When I first saw this photo of the Angels Flight funicular in its original location next to the Third Street Tunnel, I thought “How wonderfully atmospheric to ride Angels Flight amid swirling fog.” But then I read the caption which said that the photo was taken from at LA Times article titled “Blanket of Smog Obscures View of City from Top of Angels Flight.” And then I saw the photo’s date: 1958, when LA was reaching the peak of its smoggiest era. Thank goodness the city government eventually introduced very strict car pollution laws, otherwise I can’t imagine many people would be willing to live in such a thick soup of clogged air. Oh, and all those backyard incinerators didn’t help, either. I can’t believe we used to do that without even thinking much about it.
Andie P. said: “In the 1950s the Dept of Water & Power built several oil-fired power plants that belched out a lot of emissions. The one in Sun Valley poured out a lot of stuff that affected us when I lived in Burbank in the early 60s. The prevailing light winds out of the West would push the smog up against the foothills and it would stay there, especially when we had an inversion layer.”
Suzanne S said: “Los Angeles County banned backyard incinerators on October 1, 1957.”
Thanks to this Life magazine photographer, we get an idea of what it was like to drive east along Wilshire Blvd from the May Co department store on the northeast corner of Fairfax Ave. We can see the sign for Coulters department store featured in a photo I posted 5 days ago, but also the prominent sign for the Arthur Murray dance studio, which was on the corner of Stanley Ave. This photo was taken in March of 1949, and it looks like the Miracle Mile section of Wilshire was buzzing with activity. (Source: Life Magazine)
Around 15 years ago, before I embarked on my writing career, I worked at a store on Melrose Ave that had to move to a new location. It was a long, gradual process, but it was interesting to note that the fewer items we had in the store window, the more people stopped to look at the display. It led me to the observation that if people were presented with too many choices, they couldn’t make any choice at all. Clearly, that was not the marketing strategy at the Mid-City Cut Rate Drug Store at 3773 S. Western Ave on the northwest corner of Exposition Blvd. Clearly, they sold everything under the sun, which was handy for locals, but all that wordage distracted from the lovely features of the building itself…including the giant Bromo-Seltzer bottle next to the door. This photo is from 1941. (Source: calisphere.org)
It must have been a warm and sunny LA day sometime in the 1910s when this photo was taken of Venice Beach as there are beach umbrellas as far as we can see. Given how covered people were back then (note the guy on the right in a full suit) I’m not sure how necessary they were. But the Venice Bath House seemed to be doing okay. Look at their prices: 25 cents for 3 hours, 50 cents for the day, $1 for the week, and $2-something for the month. Also, surfboards 10 cents per hour. These prices seem rather steep for the 1910s. I had to google was a “Joy Fish” was. It refers to a brand of fishing equipment, primarily known for their cast nets, traps, landing nets, and multi-use baskets. (Source: waterandpower.org)
Here we have a shot of the peak of post-war planned community housing. Lakewood was developed as a planned community near Long Beach, beginning in late 1949 and taking roughly four years to complete. Home buyers had a choice of seven different floorplans and could take advantage of a 30-year mortgage at only 4% interest. So was it any wonder that 30,000 people lined up to walk through the model houses on the first day of sales? Many of the 60,000 to 70,000 people who originally moved into Lakewood worked at the nearby Douglas Aircraft factory, which, at 3855 Lakewood Blvd, would have been close enough to walk to. (Source: newyorker.com)
The name “Ralphs” probably won’t mean much to anyone outside Southern California, but to Angelenos it’s a well-known supermarket grocery chain. What we’re looking at here is their first store, which stood on the corner of Sixth and Spring Sts in downtown Los Angeles. This photo was taken in 1886, ten years after brothers George and Walter Ralphs opened their store in 1876. By then they’d bought out their original partner, S. A. Francis (the business was originally called Ralphs & Francis and was in a different location.) That’s George leaning on the boxes and Walter in shirt sleeves. Little did they suspect how ubiquitous their name would become.
I do love a color photo that shows us what it was like to stand on a LA street on an average day in the 1950s. We’re facing east along the Miracle Mile section of Wilshire Blvd looking toward Ohrbach’s and Coulter’s department stores. Ohrbach’s opened on the north side of Wilshire at 5711 before moving into the old Seibu department store building on the south side at 6060 in 1964. Coulter’s opened at 5600 Wilshire in 1938. Judging by the blue 1952 Oldsmobile facing us and 1954 Cadillac caught in the traffic back up, I’d say this is from mid-1950s.
Until I came across this photo, I didn’t know (but probably should have guessed) there used to be a radio station broadcasting out of Beverly Hills. These are the studios and transmitter of radio KMPC, which I think of as broadcasting out of the old Warner Bros. studios at 5858 Sunset Blvd. But those photo shows that once upon a forever ago (aka mid-1930s, when this photo was taken) they were at 9631 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills, where they made sure everyone knew they were “The Station of the Stars.” That tower was one of two bookending the station, and I’d imagine back in 1930s Beverly Hills, they must have really stood out.
Oof! This one is hard to look at: the destruction of the original Brown Derby restaurant at 3377 Wilshire Blvd. Even though technically it wasn’t the actual original one—the very first hat-shaped Brown Derby was at 3427 Wilshire between Mariposa & Alexandria until it moved half a block east in 1937—it’s the one we all think of when we think of the restaurant where people got to “Eat in the Hat” as the neon sign said. In September 1980, this restaurant closed without warning, and despite efforts to preserve it, the place was demolished anyway. One concession is that the dome was preserved and added to the mini mall that went up in its place.
This 1924 aerial view is a nice reminder of how residential Hollywood Blvd was before it became fully commercial. What we’re looking at here is the Garden Court Apartments at 7021 Hollywood Blvd a block west of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, which the apartments predate by 10 years. Opening in around 1917, the 190-room building was advertised as “the most modern in the west,” and the L.A. Times called it “the most beautiful and complete apartment house.” It must have been something because among its more notable residents include Clara Bow, Louis B. Mayer, Carl Laemmle, Mack Sennett, Stan Laurel, and John Gilbert. It came down in 1984. (Source: waterandpower.org)
