One of the most colorful characters to come out of Culver City was an energetic entrepreneur named Frank Sebastian. Over his multi-decade career, he owned many venues, but the one he’s best known for was Sebastian’s Cotton Club at the intersection of Washington and National Blvds. He transformed the former Green Mill into one of the most respected jazz joints in LA. He sure gave its patrons value for money with “3 shows nitely” as we can see in this photo which I’m guessing was taken when the club was at the height of its popularity, during the Depression. Sebastian shuttered the Cotton Club in 1938 and in 1939 reopened it as Casa Manaña.
Advertisement for Frank Sebastian’s Cotton Club, Culvery City, with Les Hit and his band featuring “Fats” Waller, from The Hollywood Low-Down, May 1936
Advertisement for Frank Sebastian’s “Casita Manana” opening Friday, October 27th, 1939:
If you’d like to know more about Frank Sebastian’s colorful career, the Culver City Historical Society has an informative and entertaining lecture on their YouTube channel.
I don’t have a “now” photo of this view because I couldn’t determine which direction the Cotton Club faced. If anybody knows, I’d love to hear from you.
When I think of Technicolor (and I often do) I think of their large, white, 3-story building at 6311 Romaine St. in Hollywood. So I was somewhat surprised when someone sent me this photo asking if I knew they had a different building prior to the Romaine location. These headquarters stood at 823 Seward St in Hollywood, which puts it around 8 blocks west of Paramount. It was built in 1930 and so I assume this photo was taken within a year or two.
In this photo we see six merchants in East Hollywood lined up with their automobiles outside a general store called Hasting’s Place. The store stood at the corner of Vermont Avenue and Hollywood Blvd, at the eastern end of the Pacific Electric Red Car line. Apparently they’d line up like this every Sunday and take visitors to Griffith Park for 10 cents. You can see a sign on the front of each vehicle. Would they still have called them “horseless carriages” by the time this photo was taken in around 1915?
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.
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.