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: