Snow falls so rarely in Los Angeles, when it does, it’s worth bringing out the cameras to capture the moment. This particular moment happened on January 15, 1932 on the campus of UCLA in Westwood. The building in the background is Royce Hall, which is one of the college’s four original buildings. On that day, Los Angeles was blanketed with two inches of snow, which lasted until about 11am, and by lunchtime it had all melted away.
Here’s another view taken that same day (my thanks to David G for this photo):
This is how Royce Hall looked in October 2021.
The pier on Santa Monica beach has had several incarnations over the years—mostly because piers would all too often catch fire—but this photo goes back to the day when the first one (that is to say the first concrete one and therefore impervious to fire) opened to the public. It was creatively called “Pier Day” and the first Angelenos were able to stroll its length on Thursday, September 9, 1909. And the US Navy’s Atlantic fleet was there to greet them. I sure hope Septembers back then weren’t as warm as they are these days, because these people are all dressed up in their full-body Victorian wardrobe, which, let’s face it, wasn’t known for being comfy.
Last night, I watched an hour-long film on TCM called “The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Story” in which a very wooden MGM production chief, Dore Schary, promoted upcoming MGM films for 1951. It was like an hour-long buffet of trailers for black-and-white and color movies, some of which I’d never heard of. But near the start was this shot that answered a question I’ve long wondered: Where was the main gate in relation to the Irving Thalberg building? That’s the building on the left and the main gate was at the end of the road that crosses in front of it.
I wouldn’t have expected to find such an impressive hotel in late-1800s Pomona, but Hotel Palomares at 344 North Garey Ave opened its doors in 1897. By that stage, the city of Pomona had only been around for less than a decade (incorporated in 1888), but evidently someone thought great things were coming. Garey Ave wasn’t even sealed when this photo was taken in 1904, so those grand ladies in their Victorian dresses had to be careful during the rainy season as their horse-drawn carriages pulled up.
Photos of the Hollywood Bowl tend to draw the eye of the Bowl itself because…well…because it IS the Hollywood Bowl, after all. But this aerial photo from 1949 shows us that there was quite a large motel behind it. It was called the Franciscan Motel. I could find no information on the hotel, but it appears to be quite close, so I’m wondering if a good portion of their guests were out-of-towners who came to see a show. I’m not exactly sure where it was, but it looks like the Hollywood Freeway took it out.
Here we have a line of cars heading north on the Hollywood Freeway through Cahuenga Pass near the Barham exit in Burbank. But on closer inspection, we can see the cars on the two left lanes are all Woody wagons. So I’m guessing maybe it’s some sort of Woody wagon enthusiasts club taking their pride-and-joys on parade? Or going to a meet with other Woodies? This photo is circa 1942.
This photo was taken on November 4, 1927 when hundreds of people showed up to witness the premiere of Douglas Fairbanks’ new movie, “The Gaucho,” at Grauman’s Chinese. The theater was so new that this was only the second splashy premiere here held there. Fairbanks was at the height of his popularity, which explains the crowds crammed on the sidewalks on both sides of Hollywood Blvd. Lucky ticket holders were treated to a 12-part live show called a “Prologue” staged by Sid Grauman himself before the movie. “The Gaucho” ran for 12 weeks making it a solid hit.
Recently, I was contacted by a guy name Ken who wanted to alert me to a Universal picture from 1951 called “Hollywood Story.” He said I might enjoy it because it was filmed on location all around LA. Whenever I watch old movies like that I only have one eye on the plot; the other eye is on the background, trying to figure out where the scene was shot. I’m only 20 minutes into this movie and already it’s served up a whole raft of locations. But nothing beats this scene in the opening credits. In fact, it’s how the movie opens, and is a perfect shot for a movie called “Hollywood Story”: the street signs for LA’s most famous corner above a semaphore signal.
The Hollywood Reporter owner, Billy Wilkerson, opened his Café Trocadero at 8610 Sunset Blvd on the Sunset Strip on September 18, 1934, transforming the warehouse where he’d stored alcohol after the repeal of Prohibition. It was right there on the Sunset Strip, so had an ideal location. The swanky, French-inspired club it was an instant hit with the It Crowd and stayed that way for four years. But then Wilkerson sold it/had to sell it/forced to sell it, which he did in 1938 and the new owners gave the facade a makeover, which is what we’re seeing in this photo, and reopened on May 18, 1938. Those new owners were gangsters Bugsy Siegel and Mickey Cohen, and in 1940 it was raided twice for hosting illegal gambling. Not unsurprisingly, people stayed away. (But Wilkerson didn’t—in the mid-1940s, he went into business with Bugsy Siegel to build the Flamingo in Las Vegas. It didn’t go well.)