If you’ve ever wondered how much effort it takes to make one of those extravagant musical numbers, this shot will give you an idea. It was taken on soundstage 21 at the Warner Bros. studios in Burbank. 843 people are on set to film a musical number called “This Time Is the Last Time” for This Is the Army which was filmed during February through May 1943 and released in August. The number took three weeks of rehearsal and five days to film. It was worth the effort. This Is the Army was the highest grossing movie that year, and the highest-grossing musical until White Christmas surpassed it in 1954.Greyhound bus depot, corner 6th and Los Angeles Streets, downtown Los Angeles, 1939
From this artfully lit 1939 night shot of the Greyhound bus depot at the corner 6th and Los Angeles Streets in downtown Los Angeles, it’s hard to see that it was on the edge of Skid Row. I can’t imagine many Skid Row buildings had an Art Deco bas relief sculpture carved into its façade. In this one shot we can see the bus depot, the Standard Oil gas station, and an elevated train line, so I’d imagine that this particular corner was busy virtually 24/7. Even more so a few years later when WWII brought huge numbers of people through Los Angeles.
Daniel says: “In the 1930s – 60s the area was really not the same ‘skid row’ as it’s come to be. Downtown was the center of business and that corner was very busy. In the early 1980s to 89 we lived on Spring St. near 6th St. and the owners of the station property were doing a makeover to ‘update’ the building and add retail along the perimeter. The old facade and Streamline Moderne signage was all stripped away and replaced with a hideous illuminated plastic pole sign, the former facade was all but erased in an effort to modernize the building.”
Bill D. says: “Very busy in the mid-50s. The elevated train line was the terminus for southbound and eastbound Pacific Electric streetcars. Across from that was the Pacific Electric subway for northbound and westbound streetcars – around 800 runs per day.”
Ceceline C says: “I remember that Greyhound bus station. My mom and I took a bus to see my brother who was stationed up north. They had little TVs in the seats you could watch for a quarter for 15mins. I believe that bus station took up a whole block.”
Nancy J says: “That’s where Elizabeth Short (The Black Dahlia) checked her suitcase for the last time.”
Andie P says: “In the early ’50s that area was always packed with people at all hours. One of my dad’s friends was a “routing” supervisor for the Pacific region and sat in a room with about 20 people, 2 switchboards and at least a hundred phones that had small light bars above them. That was before the Interstate highways and often buses had to be re-routed from depot to depot because of bad road conditions. My dad and I went there late one afternoon to pick up Stu to go to a baseball game (I think it was the Hollywood Stars) and to me it seemed like pandemonium. There had been some tornadoes that tore up some towns and sections of either 66 or 40 or maybe both. Stu was telling the supervisor on the next shift what to do.”
A close up of that bas relief:
How that block looked in July 2014:
Looking west on Washington Blvd towards the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer columns, Culver City, Los Angeles, September 1958
We’re looking west on Washington Blvd in Culver City in September of 1958. That building on the left with the columns is the entrance to the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios. By the late 50s, the heyday of the studio system was in the rearview mirror, especially for MGM after Louis B. Mayer left in 1951. 1958 was the year of “Gigi” and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” so there was still some old-school movie magic going on when this shot was taken.
The same view in November 2017:
Seventh Street in downtown Los Angeles, decorated for the Olympic Games, 1932
In this photo, we’re looking along Seventh Street in downtown Los Angeles, which was decorated to celebrate the 10th Summer Olympic Games in 1932. Turns out, L.A. got them by default because no other city bid for them—everyone else was dealing with surviving the Great Depression. Maybe L.A. could afford because it at least had the movies to keep it going. Whatever the reason, they opened at the Los Angeles Memorial Colosseum even though far fewer countries could afford to send a team. Los Angeles could, however, afford to build the very first Olympic Village. In fact, it build two: men were housed in Baldwin Hills while women athletes were housed at the Chapman Park Hotel on Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles Olympic Stadium on the opening day of the Games of the Xth Olympiad:
Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Blvd preparing for its inaugural feature “The King of Kings” in May 1927
This shot of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre is about as early as it gets. Past those palm trees in the forecourt we can just see a large banner for the first movie shown at the Chinese: Cecil B. DeMille’s “THE KING OF KINGS.” It premiered on May 18, 1927 ahead of a 24-week run. That was a very long run—the next four pictures ran between 7 and 14 weeks. Ticket prices started at 50 cents for matinees, and 75 cents for evenings. But when this photo was taken, the banner advertising it wasn’t even strung up yet. It’s sitting on the ground leaning against the front doors, so I’m guessing this photo was taken during the second week in May 1927.
