After ten years (and counting!) of posting vintage photos of Los Angeles, you’d think by now I wouldn’t be surprised to find yet another one showing us (what we now think of as) downtown LA as being residential. And yet … and yet … this one still made me stop and think “Wait. What?” The houses in this circa 1890 image were standing on Hill St somewhere near Fifth St, which means Pershing Square wasn’t far away, although at the time, the people living here would have referred to it as the 6th Street Park, or perhaps Central Park after it got its early 1890s name change.
According to SF_Historian on Twitter, those houses stood around here. This image is from April 2021:
I’ll take any excuse to post a color photo of a red Pacific Electric streetcar. This one was rolling along a route known as the “Venice Short Line” which went from downtown Los Angeles to the beach via Culver City. The year was 1945, so this route only had another five years to go before it was closed down. And extra points to the white Flying A gas station we can see in the background.
In 1927, the city of Beverly Hills opened its Water Treatment Plant No. 1 building at 333 S. La Cienega Blvd. And being Beverly Hills they didn’t just throw up some plain, utilitarian heap. Heaven forbid! No, they put up a beautiful structure with arches and tiles, and soaring tower like something out of Medici-era Italy! But being a water treatment plant, the striking tower also had a practical function: I read somewhere it was built so the smell of hydrogen sulfide would be released high above the locals. Meanwhile inside the main building machinery was tapping water from Beverly Hills wells thus enabling the city to separate its water supply from Los Angeles. From the look of the 1941 Buick parked out front, I’m going to date this photo as circa early 1940s
Back when this aerial photograph was taken in 1937, the tallest building in Los Angeles was, by law, City Hall, which had opened in 1928. It’s the tall, white building in the top right corner. No wonder it became an instant icon for LA—it really sticks out, doesn’t it? All the other buildings seem rather flat and squat by comparison.
This circa 1901 photo of the then recently opened Third St Tunnel in downtown Los Angeles reeks with early 20th century, doesn’t it? The opening of the tunnel gave Angelenos a convenient way to get from one side of downtown to the other so it’s no wonder that all those drivers with their horse-drawn wagon and carriages are using it. And on the left we can also see the recently opened Angels Flight funicular in its original location. It was quite the busy corner.
It amazes me that I could be today years old when I learned that a branch of LA’s most famous pharmacy (Schwab’s) once stood next to LA’s most famous intersection (Hollywood and Vine) and I’ve never noticed it until I was reading 
One of the most popular ice cream parlors in Los Angeles from the 1930s through the late 1960s was Currie’s with locations all over Southern California. This location was at 1521 W. Whittier Blvd, Montebello in 1946. As we can see from that very tall sign on the roof that their signature dish was their Mile High Cone. I’m guessing it was served in a waffle cone and piled high with ice cream? At 10 cents, it sounds like a good deal to me.
I have no information about this photo of a billboard advertising the Deauville Beach Club on Santa Monica Beach. I don’t know when the photo was taken or where the billboard stood, but in a way, that’s beside the point. The advertising illustrates a time when there were private clubs along LA’s most popular beach that offered all sorts of amenities, like a gymnasium, pools, dining, lockers, and guest rooms. It sure beats a sand-filled towel that might blow away while you’re swimming in the Pacific. The funny thing is, the Deauville didn’t even look like that. There was no 12-foot tower with huge pyramidal roof. The club was that 2-story building at the front, which was charming enough. Maybe they had plans to build that tower before the club burned down in 1964.
After the Famous Players-Lasky vacated their studios on the northeast corner of Sunset Blvd and Vine St (relocating to Melrose Ave where they evolved into Paramount) NBC nabbed the site and built their soon-to-be landmark radio studios. This photo was taken from the roof of Dooney’s Pharmacy on the southwest corner looking toward the construction site where we can see the curved corner of the building taking shape. NBC opened their studios on October 17, 1938, so I’m guessing this photo was taken earlier that year. Sometime after NBC opened, Dooney’s would become Radio City Fountain Grill Restaurant.
In 1931, the May Co department store went all out to celebrate their 50th anniversary. Technically, it was the 50th anniversary of Hamburger’s department store which later merged with the May Co. But hey, any excuse for a big celebration/publicity campaign. Here we can see May’s store at 803 S. Broadway, where shoppers have gathered in front of a horse-drawn streetcar, which would have been the primary mode of public transportation in 1881. I wonder which poor May Co employee drew the short straw and was on horse hockey patrol.
