Back in the good old days when we knew how to build eye-catching storefronts comes this circa 1936 gem. This Art Deco jewel stood at 611 West 7th St in downtown Los Angeles, and was home to Silverwoods department store and Stetson Hats for Women. I find it amazing that the builders went to the trouble of including that bas relief across the top when, three stories high, the chances of anyone seeing it was fairly low.
This is what comes up when I plug in that address. Feel free to roll your eyes and sigh deeply like I did. This image is from January 2023.
At first glance, it would be easy to think you’re looking at the forecourt of some French chateau and Italian palazzo. But nope. This is the forecourt of the Beverly Hills City Hall at 455 North Rexford Drive, Beverly Hills. With its matching fountains and young palm trees, the photo was taken around 1932, the year the city hall opened. There are a lot of tacky pockets of Los Angeles, but this isn’t one of them.
When Crossroads of the World at 6671 Sunset Blvd opened on October 29, 1936, it was one of America’s first planned outdoor shopping malls, o of course it deserved a big splashy opening, complete with searchlights scraping the sky. The place is kind of amazing with seven architectural styles: Cape Cod, French, Italian Renaissance, Mediterranean, Moorish, Spanish Colonial, and Streamline Moderne. I’d imagine Angelenos seeing it for the first time must have been popping their eyes wide open.
In 1958, three years after Capitol Records opened their iconic building, they started an annual tradition of decorating the top of their building with lights that resemble a Christmas tree. In this shot we’re looking south down Vine St circa 1970 (if that 1968 Chevrolet Bel Air on the right is anything to go by.)
From the angle of this photo, I’d say it was taken from the top of the building on the northeast corner of Hollywood Blvd and Las Palmas Ave looking west along the south side of the boulevard. We can see lit signs for the Gold Cup coffee shop, Union Pacific railway ticket office, a record store, the Egyptian Theatre, and the Hollywood Inn (formerly the Hotel Christie.) From the electrified Christmas trees decorating the store and the fact that “Hawaii” was playing at the Egyptian, we can narrow down the date of this shot to Christmas 1966.
Ever since I first saw the movie “American Graffiti” I knew that cruising up and down one of the boulevards in the San Fernando Valley part of Los Angeles was a popular Saturday night ritual. But I never quite realized that Van Nuys Blvd got *this* packed with kids looking for love, trouble, and adventure. The A-framed building on the right is 
According to the caption on this photo, some sort of sporting event was happening on the grounds of the Hotel Green, a large and luxurious hotel that opened in 1893 in Pasadena, where it quickly became a social hub. In the background we can see the turret of the nearby Santa Fe Railroad station, which was conveniently placed for guests arriving by train to escape the harsh winters back East. But what intrigues me most about this (I’m guessing circa early 1900s?) photo is that very tall pole in the foreground. Why is it so tall? Is it a streetlight? A beacon? Suggestions, anyone?
In this atmospheric nighttime shot, we’re looking north up Vine St from Sunset Blvd. It was taken on the night of July 27, 1948, and we can see all the neon signs that greeted Angelenos at the time: Broadway-Hollywood department store, Plaza Hotel, Tom Breneman’s restaurant, Capitol Records, as well as the semaphore traffic signal on the southeast corner of Sunset. But I especially love the way the streetlights look like starbursts (which I assume comes from a special filter on the camera.
In this photo from 1925, we’re treated to a glimpse of Wilshire Blvd’s wild west days, i.e. before traffic lanes were painted on the road. We’re looking east along Wilshire Blvd from the Gaylord Apartments. That construction site with the tower that resembles a rocket is the Immanuel Presbyterian Church at Berendo St. The streetlights known as Wilshire Specials (because they were only on Wilshire) have been installed, and those tress paralleling the sidewalk look like they haven’t been there long. But what is that thick white line painted on the road near the center of the photo? Suggestions, anyone?
I’m not 100% sure, but I suspect/assume this photo was taken on some high perch somewhere at the Hollywood Bowl (or perhaps zooming in from the 