The caption for this photo read:
“A natural showman, L.B. Mayer arranges for a public ceremony to officially launch MGM on April 26, 1924. Hundreds of stars, directors, and other employees assemble on the lawn of the Culver City lot with local dignitaries, including the Admiral of the Pacific Fleet. A Naval band provides the music, and congratulations are read from telegrams sent by President Calvin Coolidge and Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover. Flanked by two of his most important aides, Harry Rapf (left) and Irving Thalberg (right), Mayer accepts the keys to the kingdom.”
At the time, the new studio was known as Metro-Goldwyn. Mayer’s name wasn’t added for another 18 months or so.
This chap is standing (rather awkwardly, it seems to me) on the southeast corner of Sunset Blvd and Western Ave some time in the early 1950s, if those cars behind him are anything to go by. (The city of Los Angeles removed the last of its two-light semaphore traffic signals in 1956.) What struck me about this photo, though, was how the stop sign has an “Auto Club of So Cal” logo on it. Did they sponsor stop signs back then? When you think about it, it’s not a bad advertising opportunity – drivers are (nearly) always going to notice stop signs.
A previously unseen (by me, at least) photo of the Garden of Allah Hotel is always cause of excitement around these here parts. (My thanks to Jerry for sending me this one.) It’s odd that there is neither a car nor a person in this photo. Where was everybody? Maybe it was 7am Sunday morning? At any rate, without a car in sight, it can be hard to pin down a year. All I have to go on is that big tree in front of the main building. In this photo from circa late 1920s – 
This place started out life as The Cone, ice cream parlor at 2626 Colorado Blvd, Eagle Rock, but then I guess the Great Depression hit and nobody could afford the luxury of ice cream anymore. So it became a small, no-frills restaurant called the Feed Rack. I love the sign that the guy out front is pointing to. It reads “Hello, Oldtimer! Are you broke and hungry? Stop and get some coffee & donuts. They are on us.”
When the owners of a dry cleaning business decided to open up shop in a mini mall at 9134 Wilshire Blvd, one block west of Doheny Drive in Beverly Hills, they took the name of their store – Beacon Laundry – literally and built a huge Art Deco-style tower to make sure everybody in the neighborhood knew they were there. And what a glory it is to behold! What a shame it’s no longer there. But at least what replaced it isn’t hideous—which must be the first time in LA that a mini mall was replaced by something nice, and not the other way around. (Photo taken in 1940)
While reading Mark A. Vieira’s wonderful biography, “
Being inside Disneyland these days is still a magical experience. Crowded, yes, but the place still maintains its enchantment, if you ask me. However, getting into Disneyland these days is a different matter. You line up to get into the huge $20-a-day parking structure, then you line up to go through security, then you line up to catch a tram to the entrance, then you line up to buy your ticket, and then you line up to go through the turnstiles. Yeah, it’s a whole thing. So indulge me for a moment while I rhapsodize over this photo from 1975, the year of my very first visit, which shows the cute little ticket booths just outside the main gate. I don’t recall for sure that the lines outside them were made up of nicely dressed people who didn’t try to cut in line, but I like to think that’s what happened here. Also, admission started at $4.50. Right now, the cheapest ticket is $104.
When it came time for Los Angeles to host the 1932 Olympic Games, the world was struggling through the Great Depression. It resulted in a low participation of only around 1,300 athletes representing 37 countries, which is a shame because it was also the first to build an Olympic Village, which was located in Baldwin Hills. Still, it true showbiz fashion, the show must go on. Here we have a rather spectacular photo of the opening ceremony (or it could be the closing ceremony—I could clarify which) at the Los Angeles Coliseum that looks to me rather like the Electrical Light Parade at Disneyland.
This isn’t the sort of thing I usually post but I thought it was too cute not to. The caption on this photo was:
Before Beverly Hills became “Beverly Hills” it was simply known as Beverly. In this photo we can see Beverly’s first train station. It stood on the southeast corner of Santa Monica Blvd and Cañon Dr. where it was replaced by the post office, which in turn recently became the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. This photo is circa 1910 and with that horse and carriage and motor car, shows how Angelenos were still in the process of converting over from one to the other.