This shot of the Sunset Strip showing us the Chateau Marmont and The Players nightclub is from 1955 – back when, evidently, Sunset Boulevard wasn’t jam-packed with traffic like it is now. (I have parking envy of that light green car in the middle.) That billboard on the right is advertising a musical group called The Tabletoppers, who were appearing at The Players at the time. Actually, I’m surprised The Players was still around. Director Preston Sturges opened it in 1940 but wasn’t perhaps the smartest businessman in town when it came to running profitable nightclubs. I suspect this might be one of the last photos of it before it disappeared entirely. (The place is now called Pink Taco.) You can read more about The Players here:
Wouldn’t it be nice if all of Los Angeles still looked like this California Bank building at 5620 Hollywood Boulevard from the early 1930s? Fortunately for Angelenos, at least this gorgeous building is still here. And that’s probably because it was built by the father-and-son architects, John and Donald Parkinson. These guys gave us a whole bunch of iconic L.A. buildings: Union Station, LA Memorial Coliseum, Bullocks Wilshire department store, and the icon of icons—Los Angeles City Hall. Knowing that, this beautiful soaring Art Deco tower makes sense, doesn’t it?
In 1948, Coulter’s department store celebrated its 10th anniversary with this display window entitled “10 Years of Progress on Miracle Mile.” The two dueling Streamline Modern department stores—The May Company and Coulter’s Dry Goods—both opened their flagship stores in the late 1930s, signaling the arrival of the “Miracle Mile” stretch of Wilshire Blvd which runs roughly from Fairfax Ave to La Brea Ave. I love the height of 1940s fashion displayed in the window but if you look closely, you can see the words “five foot four” reflected in neon light in the right-hand window. So now, of course, I’m wondering what that referred to.
Beginning in the 1880s, ostrich farms became “a thing” – almost like tourist attractions. People would come and visit an ostrich farm the way tourists to Florida might visit an alligator farm. So this photo taken some time in the 1920s might not have been the what-the-heck-is-that head-turner that it would be today. The driver of this ostrich-drawn cart is getting a traffic ticket on Pico Blvd near Harvard Blvd, and I must say, he doesn’t seem too perturbed. He’s from the Los Angeles Ostrich Farm, which was at 3609 Mission Road, across from what is now called Lincoln Park, east of downtown LA.a
When I came across this circa early 1960s photo of the Van de Kamp’s bakery at 5665 Wilshire Blvd on the northeast corner of Masselin Ave, I realized that I’d never seen it in color before. Not that I’d previously thought about it, but I wouldn’t have expected it to be in blue, and not a blue as dark as that, so this came as a surprise to me . . . until I thought about it. It’s the shade of Delft china, which comes from Holland, as does the name Van de Kamp and those famous windmills. Suddenly it all added up!
We’re looking north up N. Orange Dr. just a couple of houses north of Hollywood Blvd (then called Prospect Ave), circa 1916. At the end of the street, hidden by the trees is the Rollin B. Lane house (now the Magic Castle), built in 1909. On top of the hill is newly completed (1914) Bernheimer estate, built by brothers Charles and Adolphe to house their collection of Japanese art (now Yamashiro restaurant.) What struck me about this photo was how broad and deep the front yards were. Nowadays it’s all apartment buildings but what a grand street it once was.
Most photos I come across of the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Blvd are, naturally enough, taken at street level so it’s a nice change to see what the property looked like from the air. This was taken in 1940, with the main “I”-shaped building in the lower left corner. From this perspective, we can better appreciate the huge grounds that the Ambassador had, giving it more of a country club feel with lots of elbow room. I’m surprised that that huge plot of land to the left is still empty by 1940. As soon as the war was over in 1945, L.A. experienced a huge boom so I’m sure that land didn’t stay empty for long.
Sardi’s restaurant opened by the Montmartre’s Eddie Brandstatter at 6315 Hollywood Boulevard, near Vine St in 1932. Ultra-chic place and well attended but was badly damaged by a fire four years later. But this is Hollywood and the show must go on so it reopened and continued operating after Brandstatter’s death in 1940. This photo is dated 1937 and what I find most interesting is the AIR CONDITIONED sign over the front door. These days, it’s hard to imagine a place in LA that doesn’t have it. I’m also rather partial to that two-seater roadster parked out front!
This image of homes along Sunset Boulevard is dated 1937. Or at least that’s the year the postcard was sent to someone in Pennsylvania. So, in fact, the image itself is probably mid-1930s. I don’t know exactly where along the 21.75 miles of Sunset this photo was taken, but from the direction of the Hollywood hills in the background, it looks to me like it might be the stretch west of La Brea Ave. If you have a different theory, I’d love to hear from you! At any rate, this postcard serves as a reminder of the spacious, graceful homes that used to line what is now an overwhelming commercial thoroughfare.