This dripping-with-atmosphere night shot of Lawry’s The Prime Rib restaurant at 100 La Cienega Blvd in Beverly Hills is so pristinely lit that it almost looks like it’s from a movie. I love that backlit “THE PRIME RIB” signage, and how that car parked out front is in silhouette. From the circa 1937 Ford in the parking lot, I think we can safely say this shot is circa late 1930s.
** UPDATE ** – Here’s a Lawry’s menu, circa early 1940s:
** UPDATE ** – Joanabell says:
“Lawrence Frank and Ted Van de Kamp were partners in the early days in LA (1900s) when they both went into the food business. Eventually, Mr. Frank and Ted’s brother, Walter Van de Kamp, owned the restaurants, and Mr. Ted Van de Kamp owned the bakeries. They were related, as Mr. Frank was married to Mr. Van de Kamp’s sister! Both families were close to each other, as well as mine.
Soon after Lawry’s became popular, Mr. Frank opened two more restaurants on that street, nearby. One was called The Mediterrania (Mediterranean food)m and Richlor’s, which served the best “planked hamburger” on a wooden board. Also, while waiting for a table, one could order a delicious shrimp cocktail in the waiting room.
Mr. Frank invented the table-side heated cart where the roast beef could be carved to the patron’s liking. All the side dishes were kept warm, too. And of course he concocted Lawry’s salt!
A little story for you: Sometimes after the ladies played bridge, the 8 couples would go out to dinner. One time, Mr. Frank took them to Lawry’s and I, at about age 16 or 17, was invited to go with them. Mr. Frank took us back to the kitchen. I will always remember how all the servers were lined up for his inspection in their crisp uniforms! I still recall Mr. Frank telling us that if he ever caught a waiter with a napkin tucked under his upper arm, he would be fired. The napkins (or towels) had to be held over their lower arm!”
After a couple of moves, Lawry’s is back in their original location. These days, the signage is a lot more low-key (as in “blink and you’ll miss it.”) This is how it looked in August 2022.
When they’re lit up nicely, even places as pedestrian as supermarkets can look spectacular, like the Tower Market. We can see from the date in the bottom left corner that it was taken on October 21, 1936, so I’m guessing it was shot not long after the store opened. I couldn’t find an address for it other than it was somewhere in San Bernardino, but it was open from 1936 to 1944, which isn’t long for that spectacular tower of light that must have shone like a beacon.
One of the great railway excursions Angelenos liked to take was Mt Lowe Railway’s Great Incline, an open-air cable funicular to the top of Echo Mountain in Altadena. These people have caught that streetcar from Pasadena and are waiting for the next car to take them to the summit, where restaurants, stores, and a 70-room Victorian hotel awaited them. This photo was taken around 1927, probably during the winter if those overcoats are anything to go by.
The caption on this photo (which I assume is a postcard) reads: “From Mt. Wilson, 19 miles away, Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum shines in its aureole of searchlights like a fallen meteor amid constellation of city lights.” I have no idea what was going on at the Coliseum that night or when it was taken. It could have been the opening ceremony in 1923, or an Olympic Games event in 1932. Whatever it was, all those searchlights fanning across the sky must have been an impressive sight to see in real life.
I do love an atmospheric night shot of LA and this one ticks all the boxes: the glow of neon light, silhouettes of parked cars, 5-bulb street lamp, and streetcar tracks. This was taken in 1940, when Paris Hand Laundry and Argentina Steaks were at 1144 W. 7th St just east of downtown Los Angeles. The only thing missing is a storm to make the sidewalks slick with rain.
Of all the people I’d expect to be checking out floats in Pasadena’s annual Tournament of Roses parade, Albert Einstein wouldn’t have been high on my list. Nevertheless, here he is with his wife Elsa, who looks like she’s been given some roses of her own. The theme that year was “Nations in Flowers” so it’s understandable that they’d visit the Germany float. At that time things were getting dicey back home under Hitler and the Einsteins were in the process of deciding to emigrate to the US. According to one report I read, the Germany float was the winning entry that year, which must have pleased them.
In this photo we have two lone automobiles driving along Foothill Blvd in Santa Anita. The year was 1916, when I’d imagine seeing those new-fangled horseless carriages was still a bit of a novelty, so I’m impressed that the road appears to be sealed. Both cars are heading in the same direction indicates to me that the car on the right was going too slow for the car on the left and so they’ve swerved into oncoming traffic to overtake the slowpoke. Is this the 1916 equivalent of road rage?
One of the things I like most about Googie-inspired architecture is that you never really know what form or shape they’re going to take. This one, with all sorts of planes and angles heading all direction is Ben Frank’s, which opened in 1962 at 8585 Sunset Blvd, which puts it smack dab in the middle of the Sunset Strip. I especially love that towering spike holding the sign. It’s so space-age-jetset-y!
It’s hard to believe, but the intersection at the center of this aerial shot from 1920 is Hollywood and Vine. The large estate on the western side of Vine St (which is the one that runs from the upper right corner to the lower left) belonged to real estate mogul, Jacob Stern, and stretched from Hollywood Blvd down to Selma Ave. With that grid of trees(? an orchard, maybe?) it looks like the grounds were formally laid out and probably needed a full time gardener.
The photographer who took this photo in 1943 would have been standing under the trees outside the Hollywood Hotel on the north side of Hollywood Blvd when that eastbound Red Car was stopping at Highland Ave. He then could have gone into the Owl Drug Co. store on the southwest corner of Hollywood and Highland for something to munch on before heading into the Hollywood Theater (with the neon blade sign) to catch a movie, followed perhaps by a nightcap in his room at the Hotel Christie.