The young girl to the left is standing at a small pond in what we now know as the La Brea Tar Pits near Wilshire Blvd and Fairfax Ave. This was taken in 1910, when the only development was the Hancock oil field behind her (and that strange triangular thing that I can’t identify.) When I see photos like this, I often wonder what those people would say if they saw what view would look like 100 years’ time.College students from USC surveying Fourth Street, downtown Los Angeles, 1912
This shot of college students from the University of Southern California surveying Fourth Street in downtown Los Angeles is, at least to my mind, remarkable in one way. Look at how college kids in 1912 dressed. These lads didn’t dress for church or a Saturday night dance. This is the way they dressed to survey the streets of downtown LA! Obviously the traffic on Fourth isn’t exactly knocking them over but jacket, neckties, stiff collars, and hats? My favorite is Mr. Beau Brummell in the derby and what appears to be cowboy boots.
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Tagged Downtown Los Angeles, University of Southern California (USC)
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A caravan of automobiles snake through Irvine, California, late 1920s
No amount of digging unearthed any more information about this photo other than it was taken in Irvine, CA in the late 1920s. Irvine is 40 miles south of downtown Los Angeles and as far as I can tell, it didn’t start being developed until the 1960s. So if this photo was taken in Irvine, it was more likely Irvine Ranch, which was a 60,000-acre lima bean farm. So what this caravan of cars was doing out there in the middle of nowhere is a anyone’s guess.
P Line streetcar on First Street crossing Alameda St, downtown Los Angeles, 1918
In this photo, we’re seeing a Los Angeles Railway streetcar on the P Line, which ran along First Street in downtown L.A. (it’s crossing Alameda here) en route to Pico Blvd. This photo was taken in 1918, so that team of horses on the far right would have been – I imagine – a quickly disappearing sight on LA streets conquered by the mighty automobile and ubiquitous streetcar system.
The same view in June 2017:
Birdseye view of cities near Los Angeles, circa early 1910s
In this illustration of Southern California, we can see how truly separated the various towns were in the early 1910s. Waaaaay off in the distance we can see (what we now refer to as) downtown Los Angeles, with great expanses of land separating it and
– Hollywood, Sherman (now called West Hollywood
– Sawtelle (which was its own municipality until 1922)
– the Soldier’s Home on Wilshire Blvd (which was quite a large development back then)
– Santa Monica
– the then-newly opened canals of Venice
– the circular Los Angeles Motordome, which opened in 1910 in Playa del Ray (then called Palisades del Ray).
Given the distances involved, the dubious state of the roads, and comparative unreliability of those horseless carriages, it’s little wonder then that when people went to Santa Monica or Venice, it wasn’t just for the day, but for a week’s vacation!
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Tagged Color photo, Downtown Los Angeles, Maps, Santa Monica, Venice Beach
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Southern Pacific train depot parking lot filled with horse-drawn carriages, Santa Ana, California, 1887
“I’ll meet you in the parking lot” had a whole different raft of challenges back when the people used horses and carts to get around. This was a typical scene in 1887 when Angelenos came to meet the Southern Pacific train at Santa Ana, a little south of LA. At least these days you don’t have to leave someone with the Toyota Camry in case it gets spooked by a jittery Honda Civic.
NBC radio studios on Sunset Blvd, Hollywood, as seen from the Argyle Ave corner, 1939
We usually see photos of the NBC radio studios from the corner of Sunset Blvd and Vine St in Hollywood but I like that this one shows the view from the corner of Sunset and Argyle Ave corner. You can really see the clean, minimalist lines of the Streamline Moderne design of the place. For some reason, I really like those three horizontal lines that wrap around the Argyle corner.
Corner of Wilshire Blvd and Shatto Place, Los Angeles circa 1920s
I found this photo on the SilentLocations.com blog, which matches stills from silent movies filmed around LA with vintage and current photos of those buildings. The sepia shot is from a Harry Langdon film, “The Strong Man” (1926) that was filmed in front of 3142 Wilshire Blvd right near the corner of Shatto Place. Look how gorgeous those two buildings were, and the beautiful detailing on them. It’s no surprise then that Rolls Royce operated an auto dealership in the corner one. You can see the blog post here: https://bit.ly/2HEVshH
A close up view showing the detailing:
The same view in April 2018:
Los Angeles City Hall in color, circa 1941
Judging from the reddish Ford in the left foreground, which was probably a brand new 1941, this photo of Los Angeles City Hall is circa early 1940s. Isn’t it amazing how the simple addition of color in a vintage photo like this brings that world of yesteryear to life in a more relatable way?
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Tagged Color photo, Downtown Los Angeles, Los Angeles City Hall
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A Los Angeles-bound Santa Fe train crosses Colorado Blvd, Pasadena in 1928
My goodness! You’d certainly want to watch what you were doing while walking around Pasadena in 1928. This photo shows the Santa Fe thundering across Colorado Blvd, the main thoroughfare of Pasadena, as it was heading for Los Angeles. I’m kind of amazed that it cut through the center of town like that, midway between Raymond and Broadway (now the Arroyo Parkway.) I don’t see any safety barriers or flashing lights warning of a coming train!
These days you can still see where there train line used to be. (January 2018)
