Restaurants in a railway carriages aren’t unusual in Los Angeles—the Pacific Dining Car on the edge of downtown, and the Formosa in Hollywood come to mind—but this is one I’d never heard of before. The Club Car stood at that diabolical intersection where Wilshire and San Vicente Boulevards meet at the eastern edge of Beverly Hills. It was around in the late 1930s (this photo is from 1938) and owned by—of all people—Alice Faye. Her partner in this venture was Harry Sugarman (aka “Sugie”) who opened The Tropics at 427 North Rodeo Dr in 1936 and was one of the earliest of the pre-Polynesian places and later became The Luau, which was managed by Lana Turner’s ex-husband, Steve Crane.
By the 1940s, this place had become “Sardi’s Wilshire”:
And at some point, it became a BBQ place called Jerry’s Joynt. This advertisement is from 1947:
When Sanderson Hosiery built their factory at 11711 Olympic Blvd, they installed something more eye catching than a regular sign: a 30-foot leg covered in one of their fine products—or at least painted to look like that. I assume the lettering around the base spelled out “NYLON.” It’s a shame that The Big Leg is no longer around—these days it would be considered highly selfie-instagram-worthy.
I’ve posted shots of Van de Kamps bakeries before but I wanted to post this shot from around 1928 for two reasons. It’s a very clean shot with no pedestrians or vehicles in the way. We get to see the details that went into each store front. Not just the actual windmill, but also the crisscross railing at the base. The top of the window has an awning and around the bottom is a strip of tiles. I wish I knew what color they were. But this photo shows a detail I’ve not noticed before. The signage gives the full name: Van de Kamps Holland-Dutch Bakery. I guess the windmill wasn’t enough of a hint so they added both “Holland” and Dutch” to the name just to be sure everyone understood.
In this aerial view from around 1930, we’re treated to a rare glimpse of what the Hollywoodland development looked like during its first decade. The famous sign (which we can see in the background) went up in 1923 to help promote what had been a project with only lackluster sales. Apparently Angelenos didn’t want to live in the Hollywood Hills! That wide road curving off to the left is Beachwood Canyon Drive, which is the main thoroughfare into Hollywoodland. As we can see, quite a few homes had started to fill the lower hillsides and the others higher up were still to be sold.
This photo was presumably taken by hanging out of the window of the Bonnie Brier hotel, which stood on the southwest corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Ave. I’ve never noticed the Bonnie Brier in any other photos—probably because most photographers were focusing on the more famous and photogenic Hollywood Hotel directly across the street. A half a block in the distance we can see that Frank Capra’s “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” is playing at the Hollywood Theatre (now a venue for the Guinness Book of World Records.) That movie came out in April 1936 so I’m placing this photo in the early summer of that year. I especially love that sporty two-seater automobile with the boxy trunk that’s approaching Highland—as well, of course, as that semaphore traffic signal.
Most shots of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre are taken at street level, which is understandable because that’s where the eye candy is. This one gives us a bird’s-eye perspective, which shows us what the area looked like beyond the world-famous forecourt. This photo was taken in 1927, the year that it opened, and we can see how the area was still filled with lots and lots of trees. 90% of them are gone now, replaced by stores and apartment buildings and parking lots. But the theater itself is still there and still thriving, which is an L.A. miracle, if you ask me.
Winner, winner, chicken dinner! I have an extensive list of restaurants and bars from L.A. in the 1920s through 1950s) on my website – 
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!
