Most vintage photos of the Gaylord Apartments were taken looking eastward down Wilshire Boulevard from Normandie Ave or Harvard Boulevard so this one taken looking eastward from Kenmore is a refreshing change—even if we can’t see the iconic Brown Derby restaurant. In this 1938 shot, we can see the tower of the Oasis Church (back then the Wilshire Christian Church) and the KFAC radio towers atop the Auburn/Cord dealership. On the east side of the Gaylord next to the Richfield gas station we can see a Sally’s Home Made Candies store. Sally’s was a chain of more than a dozen candy stores all over Los Angeles. If you have any memories of visiting a Sally’s store, I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
Sally’s Home Made Candies listing in the 1939 Los Angeles City Directory:
Before the pop-up ads online, before the massive billboards lining the Sunset Strip, before the brightly colored slides ahead of the feature at the local movie palace, advertisers needed to find a way to bring their message to the people. And what better way to do it in a car-centric city like Los Angeles but to get Dodge to make a roadster in the shape of your product – in this case a giant roll of peppermint Life Saver candies – and drive it all over town. It certainly would have caught my eye.
I’m so glad that someone thought to capture this historic moment. What we’re seeing here is Cecil B. DeMille directing his cast of “The Squaw Man” which was the first important feature film made in California. This was taken on the film’s first day of principal photography, December 29, 1913. DeMille rented half a barn on the southeast corner of Selma Ave and Vine Street in Hollywood so I’m guessing those lemon trees behind the open-air set were there. The film was also his directorial debut so what we’re seeing Cecil B. DeMille at the very start of the making of the DeMille legend.
Darryl H says: “The photo is actually not of DeMille, but of his co-director Oscar Apfel. The photo is a segment of a large panorama of the entire cast and crew in front of the Barn. In that original photo, DeMille is standing in the center dressed in white.”
In this aerial shot of the Hollywoodland sign, we can see the farmland of Burbank in the San Fernando Valley on the north side of the Hollywood Hills. This was taken circa 1924, so the sign would only have been around a year old and Burbank was still mainly farms. Someone has thoughtfully inscribed the name of the streets. Directly above the ridge, where we can see Olive and Alameda is where the Walt Disney studios are now.
I don’t normally post photos of LA outside the golden era (1927 to 1959) but this was so colorful that I couldn’t resist. Earl Carroll’s theater opened on 6230 Sunset Blvd on December 25, 1938. In 1953 it became the Moulin Rouge, and then in 1966 it became the Hullabaloo Club until 1968, when it became the Kaleidoscope. But then the cultural phenomenon musical, “Hair” landed on the scene and when the time came to open in Los Angeles later that year, the place became—fittingly enough—the Aquarius theater, where the show let the sunshine in for two and a half years. This photo was taken in 1970.
I wouldn’t want to try riding a bike down the middle of Pico Boulevard (from Western Ave) these days but this group of half-dozen cyclists don’t have to worry about dodging trucks and SUVs the way they would today. On the other hand, Pico Blvd was an unpaved dirt track so the going would have been harder back then. And there’s that hill where the house with the turret is, neither of which are there anymore. But what also isn’t there any more is the filthy exhaust from a thousand vehicles charging by. So on balance, I think the people in this 1890 photo have it pretty good.
If we had been in Hollywood in 1906 and stood on the balcony of the 3-year-old Hotel Hollywood and looked west, this is the pastoral vista we would have taken in. It’s a long way from the hustle and bustle of today, isn’t it? The white house in the foreground was on what used to be called Olive Drive, but by 1913 had been renumbered and renamed to 1735 Orchid Avenue. An apartment building is there now but at the time it belonged to Hollywood realtor Charles Lippincott was was one of first Hollywood’s show places. I’d love to have seen inside.
It looks like Norma Talmadge in “The Woman Disputed” really packed them in at the United Artists Theater on Broadway, Los Angeles in 1928. I wonder if they knew—or Norma knew, for that matter—that it would be her final silent movie. At any rate, get a load of all that gorgeously detailed masonry. Not only is it still there but has been fully restored now that it’s the Ace Theatre.
This part of downtown Los Angeles looks so different in this 1905 photo that it’s hard to even recognize it. The photographer was standing at the corner of 5th and Hill Streets. Those trees on the left line the perimeter of Pershing Square (known as Central Park back then) and on the right, the building with the awnings is the 5-story California Club, which was a private social club that started in 1888 making it the second-oldest club in Southern California. It also gave rise to the adage: “There is an old adage that goes “The people who run Los Angeles belong to The Jonathan Club; the people who own Los Angeles belong to The California Club.” – which sounds awfully elitist if you ask me. But maybe that’s because I’m never likely to become a member.
A clearer view of the California Club building at around the same time:
The same view in January 2017, which means that the building that replaced the California Club now houses a Starbucks.
I have driven past the Hollywood Tower apartment building (that’s the white one on the left) so many times it’s hard to imagine that urban landscape without the Hollywood Freeway slicing through it. But it was somebody’s job to imagine it and then someone else’s job to build it. This photo shows us the construction of the bridge over Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood in 1952. When I saw this photo, my first thought was “Ugh! Imagine how badly snarled the street traffic would have been.” I assume was a long, long project, so I bet local drivers were relieved when the freeway finally opened for business.
