I don’t know the exact location of this Owl Rexall drugstore in Redondo Beach, but when they opened in June of 1950, we can see they switched on ALL the lights. In real life, it probably didn’t look quite this bright (due to the camera’s slow aperture needed for a night shot) but I’d imagine that all the locals were very aware a new Owl was in town.
Owl Rexall drugstore opens in Redondo Beach, Los Angeles, June 1950
Looking south along the bluffs of Santa Monica Beach, California, 1888
This photo from 1888, we’re looking south along the bluffs of Santa Monica Beach. To be honest, I’m surprised to see so many beach huts filling the shoreline (I assume that’s what they were, and that people owned them?), especially seeing as how the whole population of Los Angeles hadn’t yet reached 50,000 people. Those bluffs are almost vertical so I’m sure the locals sure appreciated those stairs, but I wonder how rickety they became buffeted by the weather like that. Ditto the pier we can see in the background.
Warner Club dinner dance in the Biltmore Bowl at the Biltmore Hotel, downtown Los Angeles, February 17, 1940
Click on image for a larger view
Happy 100th anniversary to the Biltmore Hotel! It opened 100 years ago on October 1, 1923 opposite Pershing Square in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, where it still stands today. Nicknamed ‘the Host of the Coast’ it was the most lavish hotel west of the Mississippi and marked LA’s emergence as a city of note. It did not, however, have a fittingly grand ballroom. This situation was remedied in 1928 when the hotel opened the cavernous, two-story Sala de Oro, which was later renamed the Biltmore Bowl. This photo was taken on February 17, 1940, when the Bowl hosted the sixth annual dinner dance of the Warner Club, which was the social club associated with the Warner Bros. movie studios. Good luck finding space on that dance floor!
This woman doesn’t look like she was having a whale of a time.
There’s a cut-up in every crowd, this guy was it that night.
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Tagged Biltmore Hotel, Downtown Los Angeles, Hotels, Warner Bros.
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Photograph of the interior of a Transcontinental and Western Air Douglas DC-1 aircraft taken somewhere in Southern California, 1933
I don’t have a lot of information on this photo of the interior of a Transcontinental & Western Air Douglas DC-1 aircraft other than it was taken somewhere in Southern California in 1933. But it’s so atmospheric and evocative of the era, that I wanted to post it anyway. I love how the women are all wearing hats and the guy in front is wearing a three-piece suit. And nobody is schlepping three big carry-ons hoping they’ll find room in the overheads and annoyed that they can’t. Mind you, this cabin probably wasn’t pressurized like they are today, so in the air it was probably as noisy as all get-out and that kid in the second-to-last row will start screaming his head of any minute now.
** UPDATE ** From this article it looks like the above photo might have been for publicity:
https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/tag/transcontinental-western-air-inc/
Gary H on Facebook says: “re: the “glamour” of flying in this photo. Decades later it was certainly luxurious, and even in the 40s it was more comfortable because of pressurized cabins…but in the 30s it was not only rare and for the rich…it was not comfortable. The dual engine propellor plane had to fly under 10,000 feet before pressurized cabins. Loud, noisy, bumpy, and at the mercy of weather. This photo is for a transcontinental flight on Feb 18-19, 1934. It took 13 hours (a new record) and had to land twice to fuel. A great privilege for the rich, however, anything but a glamorous experience.”
Gary also supplied this photo of the aircraft they were flying on:
A Southern Pacific Interurban streetcar takes the curve at the intersection of Hill and 6th Street, downtown Los Angeles, circa early 1947
Here we have a Southern Pacific Interurban streetcar taking the curve at the intersection of Hill and 6th Sts, downtown Los Angeles. The photographer had his back to Pershing Square in what was probably very late 1946 or early 1947. We know that because the Paramount Theatre (323 W. 6th St) was playing the 1946 Christmas release “Cross My Heart” starring Betty Hutton. Two other things in this photo we don’t see quite so much any more are signs for Chop Suey (at the Marigold Café, 329 W. 6th St) and United Cigars.
Andrew C on Facebook says: “This is a Pacific Electric “box motor”, used for hauling less-than-carload freight and packages around the region, with a major part of that from the Railway Express Agency. It was a sort of UPS of its day, where when you ordered something, you went to the local depot agent and picked it up after it was transported to the depot in one of these. It’s my understanding that these mostly ran routes from a yard on the south end of LAUPT and a yard at 8th Street.”
Menu for the Marigold Cafe, 329 W. 6th St, downtown Los Angeles:
The Paramount was demolished in 1962, by which time the streetcar lines were also long gone. This is how that same corner looked in February 2023.
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Tagged Downtown Los Angeles, Restaurants, Stores and Shopping, Streetcars, Theaters
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Looking north up Broadway from 6th St, downtown Los Angeles, circa late 1930s
<sigh> What I wouldn’t give for the opportunity to spend an afternoon walking down Broadway in downtown Los Angeles in the late 30s such as what we can see in this photo looking north from 6th St. In this shot alone we can see signs for Le Roy’s, a jewelry company, Kress, a five-and-dime, Swelldom, which sold women’s clothing, and the Los Angeles Theater where the first “Blondie” film is showing. It played in theaters in December 1938 and must have done well for Columbia because 27 more films in the series followed until “Beware of Blondie” came out in 1950.
Chris D says: “I said something similar recently to a friend of mine and he said you wouldn’t last an hour in 1937 Los Angeles. Your asthma would put you right in the hospital from the particulates of the air, the smell of an entire city full of people most of whom didn’t use deodorant and of course, of course, thick clouds of cigarette smoke filling the air and making your clothes stink. They were used to that type of world back then. Hopefully we will never be. Oh and I forgot to include the occasional rotting pile of horse dung. But enjoy yourself anyway!”
And this is what the same view looked like in January 2023. A far cry from the bustle of the late 30s, isn’t it?
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Tagged Broadway, Downtown Los Angeles, Stores and Shopping, Theaters
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Photograph showing a line of residences on Hill St near Fifth St, downtown Los Angeles, circa 1890
After ten years (and counting!) of posting vintage photos of Los Angeles, you’d think by now I wouldn’t be surprised to find yet another one showing us (what we now think of as) downtown LA as being residential. And yet … and yet … this one still made me stop and think “Wait. What?” The houses in this circa 1890 image were standing on Hill St somewhere near Fifth St, which means Pershing Square wasn’t far away, although at the time, the people living here would have referred to it as the 6th Street Park, or perhaps Central Park after it got its early 1890s name change.
According to SF_Historian on Twitter, those houses stood around here. This image is from April 2021:
Color photo of a Pacific Electric streetcar rolling along the Venice Short Line, Los Angeles, 1945
I’ll take any excuse to post a color photo of a red Pacific Electric streetcar. This one was rolling along a route known as the “Venice Short Line” which went from downtown Los Angeles to the beach via Culver City. The year was 1945, so this route only had another five years to go before it was closed down. And extra points to the white Flying A gas station we can see in the background.
Beverly Hills Waterworks building, 333 S. La Cienega Blvd, Beverly Hills, circa early 1940s
In 1927, the city of Beverly Hills opened its Water Treatment Plant No. 1 building at 333 S. La Cienega Blvd. And being Beverly Hills they didn’t just throw up some plain, utilitarian heap. Heaven forbid! No, they put up a beautiful structure with arches and tiles, and soaring tower like something out of Medici-era Italy! But being a water treatment plant, the striking tower also had a practical function: I read somewhere it was built so the smell of hydrogen sulfide would be released high above the locals. Meanwhile inside the main building machinery was tapping water from Beverly Hills wells thus enabling the city to separate its water supply from Los Angeles. From the look of the 1941 Buick parked out front, I’m going to date this photo as circa early 1940s
The building served as a water plant until 1976, and is still around. Today it belongs to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and is known as the Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study. This image is from December 2022.
Aerial photograph of downtown Los Angeles, 1937
Back when this aerial photograph was taken in 1937, the tallest building in Los Angeles was, by law, City Hall, which had opened in 1928. It’s the tall, white building in the top right corner. No wonder it became an instant icon for LA—it really sticks out, doesn’t it? All the other buildings seem rather flat and squat by comparison.
In this satellite image from September 2022, we can see that downtown LA is now so thick with skyscrapers that we can barely even make out City Hall.
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Tagged Aerial photographs, Downtown Los Angeles, Los Angeles City Hall
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