In this photo, we’re looking east along a surprisingly quiet Hollywood Blvd from McCadden Place. Past the Citizen’s National Trust & Savings Bank building, we can see the Pig’N Whistle Café, Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre with its towering curved sign. What I really like is seeing the ticket office for the Union Pacific Railroad, whose network blanketed the western half of the US. The movie playing at the Egyptian was MGM’s “The Great Caruso” which came out in May 1951.
This is roughly the same view in February 2021.
From the looks of the frenzied energy of this blurry photo, the opening of a Mode O’ Day dress shop was a big deal. Mode O’ Day was a national chain of California-based franchised stores so I’m guessing when this one opened in 1935, people knew about it. Or maybe they knew about those $2.95 dresses advertised in the window. This store was in a building at the corner of S. Hill St and Washington Blvd which is a few blocks south of the south end of downtown Los Angeles, which back then was probably a more vibrant corner of LA than it is now. It certainly was on that day!
It’s hard to find a more Hollywood shot than this color one of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre lit up in all its neon glory. “The Fugitive Kind” starring Marlon Brando enjoyed a seven-week run at the Chinese in May and June of 1960. What we’re seeing here is the night United Artists held a preview before the official opening on May 6. And with that bright klieg light shining into the night sky, it wasn’t any secret sneak preview, either. I also like how the moon is peeking over the roof line of the theater.
This photo is a rare instance where can tell you no details. I don’t know where it was taken or when. Neither Google or the online LA City Directories (early versions of phone books) have heard of “Vernon T Mercer.” Nor did I find him in a few of the mid-1930s phone books when I searched under just “Mercer.” I also drew a blank on Google Images and TinEye. But that sign on the side of the van: “DeLuxe Horse Pullman” – I’m guessing this was a horsie version of the first-class Pullman train carriages which introduced George Pullman’s concept of the sleeping cars on long-haul trains in the 1860s and continued until December 31, 1968. I’m also guessing Mercer’s van was used for transporting high-class thoroughbreds to and from race tracks. If you have anything to contribute, I’m all ears!
The majority of the photos I’ve come across of the Cocoanut Grove nightclub at the Ambassador Hotel feature crowds of people, especially during its peak years, the 1920s and ‘30s. So it’s nice to see what the place actually looked like without swanky partygoers getting in the way. I do like all that detailing on the walls above those Arabianesque arches, and those black light fixtures that would have been perfect for Rick’s Café Americain in “Casablanca.” When someone finally hands me the keys to that time machine, a night at the Cocoanut Grove is definitely on my itinerary. Care you join me?
I wish this photo were bigger so that we could see more detail, but when a photo was taken nearly 100 years ago, we have to take what we can get. This 1926 aerial was shot taken looking southeast across the intersection of Hollywood and Vine. That skyscraper (because back then, 12 stories counted as a skyscraper) is the Taft building, which opened in 1923. These days, the most famous intersection in LA has three buildings that tall, but back then, as we can see here, it really stood out. The Dyas department store on the southwest corner (later The Broadway) opened in 1927.
I could find no information on this photo, not on this restaurant other than it was called “The Supreme” and it was somewhere on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. But look at that gorgeous typeface and how they chose to advertise: “THE SUPREME … PLACE TO EAT.” Talk about raising the expectations of potential customers. They must have been very confident of their menu, and I have to admire that.
In this photo we’re watching traffic zoom through the intersection of Wilshire Blvd and La Brea Ave. In the background we can see the charming 
These days, over 80 years later, we tend to lump Confessions of a Nazi Spy together with all the WWII-themed movies that came out of the Hollywood war propaganda machine (and I mean that in a positive sense.) It’s easy to forget, though, that this movie was the first of its kind. Released in May 1939, was the first anti-Nazi movie produced by a major U.S. studio at a time when the others were still hedging their bets. They didn’t want to ruin their European markets by upsetting Hitler’s Nazi party in the hopes that Europe wouldn’t descend into war. But patriotic Jack Warner didn’t care. He green-lighted this movie knowing that all Warner Bros. movies might be banned in Germany. And they were. This rather dramatic night shot was taken during the movie’s run at the Warner Bros. Theater at 6433 Hollywood Blvd.