Most vintage photos of the Gaylord Apartments were taken looking eastward down Wilshire Boulevard from Normandie Ave or Harvard Boulevard so this one taken looking eastward from Kenmore is a refreshing change—even if we can’t see the iconic Brown Derby restaurant. In this 1938 shot, we can see the tower of the Oasis Church (back then the Wilshire Christian Church) and the KFAC radio towers atop the Auburn/Cord dealership. On the east side of the Gaylord next to the Richfield gas station we can see a Sally’s Home Made Candies store. Sally’s was a chain of more than a dozen candy stores all over Los Angeles. If you have any memories of visiting a Sally’s store, I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
Before the pop-up ads online, before the massive billboards lining the Sunset Strip, before the brightly colored slides ahead of the feature at the local movie palace, advertisers needed to find a way to bring their message to the people. And what better way to do it in a car-centric city like Los Angeles but to get Dodge to make a roadster in the shape of your product – in this case a giant roll of peppermint Life Saver candies – and drive it all over town. It certainly would have caught my eye.
I’m so glad that someone thought to capture this historic moment. What we’re seeing here is Cecil B. DeMille directing his cast of “The Squaw Man” which was the first important feature film made in California. This was taken on the film’s first day of principal photography, December 29, 1913. DeMille rented half a barn on the southeast corner of Selma Ave and Vine Street in Hollywood so I’m guessing those lemon trees behind the open-air set were there. The film was also his directorial debut so what we’re seeing Cecil B. DeMille at the very start of the making of the DeMille legend.
In this aerial shot of the Hollywoodland sign, we can see the farmland of Burbank in the San Fernando Valley on the north side of the Hollywood Hills. This was taken circa 1924, so the sign would only have been around a year old and Burbank was still mainly farms. Someone has thoughtfully inscribed the name of the streets. Directly above the ridge, where we can see Olive and Alameda is where the Walt Disney studios are now.
I don’t normally post photos of LA outside the golden era (1927 to 1959) but this was so colorful that I couldn’t resist. Earl Carroll’s theater opened on 6230 Sunset Blvd on December 25, 1938. In 1953 it became the Moulin Rouge, and then in 1966 it became the Hullabaloo Club until 1968, when it became the Kaleidoscope. But then the cultural phenomenon musical, “Hair” landed on the scene and when the time came to open in Los Angeles later that year, the place became—fittingly enough—the Aquarius theater, where the show let the sunshine in for two and a half years. This photo was taken in 1970.
I wouldn’t want to try riding a bike down the middle of Pico Boulevard (from Western Ave) these days but this group of half-dozen cyclists don’t have to worry about dodging trucks and SUVs the way they would today. On the other hand, Pico Blvd was an unpaved dirt track so the going would have been harder back then. And there’s that hill where the house with the turret is, neither of which are there anymore. But what also isn’t there any more is the filthy exhaust from a thousand vehicles charging by. So on balance, I think the people in this 1890 photo have it pretty good.
If we had been in Hollywood in 1906 and stood on the balcony of the 3-year-old Hotel Hollywood and looked west, this is the pastoral vista we would have taken in. It’s a long way from the hustle and bustle of today, isn’t it? The white house in the foreground was on what used to be called Olive Drive, but by 1913 had been renumbered and renamed to 1735 Orchid Avenue. An apartment building is there now but at the time it belonged to Hollywood realtor Charles Lippincott was was one of first Hollywood’s show places. I’d love to have seen inside.
It looks like Norma Talmadge in “The Woman Disputed” really packed them in at the United Artists Theater on Broadway, Los Angeles in 1928. I wonder if they knew—or Norma knew, for that matter—that it would be her final silent movie. At any rate, get a load of all that gorgeously detailed masonry. Not only is it still there but has been fully restored now that it’s the Ace Theatre.
This part of downtown Los Angeles looks so different in this 1905 photo that it’s hard to even recognize it. The photographer was standing at the corner of 5th and Hill Streets. Those trees on the left line the perimeter of Pershing Square (known as Central Park back then) and on the right, the building with the awnings is the 5-story California Club, which was a private social club that started in 1888 making it the second-oldest club in Southern California. It also gave rise to the adage: “There is an old adage that goes “The people who run Los Angeles belong to The Jonathan Club; the people who own Los Angeles belong to The California Club.” – which sounds awfully elitist if you ask me. But maybe that’s because I’m never likely to become a member.
I have driven past the Hollywood Tower apartment building (that’s the white one on the left) so many times it’s hard to imagine that urban landscape without the Hollywood Freeway slicing through it. But it was somebody’s job to imagine it and then someone else’s job to build it. This photo shows us the construction of the bridge over Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood in 1952. When I saw this photo, my first thought was “Ugh! Imagine how badly snarled the street traffic would have been.” I assume was a long, long project, so I bet local drivers were relieved when the freeway finally opened for business.