If what’s going on in the photo is what I think is going on, it’s a bit of a sad day, if you ask me. We’re looking toward the northeast corner of 8th Street and Vermont Ave on September 8, 1950. Those workmen look like they’re ripping up streetcar tracks, which means what we’re seeing is the beginning of the post-war dismantling of LA’s extensive streetcar network. For most of its existence, the streetcars failed to break even, much less make a profit, but gosh, wouldn’t it be nice if we’d found a way to retain them as a valid way to get around Los Angeles?
Bill M. says: “I think they are repairing. I was eating dinner in the Original BBQ on the SW corner in 1960 and watched a LARy car round the corner from eastbound 8th onto southbound Vermont. It was raining and the trolley came off the overhead wire. The conductor pulled down on the cable and reconnected the trolley amid a shower of sparks. I know it was 1960 because we had just watched “The Time Machine” in a theater nearby.”
David H. says: “They are doing repairs in this photo. The LARY tracks were removed many years later. The PE tracks were some of the first to be ripped out.”
saturdaystationagent (on Instagram) said: “Henry Huntington who developed the Pacific Red Car line cared far more about selling the real estate at the ends of the lines he built than the system itself, which perpetually ran at a loss that could be sustained because of the money being made in property development. But when profits from those developments began to decrease in the 1920s coupled by the rise of the automobile, it wasn’t long afterward when the least profitable rail lines were converted to bus routes. Huntington always knew his red cars were just a short-term means to an end.”
This is how that corner looked in February 2023.