jinx Falkenburg in “The Gay Senorita” at the Loew’s State Theatre.
I love it when someone stops to take an ordinary, every-day photo of something that nobody in the shot would think twice about. In this one, a streetcar has stopped out front of the L.A. Times building at the corner of 1st and Broadway in downtown Los Angeles in the early 1940s. We can see how packed the streetcar is, which shows how popular and essential the streetcar network still was. I also want to know what’s going on with the old-timer in the natty suit and the sailor with the hand on his hip. The guy in the hat looks like he wants to wallop the sailor with his tote bag.
“The Mission Play” was a was a three-hour pageant portraying the history of the California missions and was performed at the San Gabriel Mission, starting in 1912. This photo shows a bright electric sign atop the modest Eldon Hotel at 550 S. Broadway. This photo was taken in 1915 and I love how all that nighttime lighting from the clothing store and jeweler silhouettes the mid-1910s convertibles parked out front. At the time, The Mission Play was a famous tourist attraction. People would travel by rail to San Gabriel (roughly 10 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles) to experience the outdoor spectacle.
Miraculously, the building is still there and looks to be in pretty good shape. This image is from January 2017:
The Hollywood Reporter’s Billy Wilkerson opening Ciro’s nightclub in January 1940 heralded the era of the great Hollywood nightclubs (Mocambo opened a year later.) At one point Ciro’s had a Pompeii Room featuring a Vesuvius cocktail. Almost immediately, the place became a pre-Las-Vegas draw card for the best entertainers in the biz. This photo was taken in 1945, when Nat King Cole was the headliner, was starting to really break out and make a name for himself.
The bar inside Ciro’s nightclub. You gotta love that padding!
The building now houses the Comedy Club, which has kept the structure largely intact. This image is from May 2019:
This photo looking north along Broadway was taken in 1946, when Los Angeles was paralyzed by a transit strike. These days, a strike like that would inconvenience quite a few people, but it wouldn’t cripple a city like it would have in the 1940s. Back then, downtown Los Angeles was a non-stop hive of activity, especially Broadway, but as we can see from this photo, the street was deserted. Loew’s State Theater at the 7th Street corner advertises that it was “open all night” but that particular night, I can’t imagine they had many patrons.
The State Theater is now a church. (Photo from May 2019)
The NBC radio (and later television) studios got the lion’s share of attention from photographers, but two blocks east along Sunset Blvd were CBS’s facilities. Known as ‘Columbia Square’ it opened in 1938. Judging by those nifty cars parked out front, I’d say this shot was taken circa 1955, by which time radio was on the way out and TV was now king. This building is now home to NeueHouse, which is a shared office space facility and a restaurant called Paley.
This photo is quite remarkable when you know the context. This is the evening peak hour on L.A.’s Arroyo Seco Parkway on November 27, 1954. You’d think that it was taken at 7pm but in fact it was taken just before 5pm. Why does it look two hours later than it should? Because the smog was so thick that it induced an early dusk. Thank goodness someone decided that Los Angeles needed to clean up its air!
On May 16, 1929, members of the newly convened Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gathered in the Blossom Room at the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Blvd for the first Academy awards ceremony. Douglas Fairbanks presented each of the awards to the winners, which had already been announced in the press. This photo of the Blossom Room wasn’t taken that night, but it was circa 1929, so this is how that historic space looked at the time. That night, the room was lit by Chinese lanterns and each table was decorated with candles and candy replicas of the gold statuette. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.
In this colorized (probably hand-tinted) postcard, we’re afforded a glimpse of how Abbot Kinney originally envisaged his “Venice of America” development. We’re looking northwest across the lagoon and that canal in the background was known as Coral Canal, which was later filled and renamed Main Street. I know there were a number of practical reasons why Venice, California couldn’t hold onto its charming network of canals, but if this image is anything to go by, I sure wish we could have found a way to keep them.
In this circa early to mid-1960s photo, we’re looking eastward along the main drag of Pasadena, Colorado Blvd from Oakland Ave. This section of the boulevard is part of this historic Route 66 before it turns south on the Arroyo Parkway. The building with the turret is still there, and the Pasadena Star-News is still around even if that radio tower and signage has gone. Jan and Dean’s song “The Little Old Lady from Pasadena” came out in 1964 so it could well have been selling by the truckload in that records store on the left.
What a crazy, loopy, wondrous day it must have been when this photo was taken. News that Japan had surrendered, putting a celebratory end to the second world war. Angelenos took to the streets and it looks like a ton of them ended up at the corner of Broadway and 7th in downtown L.A. The noise must have been deafening! I imagine that those two cars in the foreground were stuck there for quite some time, and the streetcars in the background weren’t going any place either. And I bet nobody bothered going to see Peggy Ann Garner in “Junior Miss” in a double feature with Jinx Falkenburg in “The Gay Senorita” at the Loew’s State Theatre.
I love it when someone stops to take an ordinary, every-day photo of something that nobody in the shot would think twice about. In this one, a streetcar has stopped out front of the L.A. Times building at the corner of 1st and Broadway in downtown Los Angeles in the early 1940s. We can see how packed the streetcar is, which shows how popular and essential the streetcar network still was. I also want to know what’s going on with the old-timer in the natty suit and the sailor with the hand on his hip. The guy in the hat looks like he wants to wallop the sailor with his tote bag.
“The Mission Play” was a was a three-hour pageant portraying the history of the California missions and was performed at the San Gabriel Mission, starting in 1912. This photo shows a bright electric sign atop the modest Eldon Hotel at 550 S. Broadway. This photo was taken in 1915 and I love how all that nighttime lighting from the clothing store and jeweler silhouettes the mid-1910s convertibles parked out front. At the time, The Mission Play was a famous tourist attraction. People would travel by rail to San Gabriel (roughly 10 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles) to experience the outdoor spectacle.
The Hollywood Reporter’s Billy Wilkerson opening Ciro’s nightclub in January 1940 heralded the era of the great Hollywood nightclubs (Mocambo opened a year later.) At one point Ciro’s had a Pompeii Room featuring a Vesuvius cocktail. Almost immediately, the place became a pre-Las-Vegas draw card for the best entertainers in the biz. This photo was taken in 1945, when Nat King Cole was the headliner, was starting to really break out and make a name for himself.
This photo looking north along Broadway was taken in 1946, when Los Angeles was paralyzed by a transit strike. These days, a strike like that would inconvenience quite a few people, but it wouldn’t cripple a city like it would have in the 1940s. Back then, downtown Los Angeles was a non-stop hive of activity, especially Broadway, but as we can see from this photo, the street was deserted. Loew’s State Theater at the 7th Street corner advertises that it was “open all night” but that particular night, I can’t imagine they had many patrons.