Universal Studios backlot, Universal City, California, circa 1919
In this photo we’re looking at the backlot of Carl Laemmle’s Universal Studios in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles. It’s a rather sprawling collection of facades with not much organization. Mind you, it was only 1919, so they were probably still building sets on an as-needed basis. But gosh, look at all that empty land around them. These days, the studio and theme park sprawl out in all directions, along with the Hollywood Freeway to the south, the Lakeside Golf Club and the concreted Los Angeles River to the north, and the Hollywood sign to the east. And beyond all of them, suburban sprawl in all directions.
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A morning ride with the Los Angeles Riding Academy, which opened its second branch at The Beverly Hills Hotel
It’s amazing to me that people used to go for morning horse rides around Beverly Hills at all, let alone to start and end at the Beverly Hills Hotel. These oh-so-properly dressed riders were with the Los Angeles Riding Academy, which had a branch at the hotel. I’d like to see those horses dodge the Maseratis and Lamborghinis that fill the Beverly Hills Hotel’s driveway nowadays.
The same view in May 2011:
The Pan Pacific Auditorium, Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, 1942
Most photos of the Pan Pacific Auditorium on Beverly Boulevard tend to focus on the entrance with the four strikingly Streamline Modern towers and flag poles. And why wouldn’t they? They became iconic from the day that the Pan Pacific opened on May 18, 1935. But for this shot taken in 1942, the photographer stood way, way back so that we could see the whole building to better appreciate the context. I do wonder, though, why only three flags were flying. What happened to the fourth? If you’re interested, also have a collection of photos of the Pan Pacific on my website: http://bit.ly/panpacauditorium
Chutes Park (later Horsley Park), an amusement park in Los Angeles, circa 1906
Looking around at the cityscape that surrounds downtown Los Angeles, who’d ever have thought that an amusement park used to lay south of where the 10 Freeway now cuts south of downtown. It was called Chutes Park and it occupied a huge area bounded by Grand Ave, Main Street, Washington Blvd and 21st St. It opened in 1899 and what we’re seeing in this circa 1906 photo is main attraction The 10-cent entrance ticket included one trip on Shoot the Chutes flume ride, and over the years there was also a merry-go-round, Japanese village, shooting gallery, bowling alley, zoo, 1400-seat Chutes vaudeville theater, baseball and football fields, roller coaster, skating rink, novelty attractions with names like Sheik Hadji Tahar’s Famous Arabian Horsemen and Billikin’s Temple of Mirth, and a panorama which offered a daily reenactment of the Civil War sea battle of the Monitor and the Merrimac. It was renamed Luna Park in 1911 and was gone by 1914, when the land was then known as Horsley Park.
Satellite photo showing location of Chutes Park, south of downtown Los Angeles:
Neon lights up Chinatown at night, Los Angeles, circa 1938
You’ve gotta love it when neon light is used to great effect the way it is in this circa 1938 shot of Los Angeles’s Chinatown, north of downtown L.A. admire how someone thought to silhouette the rooflines in different colors. How about we meet for cocktails at the Forbidden Palace and then jump across the street for some Chop Suey?
RKO Orpheum Theater, Broadway, downtown Los Angeles, 1931 – “The Flood” plus 8 live acts
The big news at the RKO Orpheum Theater on Broadway in downtown L.A. isn’t that they were running “The Flood” starring Eleanor Boardman and Monte Blue (oddly, it was from Columbia, not RKO) but the fact they were also featuring eight live acts as well. I’m guessing that it was because the year was 1931 and America was in the depth of the Great Depression and people weren’t going to the movies as much. Whatever the reason, I’d say those movie patrons for their money’s worth.
The eight live acts included: Al K. Hall, Murray & Alan, Madam Olympia, and Jane & Katherine Lee.
Rear view of the set for D.W. Griffith’s “Intolerance” at Sunset Boulevard and Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, circa mid 1910s
I’m glad that someone thought to take a shot of the back of the 300-foot set that D.W. Griffith built at the intersection of Sunset Blvd and Hollywood Blvd in Los Feliz for his colossus of a movie, “Intolerance.” (1916) According to one report I read, he used more than 3000 extras and the daily cost of employing them sometimes reached $12,000—and that was a lotta moolah in 1915! At the top of the set was can see a banner “Intolerance or ‘The Mother and the Law’” which was the original name of the movie until Griffith expanded the movie to included three more storylines. I’m guessing they meant it as an advertisement for the coming movie, but at 300 feet in the air, I’m wondering how many passers-by actually saw it.
Marathon dancers at Venice Beach, California, circa 1923
The caption to this photo was something like “Marathon dancers at Venice, circa 1923.” But I always thought that the marathon dancing craze grew out of the evermore desperate financial straits of the Great Depression. The girls are all in bathing suits, which suggests that they were at Venice Beach, but these funsters don’t exactly look like they’ve been dancing for 23 nonstop hours. In fact, they look like they’re all whooping it up, Roaring Twenties style for about ten minutes. Surely that means they were due for a bathtub gin break?
Hattem’s supermarket (the first in LA) at 8039 South Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, circa 1932
It’s hard to believe that this Art Deco gloriousness was a supermarket, let alone the first one in Los Angeles. Hattem’s opened in 1927 at 8039 South Vermont Ave. Not only that, but it was open 24 hours a day and issued trading stamps. (Monday was double stamp day!) If you ask me, the era of LA supermarket peaked with its first incarnation and it’s been downhill ever since!
This shot is from 1931:
The building is still there, largely intact, is now a Church of Scientology community center. This is how it looked in March 2019:
The largest searchlight in the world on Echo Mountain on Mt Lowe, north of Pasadena, California, 1910
In the land where citizens would bring a searchlight to the opening of a supermarket (see: https://wp.me/p5XK3w-WL) it seems fitting that it would also be home to the world’s largest spotlight. This 60-inch wonder of the electric age was first seen at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, after which Thaddeus Loew brought it to his Echo Mountain resort. Evidently, it was visible 60 miles away on Catalina Island, which isn’t surprising considering it burned with the intensity of 100,000 candles, which, when magnified by a massive reflecting lens mirror, became 375 million candlepower. There was no practical reason to have it there other than to draw attention to his resort, but this is LA after all, the capital of Draw Attention To Oneself.
The Echo Mountain searchlight at night, circa 1895:
