I’m not sure why someone would think a battleship would make for an inviting food stand, but someone did as we can see in this circa 1910s photo taken on the Venice Pier. I think the sign says “FRESH FISH” which makes me wonder if there’s someone at the back of the battleship catching fish. The water certainly would have been cleaner back then than it is now. I also love to people-watch in photos like this—especially beach photo were people are wearing so much clothing that anybody would think of wearing these days.
Stephen E. said: “This is very much the high point of ‘Dreadnought mania’. The popularity of an enormous class of battleship in the general population might seem odd now, but at a time of heightened nationalism and general ‘ra ra ra-ism’, people went mad for them across Europe and thence the US.”
I don’t know where along Beverly Dr. in Beverly Hills this 1936 photo was taken, but it probably doesn’t matter as I suspect the whole street looked like this. It looks to me like someone went overboard when planting those alternating palm trees. It might just be the angle, but they do seem too close together. Then again, I’m no arborist, so what do I know? All I know for sure is that I envy those two motorists having the whole street to themselves.
Photos like this reminds us how much Los Angeles lost by neglecting its grand Victorian mansions found mostly in the Bunker Hill area of downtown, and whose ultimate fate was to be scraped when the city carved the top off the hill and make downtown LA less hilly. This place was known as the Brunson Mansion and stood at 347 S. Grand Ave on the corner of 4th St. Anson Brunson was a LA County Superior Court judge who later worked as a lawyer for the Santa Fe Railroad. Obviously, he wasn’t short of a dime. In later years, it became a hospital, a hotel, and finally a boarding house, which was a common fate for mansions of that era.
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.
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.”