The photo below was taken at the same time but you can see the sign more clearly:
Program for the dedication of Grauman’s Chinese Theater, Hollywood, 1927, featuring Cecil B. DeMille’s “The King of Kings”:
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A lone motorist parks his automobile on an unpaved Beverly Drive near Olympic Blvd, Los Angeles, 1925
If there’s one fantasy that every Angeleno shares, it’s probably the ability to park whenever they want, wherever they like. I doubt this lone motorist realizes how lucky he’s got it. He’s parked his car on an unpaved Beverly Drive near what is today Olympic Boulevard in 1925. And why not? It’s not like anybody is going to run him down.
How that part of Los Angeles looks in 2019:
A banner welcoming Will Hays to Los Angeles stretches over Hollywood Boulevard, 1923
In this photo, we can see that Hollywood was doing its best to welcome film censor, Will Hays by stringing up a banner across Hollywood Boulevard that reads: “Welcome Will H. Hays – to the motion picture capital of the world – See you Saturday at Hollywood Bowl.” As chairman of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Hays was tasked with rehabilitating movie industry’s image after the Fatty Arbuckle scandal. Though not effective at first, he would give rise to the Hays Code that governed what Hollywood movies could and couldn’t show for the next 40+ years. If they’d known that, maybe they wouldn’t have welcomed him with a bash at the Hollywood Bowl in 1923.
Miracle Mile Easter Parade traffic heading west along Wilshire Blvd at Kenmore Ave, Easter Sunday, April 13, 1941
With bumper-to-bumper traffic inching its way along Wilshire Blvd, you’d think this photo was taken in 2019, not 1941. I doubt that Wilshire often saw traffic like that but this was taken on Easter Sunday in 1941 following the Miracle Mile Easter Parade. Look at all the people gathered outside the Gaylord Hotel and Apartments wearing, I assume, their new Easter bonnets. Tucked out of sight past the palm trees was the Brown Derby which, I also assume, was doing a roaring trade that day. A year after this photo was taken, America was in the war and so with gas rationing, I doubt this stretch of Wilshire looked the same.
Lytton Plaza on the former Garden of Allah site on Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood, 1966
This collage of photos gives us an idea of what the corner of Sunset Blvd and Crescent Heights Blvd looked like in 1966. It had been the site of the Garden of Allah Hotel, but in the summer 1959, the property was sold to property developer, Bart Lytton. He built in its place Lytton Plaza, which encompassed a bank branch, which we can see on the far right, and a Museum of Motion Pictures. On the far left, we can see a white domed pergola. It housed a model of the Garden of Allah that Lytton commissioned, lest we forget the legendary hotel existed.
The same block in May 2019:
That model survives intact and I visited it in 2013, and blogged about it here: http://bit.ly/goamodel
You also have photos of Lytton’s Museum of Motion Pictures on my website. It was pretty impressive! See: https://wp.me/p5XK3w-2EF
Garden of Allah model out side the Museum of Motion Pictures and auditorium Lytton Center-Sunset Blvd, November 1962:
Roger Klein says: “My Dad was Bart Lytton’s roomate at The Garden of Allah in the late 30s-early 40s and much later in the 60s when I was young Lytton Savings would have Hollywood themed exhibitions at the bank. I got to see the original King Kong used in the film and the most thrilling for me was the exhibition of everything from the movie Time Machine.”
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When compared to London’s iconic double-decker buses, the ones that used to ferry Angelenos around the streets of L.A. seem tiny and rather quaint. But of course, an open-air second story would never work in Britain’s weather, would it? In this photo we’re seeing riders—interestingly, they’re all women in hats (off to do some shopping, maybe?)—alighting from a bus at the corner of Olive and 7th Streets in the heart of downtown, not far from Pershing Square. I love the semaphore traffic signal and I’m rather partial to that straw boater on the head of that passerby on the right.