Uh-oh! Here’s the shape of things to come: roadway workers get an early start on dismantling Los Angeles’s vast public transportation network by removing the streetcar tracks from the middle of Vermont Avenue in 1948. It wasn’t until I looked at Vermont Ave on a map that I realized that it’s one of longest running north/south streets in the whole Los Angeles County—from Los Feliz to Long Beach. That’s over 23 miles. No wonder it had a streetcar running down it.Wilshire Blvd looking east from the Wilshire Christian Church (Oasis Church) at Normandie Ave, circa late 1920s
In this photo, we’re looking east along Wilshire Blvd from Normandie Ave. That church on the left is the Wilshire Christian Church (known today as Oasis Church), which opened in 1927. Past it, we can see the original Brown Derby, which opened in 1926. And past that are the Gaylord Apartments (named after Gaylord Wilshire), which opened in 1924. So it’s safe to say that these lucky motorists who are getting to mosey along a sparsely populated boulevard were driving it in the late 1920s when Wilshire was lined with as many houses as commercial buildings.
Gaylord Apartments in 1929:
Grauman’s Chinese Theater the night of the premiere of MGM’s “The Wizard of Oz”, August 15, 1939
In this photo we’re seeing Hollywood history in the making: it’s the night of the premiere of “The Wizard of Oz” at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on August 15, 1939. MGM went all out with huge searchlights and bleachers for the fans. If you look more closely, you can see they also installed the Scarecrow’s cornfield to the left of the box office with the steepled roof. To the right of it they built a miniature Munchkin village. What surprised me was that it only played one week at Grauman’s: August 16 to 22. Then again, this was 1939 – Hollywood’s peak year, when studios produced a movie a week. Coming down the pipeline was MGM’s “The Women”, “Lady of the Tropics” starring Hedy Lamarr, and 20th Century-Fox’s “The Rains Came” which was the highest grossing film at Grauman’s for 1939. (To be fair, though, it got an 11-day run.)
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Tagged Grauman's Chinese Theater, Hollywood, Hollywood Blvd, MGM, Movie Premiere, Night photo, Theaters
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The Graf Zeppelin parked at Mine’s Field, Los Angeles, August 26, 1929
Thanks to the caption at the bottom of this photo, we know exactly when it was taken: 11am on Monday August 26, 1929. The Graf Zeppelin landed in Los Angeles on the final leg of its spectacular round-world 20-day voyage. Of interest to current-day Angelenos is that it landed at Mines Field, which had only recently been converted from fields of wheat, barley, and lima beans by realtor William W. Mines into into dirt landing strips. A year after this photo was taken, Mines Field opened as an LA airport and by 1949 it had taken on the name we now know it as Los Angeles International Airport.
Color postcard of a street scene in winter, Hollywood, California, 1906
This colorized (probably by hand) postcard is captioned “Street scene in winter, Hollywood, Cali” which reads suspiciously like a piece of boosterism propaganda designed to tempt people from back East who are stuck under feet of snow and days of blizzards all winter to think about maybe coming West for an easier life. It also gives us a glimpse into what Hollywood looked like in the early years before those loose-living motion picture people invaded what had been an upright, alcohol-free, God-fearing community. As for those trees, a landscape friend of mine said he thinks they’re California pepper with fake red flowers painted in. So even the trees here are fake!
Hollywood Boulevard from the Hollywood hills at night, circa late 1920s
I can count at least half a dozen searchlights blazing along Hollywood Boulevard in this circa late 1920s shot. Those two spires toward the left hand end sat on top of the Warner Bros. Hollywood Theatre at 6433 Hollywood Boulevard, which housed the KFWB radio station. At the far right, we can see the tower of the Hollywood First National Bank building at Hollywood and Highland. With so much going on and with the street so brightly lit, I’m guessing this was the night of the Christmas parade, when the Boulevard was transformed into “Santa Claus Lane.” This first took place in 1928 so it’s even possible that this was the first one.
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Tagged Hollywood, Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood Hills, Night photo
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Dairy Queen opening day, corner of Moorpark St and Bakman Ave, Studio City, 1957.
Here’s a slice of ‘50s Americana for you: the opening day of a Dairy Queen at the corner of Moorpark St and Bakman Ave, Studio City in 1957. This photo was sent to me by David G who was there that day (but not, unfortunately, in the photo) because DQ were offering free ice creams to celebrate the opening. And that explains why the place is swarming with kids. If I had been a kid back then, I’d have jumped on my Schwinn bike and pedaled like a fiend for my free ice cream too. And cue music: “Sunday! Monday! Happy Days…”
How that corner looks now, March 2019. It’s a Peruvian restaurant called Los Balcones.
Easter Sunday service with Pilgrimage Play Theatre, Hollywood Bowl, 1933
I love the atmosphere caught in this 1933 shot of the Easter Sunday service taking place at the Hollywood Bowl. I love how the photographer went all the way past the trees at the very back to give us an idea of not just how big the Bowl is, but how it became a beacon of light. The caption in blue says the Pilgrim Play Theatre is in the background though I’m not sure exactly which speck of light it was. We now know it as the John Anson Ford Amphitheater but it started out as a venue where Christine Wetherill Stevenson’s “The Pilgrimage Play” was performed every summer from 1920 to 1929, until the original structure was destroyed by a brush fire in October 1929. The new theater was made of concrete, which is what the people in this photo would have seen in the distance that night.
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Tagged Easter, Hollywood, Hollywood Bowl, Night photo, Theaters
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Aerial photograph of Farmers Market at Third St and Fairfax Ave, Los Angeles, circa 1940s
Until I came across this circa-1940s aerial photograph of the Farmers Market at Third and Fairfax, I didn’t the roof was painted green (and still is.) This shot also reminds us that the area was also home to the Gilmore Stadium, the Gilmore baseball field, and right at the top, that white building is the Pan Pacific auditorium. But we can also see how empty the land around it was—especially to the east, which is where The Grove shopping center now is.
How that area looks now – see how the Farmers Market roof is still green!
Thank goodness for those magnificent men in their flying machines (in case you don’t know, I’m quoting the title of a Twentieth Century-Fox movie from