The Angelenos in this circa 1905 photo were at the Santa Fe Railroad’s La Grande station that used to stand at 2nd St and Santa Fe Ave in downtown LA. The travelers were taking the California Limited service which ran between Los Angeles and Chicago and took nearly 3 days. I hope those ladies loosened their corsets for a long trip like that. Lucky for them, though, the California Limited was also the first Santa Fe train with Fred Harvey Company meal service.
** UPDATE ** – Roy P says: “That may be a picture taken at Dearborn Station in Chicago IL. Passengers are boarding a train going to Los Angeles with connections for San Francisco and San Diego. Dearborn Station had a train shed and it was a stub end station with bumpers at the end of the tracks. La Grande Station in Los Angeles was a mostly open station and the tracks were through tracks with trains operating via Pasadena coming and going out of the north end, trains operating via Fullerton coming and going out of the south end.”
You can see California Limited’s schedule and route here.
During the last couple of decades of the 1800s, the land that would later become Beverly Hills was far enough from downtown Los Angeles to be considered agricultural. The main crop was lima beans. They provided a good, cheap, and healthy source of protein for the locals. In this 1888 photo we’re looking at the stretch of land that 30 years later became Rodeo Drive. Quite the difference, huh?
I don’t know much about Leggett’s other than they were a women’s clothing store at 8301 Beverly Blvd, on the northwest corner of Sweetzer Ave. I love the clean Art Deco lines of this building, and their uncluttered window displays. (I’m also a fan of that two-light streetlamp.) This photo was taken in 1929, which has me wondering how well Leggett’s fared (or didn’t fare) during the coming Depression.
Until I came across this photo, I didn’t know Franklin D. Roosevelt’s youngest son, John, owned a store in Beverly Hills. Partnering with Leland Good, he opened Roosevelt-Good, a department store that mostly sold ready-to-wear women’s and men’s casual and sports clothes. It opened in October 1948, and judging from the blue circa 1947 Plymouth facing the camera, I’m guessing this photo was taken not long after the opening because anything with the name Roosevelt was newsworthy. Oddly, I couldn’t find a specific address for the store, but I believe it was on Beverly Drive, south of Wilshire. (Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.)
I love this off-the-cuff photo taken from inside a car driving north up Vine St as it approaches Sunset Blvd. We can glimpse what it was like to be driving around Hollywood on a regular day with regular people going about their business. The sign on the NBC studios – KRCA TELEVISION CHANNEL 4 shows they’ve been converted from radio. And that “DRIVE” painted on the ground would have led to Carpenter’s, which was a popular drive-in restaurant at the time.
These days, the Cinerama Dome is crowded in on three side with developments of all types, so it’s a little strange to see it out there on its own during its early days. It opened in 1963 and this photo was taken a couple of years later in 1965 when “The Greatest Story Ever Told” was playing. It must have been pretty spectacular to see in the wide-screen Cinerama format given that at the time, it was the most expensive movie ever shot in the US ($20 million budget.)
Here are two things you don’t see passing through Beverly Hills anymore: a train and a streetcar. But back in 1954, when this photo was taken, locals were used to seeing both stop at the Beverly station on the southeast corner of Santa Monica Blvd and Canon Dr.
Mullen and Bluett was a mid-level department store with a number of locations, including Wilshire Blvd and Hollywood Blvd. The one shown in this photo was at Broadway and Sixth St in downtown Los Angeles. I love the oh-so Art Deco lettering they used out front of the building! Judging from that passing 1934 Ford Cabriolet, we can probably peg this photo circa mid-1930s when people were still working their way out of the Depression. Stores like these were lucky to have survived.
A shining example Art Deco architecture, the Southern California Edison Building opened in 1931 on the northwest corner 5th and Grand Sts, in downtown LA. SoCal Edison is an electricity company, so when I say “shining” I mean exactly that. Obviously this photo was taken (around the time the building opened) with a long exposure that makes it glow like a lighthouse beacon, but in real life, it still would have been a sight to see at night.
How lovely it would have been to stroll along Harvard Blvd between 29th and 30th Streets, passing these Craftsman style bungalows in 1915. Once those trees grew in and the residents put in fences, the neighborhood would no longer look so pristine, so I’m glad the photographer stopped to take this photo.