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.
Here an advertisement for streetcar workers from the Los Angeles Daily News, June 2, 1943
On my Facebook page, Andrew C posted this frame of the streetcar is repainted as a “Flying Tiger” for the war effort.
Tiger jaw nose art appeared first on the P-40 in the Far East theater early in the war:
This is what the Post Office Annex building looked like in February 2019. It was LA’s central mail processing facility between 1940 and 1989, and now houses some sort of data center.
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.
The irony about this color photo of the Warner Bros. Hollywood Theatre at 6433 Hollywood Blvd is that neither of the movies playing at the time were Warner Bros. releases. “Bend of the River” was from Universal, and “As You Were” which was from a company I’ve never heard of (R&L Productions) which makes it a classic B-movie double-bill filler. “Bend of the River” came out in February 1952, so I’m pegging this photo at circa mid-1952. But at least we get treated to a color photo of Warner’s main Hollywood theater around a year before it was converted to the latest trend in movie-going: the curved-screen Cinerama experience.
Last month, I posted a 
Car salesman, Walter Wellman, billed himself as The Smiling Irishman on his car lot at the northeast corner of W. Pico Blvd & Vermont Ave, Los Angeles. I don’t know if his gimmick drew in the customers, but it made him stand out from his fellow car salesmen. Interestingly, though, his logo is a three-leafed clover – did he not know about the whole lucky four-leafed clover thing? Also, we can see a semaphore traffic signal. This photo is from 1952 and the last one in LA was taken out in 1956, so this particular one wasn’t long for this world.
The photographer who took this photo was facing east on the southeast corner of Sunset Blvd and Crescent Heights Blvd in 1954, looking at two places that took on legendary status in Los Angeles. At the rear is Schwab’s Pharmacy at 8024 Sunset, which had opened in 1932 and quickly became the place where Hollywood wannabes and madeits (I made that word up) gathered to see, be seen, swap gossip and information, grab coffee, read “The Hollywood Reporter,” and fill a prescription. Then, in 1949, Googie’s Coffee Shop opened next door at 8100 Sunset with such a weirdly angled style that it gave rise to a whole new trend in architecture to which it lent its name. When someone finally invites me to ride their time travel machine, I’m heading straight here.
In this glorious color photo we’re looking north up Vine St from the southeast corner of Sunset Blvd, circa late 1950s (as indicated by the brown 1957 Oldsmobile.) We can see signs for the USO, Sachson’s haberdashery, ABC TV, Santa Fe Railway, Plaza Hotel, The Broadway-Hollywood store, Miller beer, and NBC TV. But what *really* intrigues me that black stand behind the bus stop bench, and that other one on the other side of the bench with the red post and black box on top. What were they and what did they do? All suggestions, guesses, and information gladly accepted because I have no idea.
The Liberty Theatre at 266 S. Main Street in downtown Los Angeles opened in 1910, which means it was around from pretty much the birth of the flickers. When this photo was taken on September 24, 1929, a Clara Bow 1925 picture called “The Primrose Path” (1925) was on a double bill with “Adventures in the Far North.” (1923) That same year the theater was torn down, so maybe this one was of the last photos of the place? According to the Los Angeles Theatre blog, that statue on the roof was 10 feet high, was gold-leafed and held an electric torch, which sounds pretty impressive to me.
Until Union Station opened on the edge of downtown LA in May 1939, Los Angeles had three major railway lines coming into the city: Union Pacific, Santa Fe, and Southern Pacific, and each line had their own station. The one pictured here was Santa Fe Railway’s La Grande Station which stood where Santa Fe Ave terminated at 2nd St, several blocks south and east of where Union Station now stands. Parked out front is Los Angeles Railway streetcar #5, which would have taken rail passengers to and from the heart of downtown. The La Grande opened in 1893, and this photo is circa 1897. It looks like the streets weren’t yet sealed as the road seems to be dented with tracks made by horse-drawn carriages.
