These days, the northeast and southeast corners of Sunset Blvd and Vine St in Hollywood are home to a bank and an office tower. But back in circa 1932, those two corners were far more interesting. We’re looking north up Vine St (we can see the huge neon sign for The Broadway Hollywood store in the far background) and the restaurant closest to us is The Pig Stand on the southeast corner, which had opened the year before. Across Sunset, we can see the sign for Carpenter’s Sandwiches drive in on the northeast corner. The Pig Stand seem to be doing a lively trade, and I assume the equally popular Carpenters would have been, too.
This is the closest approximation I can make to the same view. This image is from May 2022.
Los Angeles’s most famous theater – Grauman’s Chinese – was named after its owner, Sid Grauman, who was a master of promotion. In this 1930 photo, we see him standing front of something that the sign to his right calls a Cycloplane Trainer. (According to Wikipedia, a Cycloplane was a type of glider.) The thing is so wide that it must have been quite job placing it on display in the forecourt. I don’t know why it was there – maybe a Cycloplane featured in an upcoming movie about to play at the theater? Or maybe there’s a clue in that sign to the right—the one that reads “Plan to attend the ultra modern Midnight Matinee.”
In 1920, the Muller brothers, Frank and Walter, opened a gas and tire business at 6380 Sunset Blvd in Hollywood. To attract the attention of prospective customers, at some point (this photo is circa mid-1930s) they constructed a very tall stack of tires on top of which they placed a mannequin. I can’t imagine there was another place in LA with anything that looked like this, so I tip my hat to the Mullers for their promotional savvy. Especially seeing as how it looks as though you could avail yourself to their 25-cent special while they fit you with new and/or used tires.
It’s hard for me to imagine a streetcar rattling through the sedate heart of Beverly Hills, but this photo shows the Beverly Hills station which stood on the corner of Cañon Drive and Santa Monica Blvd. The photographer was facing east because we can see the tower of the gorgeous Beverly Hills City Hall in the background through the spiderweb of overhead electric lines that powered the streetcars.
If there’s one thing this world needs it’s more donut-shaped coffee-and-donut shops with creative names like The Donut Hole. Pictured here in 1970, this one was at 15300 Amar Road in La Puente, around 20 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. I trust that driver entering via “Do-Nut Blvd” enjoyed his morning commute loaded up with the Hole’s offerings. This style of architecture is known a “mimetic” because the building itself mimics its purpose. You can see more examples of mimetic architecture in LA 
A couple of days ago, I posted a circa 
There’s nothing like a vintage color photo of a parking lot filled with vintage cars to make you nostalgic—even if you were never there back then. This is LA’s original Farmers Market at 6333 W. 3rd St on the northeast corner of Fairfax Ave. It opened in 1934; this was taken in 1950, when its parking lot was filled with gleaming 1940s cars. I especially like that bronze one in the lower right corner. And by the way, there’s a word that means “nostalgia for a time you’ve never known” – it’s “anemoia.”
In yesterday’s photo of a 
I couldn’t find a lot about this Life magazine photo dated May 4, 1944, but from what I’ve been able to piece together Los Angeles Railway repainted one of their streetcars as a “Flying Tiger” for the war effort. They were encouraging citizens who were ineligible to go into the military to become “a home front ace” which I take to mean become a streetcar driver. I’d love to have seen a color version because I’d imagine it made quite a striking sight rolling around LA. That building in the background is the Post Office Annex building at 900 N. Alameda St next to Union Station.
Some vintage photos are teeming with so much activity that you can just about hear the commotion. We’re looking north up a bustling Broadway from around Fifth Street in downtown LA. One of the banners stretched across the street reads: “Opening, Grand Midwinter Carnival and Oriental Exposition, Venice, Jan 14, 1906” so we can date this photo to around then. This is a Los Angeles largely reliant on horse-drawn transportation, a burgeoning streetcar network, and pedestrians’ legs, and I love how many multi-globe streetlights there are. The building on the right with the pyramidal roof was the LA City Hall, but my favorite feature is the big boot sign on the left. I assume Cummings was a bootmaker and cobbler—though I doubt how many people could see that sign eight or so floors from the sidewalk.
