I do love a Kodachrome color photo that pops with color. But I especially love it if it’s looking north up Vine St from the Brown Derby restaurant to the Hollywood Blvd intersection. Those two blue cars turning into the 25-cents-per-hour parking lot immediately north of the Brown Derby (whose gold-yellow sign we can see at the far right) are a 1953 Cadillac convertible and a 1955 Mercury station wagon, so I’m dating this photo circa mid-1950s. The Capitol Records building north of this intersection would be brand new (or being built) as it opened in 1956.
Oscar on my Facebook page posted this photo showing Vine St looking south at around the same time.
This is how that view looked in May 2022.
The Seaboard National Bank building on the northwest corner of Wilshire Blvd and Dunsmuir Ave reminds us that, like yesterday’s photo of the French Chateau Apartments, we used to create beautiful buildings before the square-box mentality took hold. Look at that intricate grillwork between the first and second floors, and the bas relief along the top. This photo was taken around 1930, when the building would still have been new, which explains why there was still some store space available for lease.
It’s nice to know that once upon a time, architects designed and developers built apartment buildings that weren’t just square boxes. Yes, square boxes are more efficient, and yes, they maximize floor space (and therefore profits) but get a load of the French Chateau apartment building at 900 S. Hobart Blvd on the southeast corner of James M. Woods Blvd, 3 miles west of downtown LA. This photo is from 1937, which I assume is when it was built as it looks brand spanking new and the trees are mere saplings. The Los Angeles cityscape would be so much more interesting if we had more of these, wouldn’t it?
In this vibrant color shot we’re looking down Broadway to the aptly named Broadway Theater at 428 S. Broadway, between 4th and 5th Streets around the corner from Pershing Square. They had a pretty good double bill playing that week: “Rob Roy” and “Creature from the Black Lagoon.” The latter movie came out in March 1954, so I’m guessing the shot was taken later that year. I would also love to have seen the neon sign for the neighboring American Music Co that sold records, televisions, radios and appliances. A veritable one stop shop!
A couple of days ago I posted a photo of a 
The sign on the magnificent building says “MUNICIPAL LIGHT WATER POWER” so I’m assuming it’s a forerunner of what we here in LA now call the DWP (Department of Water and Power.) In 1936, when this photo was taken, it stood at the intersection of 59th Place and Vermont Ave, which put it a few miles south of downtown. For a utility company building, it’s pretty spectacular. Actually, it’s eye-catching for any sort of office building.
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.
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.)
