The Vitagraph Company was one of the biggest motion picture studios in the early era of American film. Originally founded in Brooklyn, NY in 1897, they established another studio on 2nd Street in Santa Monica in 1911. This photo was taken the following year, 1912, but they only lasted there until 1915 because the persistent fog made filming so difficult that they moved to 4151 Prospect Avenue in Hollywood. In 1925, they were bought by Warner Bros.
UPDATE: Vitagraph was at 1438 2nd Street in Santa Monica, and the southern part of it (known as the Rapp Saloon) is still there.
On the night of October 3, 1942, Bette Davis and John Garfield opened the Hollywood Canteen at 1451 Cahuenga (on the corner of Sunset Blvd) at a former nightclub called The Barn. Eddie Cantor was the MC that night and from then until November 1945 it hosted, entertained, and fed nearly 4 million servicemen and, no doubt, giving them something to remember as they headed off into the Pacific theater.
Los Angeles has had more than its fair share of iconic one-of-a-kind buildings but on my Top 10 list would be the Pan Pacific Auditorium at 7600 Beverly Boulevard. Built in 1935, it was Streamline Moderne at its streamline-moderne-iest. As we can see here, the lines and curves are clean and simple and yet put together, they create an effect that both soars and gives a feeling of grounded solidity too. On my website, I have a collection of shots of the Pan Pacific: 
As an Angeleno who didn’t arrive in Los Angeles until the mid-90s, I’ve only ever known the Angel’s Flight funicular in Hill Street in downtown LA as standing all by itself like a lost child. So it always comes as a bit of a shock when I find photos of it—like this one taken circa mid-50s, if that ’55 Oldsmobile is anything to go by—in among and part of a more tradition urban landscape.
In 1957, Jayne Mansfield bought a 40-room mansion at 10100 Sunset Boulevard that had once been Rudy Vallee’s and painted the whole thing pink and added cupids surrounded by pink fluorescent lights. It must have been quite a sight to see driving along Sunset. Not surprisingly, the house got dubbed “The Pink Palace.” This picture we’re seeing is the realtor’s photo that was used for one of the sales of the home after Mansfield died in 1967. Subsequent owners included Ringo Starr, Cass Elliot, and Engelbert Humperdinck, who sold in 2002 to developers who quickly demolished the place.
Santa Catalina Island is famously 26 miles off the coast of Los Angeles and makes for a terrific getaway for frazzled Angelenos. These days you can get around the island using zippy little electric golf carts. But back in the 1920s when this picture postcard was taken, they used a…well…I’m not entirely sure what that is. It looks like an old motor coach whose roof and walls have been removed to give tourists a more resort type of atmosphere. But as per 1920s etiquette, you’ll see that these holidaymakers are fully dressed. No bikini tops and flip-flops for them!
The Carthay Circle Theatre on San Vicente Blvd has been the subject of beautiful photographs since the moment it opened. This one is a case in point: It was taken in 1926, the year it opened when Fox’s “What Price Glory” was playing. I love the way the photographer caught the lights with perfectly circular halos.
Completed in 1930 and combining Spanish Colonial Revival with Art Deco, the Grand Central Air Terminal in Glendale became Los Angeles’ first commercial airport when American Airlines established services there. It was also used by legendary figures in aviation like Amelia Earhart and Howard Hughes. This photo was taken in 1942 and we can see hundreds of recruits gathered to hear Air Marshall W.A. Bishop speak what I’m guessing was a rally-the-troops speech. Note that the tower has already been painted with camouflage.