I don’t have a date for this night shot looking south down Vine St from the Plaza Hotel, just south of Hollywood and Vine, but from what I can see of the cars, it looks to be circa 1930s. But it’s obvious that the best thing the Brown Derby could have done was put up a huge, bright neon sign in the shape of a hat to remind people this was the place to eat. I also love how freshly fallen rain reflecting off the sidewalk on the west side of Vine adds to the atmosphere of this image.
This is how roughly that same view looked in June 2021:
The Angelenos we can see lining up out front of the Orpheum Theater at 842 S. Broadway in downtown LA must have really wanted to see Cab Calloway perform because they had to brave an unusual snowfall to do it. It looks like it’s barely an inch thick on the sidewalk, which is nothing for you hale and hardy New Englanders, but is enough for us Californians to think twice before leaving the house. The caption on this photo said the photo was taken on February 20, 1944.
In 1939, 
I love that this photographer thought to take a night photo of the glowing neon surrounding the Bundy Theatre in Santa Monica, silhouetting that car parked out front. But what I love even more is that several of the letters were out, which gives it a gritty film noir feel. The Bundy was playing Lawrence Olivier’s “Henry V” which puts this photo at 1946. Opening on December 31, 1941, the theater stood at 3414 Pico Blvd which was an unfortunate location because it stood in the way of the Santa Monica Freeway and forced to close in January 1963.
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.
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.
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 
<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.