In this photo of Hollywood Boulevard looking east we can see that a movie called “Why Men Leave Home” is playing the Hollywood Theatre at 6764 Hollywood Blvd near Highland. It was a Louis B. Mayer Productions movie that came out in March 1924 (and starred Lewis Stone who would later play Mickey Rooney’s father in MGM’s Andy Hardy series.) The theater is still around…sort of. It’s now the venue for the Guinness Book of World Records. In the background we can see the Security Trust & Savings Bank building is going up. It’s still there too and Raymond Chandler would later choose it the office of his fictional detective Philip Marlow in “The Long Goodbye.”
That same view in April 2019:
How the Hollywood Theater looks in 2019:
This still from a 10-minute sort called “Suspense” (directed by Lois Weber, Universal Studios, 1913) affords us a glimpse of what Sunset Boulevard looked like in the early days when West Hollywood was still called Sherman. That car is on Sunset approximately where it bends to the left at Cory Ave. If we kept going west, we would hit the Beverly Hills Hotel, which had just opened the year before. But in between, we would have driven though miles of open fields and cheap real estate.
I almost didn’t want to post this photo because a part of me wants to think that magic fairy dust built Sleeping Beauty’s castle at Disneyland in one sparkling cinematic moment. But no. Real men sitting on real scaffolding put it together, one real brick at a time. Disneyland opened in the summer of 1955, so I’m guessing this photo was taken late 1954. But exactly how was it taken? By balloon, maybe? Light aircraft flying very low over Disneyland? Or was it Tinker Bell…?
Bringing women into the workforce during WWII necessitated adjusting to new sorts of safeguards that weren’t needed when men worked the production line. As the brave woman on the right is showing, they had to come up with breast protectors. The sign behind them is reminding people that 2226 workers had suffered eye injuries in the previous month alone. I don’t know how big their factory was but that’s a huge number and was, I would think, a stark reminder to management that they were dealing with a whole new workforce doing things they were unprepared for.
One of the most complicated intersections to negotiate in downtown Los Angeles is where 9th Street meets Main and Spring. You’ve got traffic coming at you in all directions. But back in 1948, when this photo was taken, Angelenos also had to deal with streetcars rattling along both 9th and Main. That’s a lot of coming and going. It’s also a lot of overhead wires. This is one instance where the absence of streetcars makes for a cleaner cityscape.
In this circa 1910s photo, five early automobiles are parked out front of the Burbank Theatre (1893 to 1947), which shared space with a tailor, a trunk factory, and a hat shop, which are businesses we don’t see much anymore. Had the photographer taken a shot of the block, we would also have seen nine more theaters: the Rounder, the Galway, the Sherman, the Gayety, the Star, the Optic, the Picture, the Art, and the Bijou. So obviously Angelenos weren’t short of choice back then.
Shots of the Armstrong and Carlton Cafe at 6607 Hollywood Blvd usually have it in the background, so I was pleased to come this clearer view. I love the marvelous features: the six-point stars, the tiling above the three-arched window, the coned light fixture above the doorway and all that detailed surrounding it. But what I didn’t know was it was an Indian Grill. I would guess that, back in the early 1920s, when the place opened, an Indian restaurant would be considered quite exotic, don’t you think?
Evidently, somebody thought it necessary to build an observation tower at the intersection of Beverly Glen and Wilshire Boulevards in Westwood in 1924. But why? There doesn’t appear to be much of anything around to observe – just a billboard and a solitary building behind it. The “WESTWOOD” sign and those lighting bolts appear to be studded with electric lightbulbs so I’m guessing it was more of an advertising stunt. I’d love to have seen it at night.
One of the restaurants that gets the most comments when I post about it or mention it in one of my novels is the Tick Tock Tea Room at 1716 North Cahuenga Ave in Hollywood. (1930 to 1988) Many people have a lot of warm memories of eating there – especially those Sticky Orange Rolls. But nobody’s mentioned a second Tick Tock restaurant. This postcard shows it was at 10123 Riverside Drive in Toluca Lake, not far from Warner Bros. studios. From the outside, it doesn’t look very big (but big enough to have a Gruen Time clock!) but it seems they had a large event room. “Tell the chef to make more sticky orange rolls!” Does anybody remember eating there?