“The Home of Nazimova” article in Picture Show magazine, January 1921
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Tagged Alla Nazimova, Movie Stars, Sunset Blvd, The Garden of Allah Hotel
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31st Academy Awards, Pantages Theatre, Hollywood, April 6, 1959
From what I can count, the 31st Academy Awards in 1959 had over 30 valet parking attendants to take care of the cars of the arriving Tinseltown celebrities. This was a big year…especially for the producers of “Gigi” who won for Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Scoring of a Musical Picture, Original Song, Art Direction, Costume Design, Color Cinematography, and Film Editing. I would hate to have been against “Gigi” that year but I would love to have been there! (And for fans of my books, you might want to keep this photo in mind when you read the 9th and final Hollywood’s Garden of Allah novel, Closing Credits due out November 2018.)
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Tagged Academy Awards, Hollywood, Hollywood Blvd, Night photo, Pantages Theatre, Theaters
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Aerial view of Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, between Highland Avenue and La Brea Avenue, circa 1920
In this aerial view from 1920, we’re looking at Wilshire Blvd near the bottom, La Brea Ave to the left, and Highland Ave to the right. (I didn’t know it used to bend like that.) There’s acres and acres of empty land, then dozens of oil wells, and the waaaaay off in the distance civilization begins at I’m guessing it’s Santa Monica Blvd and fills in everything to the feet of the Hollywood hills.
Brown Derby building, Vine Street Hollywood with circa 1937 Packard out front
Judging from that rather nifty 1937 Packard out front, it’s safe to say that this photo of the Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant is circa late 1930s. It’s what I think of as the prime era of this Brown Derby because all the features we see in other photos are there: the derby-shaped sign, the “Hiram Walker’s Canadian Club” neon, the Satyr bookshop, the Bamboo Room, and the sidewalk awning that stretches all the way to the curb.
View of the northeast corner of Hollywood Blvd and Vine St, Hollywood, 1927
In this 1927 shot of the northeast corner of Hollywood and Vine we can see that that famous corner was still getting its act together. The Equitable Building that stands there today was built in 1930 and was where agent Myron Selznick (who famously brought Vivien Leigh to his brother David for the role of Scarlett O’Hara) had his offices. The Pantages Theatre a few doors down went up in 1930. Across the street, the first of many cafés to occupy the northwest corner – the CoCo Tree – didn’t go in until 1932. What we have here is a view of a simple one-story Bank of Hollywood building, a streetcar line along Hollywood Boulevard, a few other haphazard building but not much else going on besides. It certainly doesn’t look like it’s destined to become one of the world’s most famous intersections.
That same corner as it looked in January 2018:
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Tagged Hollywood, Hollywood and Vine, Hollywood Blvd, Streetcars
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Goodyear blimp hovers above Evening Herald building to pick up newspapers for a special delivery to Los Angeles City Hall, November 5, 1931
Who knew that the Goodyear blimp made special delivery runs? This shot was taken on November 5, 1931, which was the 20th anniversary of the Los Angeles Evening Herald. On that day, a Goodyear blimp named “The Volunteer” hovered over the newspaper’s headquarters at 1111 South Broadway to pick up a bundle of Twentieth Birthday editions which it then dropped off at Los Angeles City Hall. I guess these are the perks when you’ve got William Randolph Hearst as a boss.
Looking north up Fairfax Ave at Drexel Ave toward oil wells, Los Angeles, 1931
In this photo, we’re looking north up what was in 1931 a very sparsely populated Fairfax Ave at Drexel Ave. Miraculously, that building on the left is still around and is currently occupied by Samy’s Camera. All that empty land on the right is now taken up with the sprawling Park La Brea apartment community, which is the largest housing development in the U.S. west of the Mississippi River
Drexel Ave looking east across Fairfax Ave to oil wells on land now occupied by Park La Brea, Los Angeles, 1931:
The same view in March 2018:
The Samy’s Camera building with its lovely Art Deco features still intact:
Afternoon peak hour heading east along Wilshire Blvd through Westlake Park and into downtown Los Angeles, circa 1937
Looks like it’s afternoon rush hour, circa 1937 with three lanes of Wilshire Blvd heading from downtown through what was then called Westlake Park. (It wouldn’t be renamed MacArthur Park until 1942.) That little white road sign between the two cars going in opposite directions probably says “Keep Right” and indicates that the direction of the lanes changed according to the time of day and volume of traffic. But check out that two-door motorcar to the left of the sign—it’s a circa 1925 Rolls-Royce Piccadilly Roadster. What a joy it must have been to cruise around mid-30s LA in that!
Oil island on La Cienega Blvd, south of Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles, circa 1931
From this circa 1931 photograph, we can see that oil was king in Los Angeles. If there was an oil well in the way of building a road—even a major one like La Cienega Boulevard—you build around it and everybody wins. This well was just south of Beverly Blvd so the Beverly Center shopping mall is now where that empty lot is on the left.
I tend to think that the “SLOW” sign is somewhat superfluous:
That same view in January 2018:
This is a bit of a sad sight to see: a Pacific Electric streetcar on the Glendale-Burbank line prepares for its final run on June, 19 1955. You may have gone to oblivion but more than sixty years later, we haven’t forgotten you!