The caption to this photo read “Transferring mail from an ocean liner to the Goodyear Blimp in Los Angeles Harbor” which left me wondering: Was the liner arriving into LA, in which case couldn’t the mail just taken off the ship? Or if the liner was leaving LA, how much mail could they have already accumulated? It seems to me that transferring something like mail from a little row boat to the Goodyear Blimp sounds awfully tricky with an all-too-real danger that the mail might end up in the Pacific.
** UPDATE ** – “20,000 Letters on Ship for Transfer to Blimp” – From the San Pedro News-Pilot, May 25, 1931″
I wish Wilshire Blvd still looked this calm and peaceful. We’re looking east along Wilshire from Camden Dr. in Beverly Hills circa 1936. This was before Rodeo Dr. became the mecca of luxury shopping that it later became. Back when this photo was taken, it was just a regular type of street where local Beverlyhillians shopped. The J.J. Haggarty department store on the right is gone, but the Beverly Wilshire Hotel is still with us. Around the middle of the photo, we can see the hat-shaped sign for the Beverly Hills Brown Derby restaurant, which opened at Wilshire and Rodeo in 1931. Its busiest night was Thursday, which was the traditional maid’s night off.
In this quietly genteel photo from 1926, we’re looking west along W. Adams Blvd toward St. Vincent de Paul’s Roman Catholic Church. It must have been a pleasure to drive around Los Angeles back then. All those spacious boulevards with so much room you didn’t even need lanes. Getting around looks like it was easy, parking looks like it was easy, hardly anybody was in a rush—unless you were the Keystone Kops. If you had a reliable car (a big “if” back then), it must have been fun to run around town looking for the latest speakeasy and quaff bathtub gin made god-only-knew where by god-only-knew who.
This photo of an early model automobile (can anyone ID the make?) was taken outside the Automobile Club of Southern California Club headquarters at Eighth and Olive Streets in downtown Los Angeles. The year was 1912, so I can’t imagine the club had too many members. For all I know, maybe we’re seeing the entire club membership in this photo!
The new Los Angeles City Hall opened on April 26, 1928, and so from the last of the scaffolding we can see here, I’m guess this shot was taken in early 1928. The photographer was standing on Weller Court in what is now 
In this circa 1937 photo, we’re looking west across Vine St from what looks to be the roof of a gas station on the corner of Selma Ave. We’re looking at the CBS Radio Playhouse. (KNX was the flagship radio station for the CBS network at the time.) This theater was home to the very popular Lux Radio Theater show which started in 1934 but moved from New York to Hollywood in 1936 until 1955. We can also see the banner for another popular radio show; “Hollywood Hotel” featuring Louella Parsons. Sponsored by Campbell’s soup, it ran from 1934 or 1938. The theater is still there and is currently known as the Ricardo Montalban Theatre.
On May 18, 2022, I posted a night photo of 
These days I think of Eagle Rock as a landmark to look for while driving east on the Ventura Freeway which alerts me to the fact that I’m heading into Pasadena. It’s surrounded by freeways and bridges and overpasses so it can be easy to miss. That wasn’t the case when these two Thoroughly Modern Millies stopped at the intersection of Colorado Blvd and Annandale Rd to take in the view in the 1920s, when Eagle Rock really stood out.
There were a lot of insults you could hurl at William Randolph Hearst, but you can’t fault his love of architecture. We’re looking north up Broadway from 12th St in downtown Los Angeles, and building on the left was the headquarters of his Los Angeles Examiner newspaper. It was designed by Julia Morgan who built Hearst Castle in San Simeon for him. According to a source cited on Wikipedia, the 7,800-square-foot building was the largest structure in the US devoted solely to the publication of a newspaper. It was also where Louella Parsons had an office. This photo was taken in 1938, which is the year that the L.A. Times gave Hedda Hopper her own gossip column in the hopes of checking Louella’s power, but ended up unleashing a second monster on Hollywood. Talk about unintended consequences.