What a spectacular moment it must have been when the photographer caught this image during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games at the Los Angeles Coliseum on July 30, 1932. At the time, the country was in the grips of the Great Depression, so these games were a huge morale boost. To contain costs, the Coliseum (which had opened in 1923) was renamed Olympic Stadium and was the focal point of the games through to the closing ceremony on August 14. But in a shot like this, you can almost hear the cheers of the excited crowd.
The opening ceremony of the Olympic Games at the Los Angeles Coliseum, July 30, 1932
RKO workers leaving the movie studio, Gower St, Hollywood, 1945
The graininess of this image makes me suspect that it is a frame from video footage. And if it is, I’d love to see the whole thing. Nevertheless, it gives us an idea of what it looked like when studio workers left RKO’s Gower St entrance at the end of a day making movie magic. Apparently this is from 1945 and I can’t help but wonder which movie they’d been working on. Was it RKO’s first Technicolor production, “The Spanish Main”? “The Enchanted Cottage” with Dorothy Maguire and Robert Young? Or that cinematic classic, “Zombies on Broadway”?
Sebastian T says: “Lucille Ball Building. I worked there for 4 years when it was Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner’s company. The entire second floor was C/W at one point. Paula had Lucy’s office on the other side—the gorgeous suite with bay windows, fireplace, private dining room and kitchen, wood paneling, bathroom, private stairway, etc. That office above the Paramount/RKO sign pictured here was Tom’s. Eventually, we took over the third floor which was actually two screening rooms. The bigger one was remodeled into Tom’s new office. That third floor was totally abandoned and open to the elements until I “found” it and started reading scripts up there to get away from the fray below. Paula heard I was up there and found me—then talked to the studio and took over that space. The smaller screening room was actually Sherry Lansing’s storage room! It too became part of C/W. I spent many hours reading through Sherry’s old files lol. This was from 1995-1999.”
RKO’s longtime neighbor, Paramount, now owns what used to be RKO studios. This is how that Gower St entrance looked in July 2022.
Walt Disney surveys the construction of Sleeping Beauty’s castle under construction, Disneyland, circa early 1955
These days (or at least for anyone born in the late 1950s and later) Disneyland seems a fait accompli that’s always been there. But for Walt Disney, the guy in this photo, the project was a huge gamble that could have easily have been an embarrassing and empire-toppling failure. So it makes me wonder what was going through his head as he stood there watching his Sleeping Beauty castle come to life amid the scaffolding and rubble. (Spoiler alert, Walt, everything worked out fine.) Disneyland opened to much fanfare on July 17, 1955, so I’m guessing this photo is circa early 1955.
The entrance to the beauty salon inside the May Co. store at Wilshire Blvd and Fairfax Ave, Los Angeles, circa 1941 (or Broadway department store salon in Hollywood)
The May Co. department store at the corner or Wilshire Blvd and Fairfax Ave became an instantly iconic landmark (which it remains to this day now that the building houses the Academy museum.) But most photos of it are taken, understandably, of the outside. An interior photo is quite rare, so I was glad to find this one of the entrance to the beauty salon. I love the back-lit sign over the doorway. This photo was captioned “circa 1941” which is only a year after the store opened, and explains why everything still looks so pristine.
** UPDATE ** – A couple of people have said that this is the beauty salon in the Broadway department store at the corner of Hollywood and Vine, but I couldn’t find it on Google Image Search or TinEye to verify that.
A night shot of the Garrick Theater, 802 S. Broadway, downtown Los Angeles, circa 1913
Here we have the Garrick Theater which stood at 802 S. Broadway, putting it on the corner of 8th Street in downtown Los Angeles. This photo is circa 1913, which means the theater was only a couple of years old, and freshly renamed the Garrick, which may have been why the photo was taken. On the other hand, it might have caught the photographer’s eye because all that electric light must have been quite striking amid an otherwise inky black night.
