Whenever I see a photo like this, I’m often amazed to see a locomotive pulling a line of passenger carriages along a track laid out along city streets. Maybe it was a common sight back then, but it still makes me wonder how many accidents this sort of thing caused. Or maybe pedestrians always saw that big shiny round headlight casing coming from a mile away. This locomotive was Southern Pacific GS-3 class, 14 of which were made in late 1937. This photo was taken at the intersection of Alameda and Aliso Streets in downtown Los Angeles. That tower in the background is part of Union Station, which had opened on May 3rd,1939, so I’m guessing the photo was taken later than year, when the station was still a brand-new addition to the LA skyline.
Matt H. said: “Alameda remained a heavy freight line even into the 1980s and beyond. Also, given we’re seeing it cross Aliso Street, we’re seeing it cross the P.E. tracks – a main corridor here, too. That crossing diamond surely took quite a beating from those super-heavy locomotives.”
Gary H. said: “It was mostly the other way around…surface streets grew next to rail lines, which explains the crazy intersection at Fairfax and Olympic. The train went down as San Vicente.”
This is roughly how that view looks these days:
Not all buildings have to be grand and ornate to catch the eye. They can also be striking with simple, clean lines like this J.C. Penney store. It stood at 1202 3rd St, Santa Monica, on the corner of Wilshire Blvd. This photo was taken in 1949, decades before that corner became the end of the Third Street Promenade pedestrian mall. This photo is empty of vehicle and people traffic so I guess it was taken early on a Sunday morning which was probably the only time nobody was around.
I’m so glad the photographer of this 1965 image was using color film. Otherwise we might never have known that 1960 Chevrolet Impala zooming past the Theme building at Los Angeles International Airport (which had opened in 1961) was such a vibrant red. Whenever I see cars like that, I wonder how the heck the driver pulled off parallel parking. Lots (and lots) of practice, I suppose.
In this remarkably crisp aerial shot from 1932, we’re looking north from south of Sunset Blvd across Hollywood to the Hollywood Hills. They were still sparsely populated with lots of room for more and more homes. The image is so detailed that we can see, from left to right: the Roosevelt Hotel, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the El Capitan Theatre, Hollywood High School, Hollywood United Methodist Church, streetcars along Highland Ave, and the Hollywood First National Bank building on the corner of Hollywood and Highland.
As far as I know, this was the only Pacific Electric red car that participated in the war effort during World War II. Car #5000 was rebranded “FLY FOR NAVY” to encourage eligible Angelenos (with high school diplomas) to sign up to the US Navy with a view to, I assume, become a Navy pilot. I don’t know where this photo was taken, but we can see that it was en route to the Subway Terminal in downtown Los Angeles, which was a convenient two-block walk to the Navy recruiting office at 306 W. 3rd St, which put it next to Sid Grauman’s Million Dollar Theater.
This undated image (which I assume is a from a postcard) is a night view looking southeast past the Hollywood Cross down the Hollywood Freeway into Hollywood. Outside of a Cecil B. DeMille epic, perhaps, religion and Hollywood are rarely put together (all those libidinous showbiz folks, you know…) so a glowing cross over Hollywood makes for a rather striking image. The cross (also known as the Hollywood Pilgrimage Memorial Monument) is 32 feet high was erected as a memorial for Christine Wetherill Stevenson who established the Pilgrimage Theatre (now the Ford Amphitheatre) which presented “The Pilgrimage Play” from 1920 to 1964.
Yesterday, Jeffery M commented on my photo of See’s Candies said that they moved from that location on Santa Monica Blvd to Wilshire Blvd in a Vons supermarket. And so I went looking to see if I could find a photo of it. Oh boy, did I ever: this atmospheric night shot of the Vons at 1311 Wilshire Blvd, Santa Monica at Euclid St. The neon on the tower is spectacular, as is the lighting hidden behind the V O N S. And See’s Candies nabbed themselves a prime position and probably nabbed a lot of foot traffic coming out of the supermarket. The date on this photo was given as 1940 which is 4 years earlier than yesterday’s photo, so maybe they moved from Wilshire to Santa Monica Blvd.
I don’t know what was happening on this day in 1944, but whatever See’s Candies were offering at the store at 301 Santa Monica Blvd in Santa Monica, people were willing to line up for it. WWII was still happening, which means sugar was rationed. Maybe someone found 10 extra bags of it in the basement of See’s factory on La Cienega Blvd (See’s started in LA in 1921) and these Angelenos were the first to hear of it. But I do like the juxtaposition of a candy store on the ground floor and the dentist office right above it.
