This place must have been a boon to Angelenos seeking a fun-in-the-sun vacation at the turn of the century, or Easterners looking to escape the harsh winters. By the 1890s, getting to California wasn’t so difficult with transcontinental railways now a standard service. But getting those last 20 miles from downtown Los Angeles to Redondo Beach was made easier by the Redondo Railway Company which deposited holidaymakers at the sprawling 225-room Hotel Redondo. The hotel offered all sorts of amenities, including a ballroom, bowling alley, golf course, as well as wood-floored tents for the less well-heeled. The hotel opened to the public on May 1, 1890, so I’m guessing this photo was taken in the 1890s. After some management changes, Prohibition proved to be the final blow to its heyday, and the hotel closed in 1920.
Here’s another shot of the hotel, circa 1900:
And here’s a shot of the dining room:
The Hotel Redondo stood empty for 4 years and was demolished in 1924. Today that area is called Veterans Park and a library now stands where the hotel was. This image is from July 2022.
Yesterday (August 20, 2023) Los Angeles was subjected to a double-whammy: Hurricane Hilary, which brought rain and flooding, in the midst of which we also had a 5.1 earthquake. So I figured today I’d post freakish weather-related photograph: snow in LA! According to one list I saw, LA has had snow 19 times since 1882, but only twice this century. In this photo, we’re looking at “Gloria” the statue of a woman that adorned the start of the driveway that led from Wilshire Blvd to the Ambassador Hotel. From the looks of it, LA had quite a decent snowfall that day, and from the cars on Wilshire in the background was in the 1940s. If that’s right, this photo was taken in 1942, 1947, or 1949.
In November 1924, movie director/mogul Thomas Ince died, leaving behind him a studio that his widow had no interest in running. The following year, director Cecil B. DeMille acquired it and renamed it DeMille Studios. This photo shows us the big dedication ceremony that took place in front of the wide administration building that faced Washington Blvd in Culver City. I imagine DeMille is one of those people standing on the steps, but with so many well-wishers, it’s hard to make him out. His tenure didn’t last long. By 1928, the studio was in the hands of RKO, and in the 1930s they leased the studios to David O. Selznick.
It wasn’t until I came across this photo that I learned that Santa Catalina Island used to have its own amphitheater. Nestled in a hillside near the southern edge of Avalon, the island’s main town, it was built in 1904 by the Banning brothers, who owned the island at the time, and continued operations until 1931. In this circa 1909 photo, it looks like the amphitheater is sold out for a nighttime performance for those lucky souls able to escape the LA heat and spend some time enjoying Catalina’s cool ocean breezes.
“The Grapevine” is the name given to the stretch of the Interstate 5 north of Santa Clarita and south of Bakersfield. It’s the area of Southern California highway most likely to be socked in with weather during the winter, but when this photo was taken, potential snow was hardly likely. If this circa 1960s photo is anything to go by, the 5 was hardly the ten-lane behemoth it is today. Apparently the Grapevine Coffee Shop and 76 gas station were the last two buildings that needed to be demolished before roadwork on the freeway upgrade could begin. A shot like this makes me wonder who got that final cup of coffee.
Back in the day, if you had a 2am craving for candy apples, cornbread, and, cucumbers, you had at least one option: the block-long Hollywood Ranch Market at the corner of Fountain Ave and Vine St in Hollywood. And if you did, this is what it would have looked like as you pulled up, those three life-saving words blazing in neon: We Never Close. On the far right we can also see blade sign for the Art Linkletter Playhouse.
Back in the 1950s and 60s, when the burgeoning freeway system was reshaping Los Angeles, the opening of a new one was a bit of an event. In this photo, the couple seen here decided the 1962 opening of the 405 San Diego Freeway was worthy of a family outing. They’re perched on the slopes of the Sepulveda Pass to watch those motorists keen to be able to make a future dinner-party claim, “Y’know, I was one of the very first people to drive on the 405.” It looks like the freeway opened with four lanes per direction. Each side now has six lanes and unless you’re there very, very early, the Sepulveda Pass is a continual parking lot.
And from the They Sure Don’t Make Car Showrooms Like That Anymore file, comes this gem of a building with gorgeous bas relief panels over the doors. The McDaniel Motor Co. built their car showroom at 819 S. Brand Ave in Glendale. I don’t know much about them, but it looks like they sold Nash automobiles. The beautiful two-toned vehicle parked out front (on the right) is a 1926 Nash, possibly as an advertisement because behind it is the price tag: $999.99
These days, riding the LA skies in the Goodyear Blimp is strictly by invitation (which doesn’t prevent it from being a bucket-list item for me!) but back when this photo was taken “somewhere in Southern California” in 1931, that sign on the side of the blimp – “RIDE WITH US – VOLUNTEER” – suggests they were begging for passengers. Granted, in the early 1930s, things may have been a little less safe than they are nowadays, but I’d still have taken my chances. What about you?
In the early years of the Beverly Hills Hotel (which opened in 1912), a popular pastime for hotel guests was to go horseback riding throughout the neighborhood. Back then, a number of Beverly Hills streets had bridle trails (you can see the ghost of one of them running down the middle of the residential part of Rodeo Drive.) The chap perched atop his noble steed in this photo is Charles Brabin, who directed over 100 films in the 1920s and early 30s, two of them with his wife, Theda Bara. And we can date this photo to around 1924 from the Studebaker Special Six Duplex-Phaeton parked next to him.