The Garrick came down in 1927 to make way for the Tower Theatre, which is where “The Jazz Singer” had it very first showing. These days, the theater is still there, but it is now an Apple store. This image is from February 2023.
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Tagged Broadway, Downtown Los Angeles, Night photo, Theaters
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Looking west along Wilshire Blvd from Commonwealth Ave toward the Town House Hotel and Bullocks Wilshire, Los Angeles, 1929
In this photo, we’re looking west along a gloriously uncluttered Wilshire Blvd from Commonwealth Ave. The two-toned building on the right was the Town House Hotel and further into the distance, we can see the iconic tower of the Bullocks Wilshire department store. This photo was identified as being 1929, which is the year that both these places opened. So for the locals, they would have been fresh additions to the skyline.
Miraculously, both buildings are still with us. The Town House is now affordable housing, and the Bullocks Wilshire building is now home to the Southwestern Law School. This image is from February 2023.
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Tagged Bullocks Wilshire, Hotels, Stores and Shopping, Town House Hotel, Wilshire Blvd
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Cars and bicycles parked along Main St, Riverside, California, circa 1915
I don’t know where on Main St in Riverside this circa 1915 photo was taken, but it does show us a few things: (a) how beautiful buildings lend themselves to a textured cityscape, (b) how most cars looked practically the same, and (c) those bicycles parked haphazardly across the sidewalk remind me of those ubiquitous electric scooters, thus proving some things never change.
Justin S says: “The lamp post is an homage to the seal and symbol of the City of Riverside which is called the raincross, and was designed for the Mission Inn, the iconic symbol of Riverside. Although never a part of the Camino Real or a named mission, Riverside was the site of a large racho when purchased by the founders of that fair city.”
Jeff H says: “That photo is looking roughly northeast up Main St across University. At the next corner is the Mission Inn’s southwest corner tower.”
Looking east through the intersection of Wilshire Blvd and Western Ave, Los Angeles, April 20, 1926
And to complete my triptych of the intersection of Wilshire Blvd and Western Ave in the 1920s (here and here), we have this shot where the photographer climbed to the roof of the building on the northwest corner on April 20, 1926. From this angle, we can see that the northeast corner featured a second billboard, for Packard automobiles. And we can see that the (southeast) corner where the Wiltern Theatre now stands was once just a huge lot, largely empty except for a house. (From memory I think it was actually a realtor’s office.) And in the distance, we can just make out the Ambassador hotel. This photo was taken at 5.20pm, so this is peak hour traffic, mid-1920s style.
This November 2021 image shows the Wiltern Theatre that now fills the southeastern corner. It opened in 1931.
Looking east along Wilshire Blvd from Western Ave, Los Angeles, April 10, 1926
I recently posted a photo of the beautiful offices of Donahue Real Estate on the northeast corner of Wilshire and Western. Quite by coincidence, yesterday I came across this photo showing us what view looked farther east along Wilshire on April 10, 1926: a line of stores, a huge billboard, and lots of palm trees. It’s all so very 20s LA, isn’t it?
This is how that intersection looked in May 2022. It’s so completely different, I never would have guessed it was the same place. On the plus side, though, we now have the Wiltern Theatre—a palace of Art Deco gloriousness—on the southeast corner, so that’s something.
Color photo looking east along Wilshire Blvd from Ridgley Dr, Los Angeles, circa mid-1950s
Here’s a color snapshot of Los Angeles in all its mid-1950s glory. We’re looking east along Wilshire Blvd from Ridgley Dr., where the Mullen Bluett store (a mid-level clothing store) stood for many years. None of the stores we can see in this photo are around any longer, except for the Du-Par’s diner. It used have several locations across Los Angeles but, as far as I know, can only be found now at Farmer’s Market next to the Grove. Did anyone reading this shop at Bond Clothes? Can you tell me what sort of store it was?
Here’s a better view of Mullen Bluett:
This is how that same view looked in June 2022. The only thing left is that tower on the next block.
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Tagged Color photo, Restaurants, Stores and Shopping, Wilshire Blvd
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