Sometimes all you need are some nice, clean lines and bold, clear lettering to make your mark. Case in point: the Beverly Buick showroom at the northwest corner of Olympic Blvd and Maple Dr, Beverly Hills. It does what it needs to do without being too flashy. Judging by the Buicks parked out front, this photo is circa 1956.
The building is still there, and so are those nice, clean lines. And even that curved wall of glass brick has managed to survive. This image is from March 2021.
I don’t know if it was common in 1937 for girls to be offered archery classes, or if it was specifically a Beverly Hills High School thing, but these young women look like they’re taking it seriously. I also have to wonder if any of them got bored and tried to hit either of those two oil wells in the background.
In this photo, we’re looking west along Sunset Blvd toward Vine Street, Hollywood. For years that photo was dominated by the NBC radio studios, but they were torn down in 1964. This photo was taken in 1965, and we can see on the right past the palm trees the dirt lot where NBC had stood since 1938. That corner (northeast) seems so empty and desolate. But we can clearly see the enormously popular Wallichs Music City store, and its neighbor, Dot Records. And that white building in the distance is the Hollywood Athletic Club, which is still around today as a rentable event and filming space.
This is the same view from May 2022. At least the palm trees are still there.
Some buildings are simply meant to be photographed in color—and this is one of them. The May Co. department store opened its flagship store on the northeast corner of Wilshire Blvd and Fairfax Ave in 1940. To make sure everybody noticed, they covered the cylinder with more than 350,000 glass and gold leaf mosaic tiles. The tactic worked, because it quickly became a very popular fixture on the stretch of Wilshire Blvd known as “Miracle Mile.” This photo is circa 1950s, when the equally popular Simon’s Sandwiches drive-in restaurant did a brisk trade on the northwest corner.
These days, the May Co. building is home to the Academy Museum. This image is from February 2021.
Here’s some of the original 1939 tile and some of the replacement tile.
Some people take the “A man’s home is his castle” literally. In this case, it was Dr. Schloesser, a physician who made a fortune in real estate and investments. When he moved from Chicago to LA, he bought land around what is now Franklin, Argyle, and Vine Streets. That was in 1904, when Hollywood hadn’t yet been invaded by those pesky motion picture people. Schloesser built what he called Castle San Souci at 1901 Argyle St. And as if that wasn’t grand enough, he also added that elaborate gate. Built in 1912, Sans Souci didn’t have a long life. It came down in 1928 to make way for the Castle Argyle Apartments that overlook the Hollywood Freeway.
The Sans Souci site is now occupied by the Castle Argyle Apartments, which overlook the Hollywood Freeway. This image is from May 2011.
The caption to this photo simply read “Boulevard – Hollywood.” It’s too close to the hills to be Hollywood Blvd, so my guess is Franklin Ave. But honestly, it’s just conjecture, so if anybody wants to weigh in on where this photo was taken, I’d love to hear from you. Judging by the cars we can see, this photo is circa 1913, the year before California started issuing its own license plates. But regardless of the actual specific location, it’s a bit mind boggling to think that “screwy ballyhooey Hollywood where any office boy or young mechanic can be a panic” ever looked like this.
** UPDATE ** – David W says: ‘Photographer standing at intersection of Laurel Canyon and Hollywood Blvd. looking east. That bend is still there. Fairfax would be roughly where the Pine trees are. The hills do run right next to that portion of Hollywood Blvd. you just don’t notice as much now due to lots scraped for homes.”
In which case this would be the current view (November 2021):
This one comes from the “They Sure Don’t Do It Like That Anymore” file. This photo of a Union gas station at 4004 Wilshire Blvd (which puts it at the intersection with Wilton Place) is from 1932 and I can see no less than four neatly uniformed attendants wearing bow ties and matching caps. Two of them are servicing customers while the other two are…well…I don’t exactly know the two on the modified motorcycle are doing but I’m sure they were courteous and helpful when they got there.
Casey W. says: “The two on the Servi-car three-wheeler are no doubt going out to pick up a customer’s auto for servicing. I see the tow tongue has been removed from the front of the trike so it can no longer be towed behind a customer’s car, ergo it takes two employees to do a customer-car pickup and delivery.”
I’m not 100% sure I’ve got the right corner, but I believe this is where the Union gas station was. It’s now home to a Social Security office. This image is from June 2022.
In this sweeping aerial shot, we’re looking at the Fox Film studio backlot in Century City. The main street at the bottom, where the grand gates are, is Santa Monica Blvd. William Fox founded his studio in 1915 on what had been a 200-acre ranch, and called his backlot “Movietone City.” This shot is from 1928 and as we can see, the neighboring land was still pumping oil!
Here is another aerial photo of the studio looking north from Pico Blvd in 1930. These days, the main gate into the studio is on Pico.
Mr. Fox went through very hard times during the Depression and in 1935 merged with another studio to become 20th Century-Fox. The studio, now owned by Disney, is still situated on the same lot This is what that studio lot looked like in January 2020. Those oil wells are long gone, but it’s still a thriving studio.
This photo gives us a glimpse into the hoopla that studios sometimes whipped up to promo a new movie. In late March, 1939, Warner Bros. chartered a 16-car train to take 36 members of the press along with the stars of their new picture, “Dodge City,” to the real-life Dodge City in Kansas for the film’s premiere on April 1st. The President’s son, Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., was in attendance along with 70,000 visitors who had come to the city to witness the celebrations. I can count five spotlights used to light up the train before it left Los Angeles, as well as four loudspeakers rigged up on the balcony of that last carriage.
The four people on the back of the train were Olivia de Havilland, John Payne, Anne Shirley, and Hoot Gibson. For de Havilland it was a very short ride. The train had to make an unscheduled stop at Pasadena when she learned that she was required to report for work on “Gone with the Wind.”
You have to hand it to developers who manage to construct a building that makes a mark – even in a city like Los Angeles that was filled with eye-catching architecture. This was the Western Auto Parts store at the northwest corner of Wilshire and Hauser Blvds, circa 1931. It was black and achieved so much with relatively little detail. (I do love their Pay’n’Takit sign – but isn’t that how stores work? You pay for something and then you take it with you…?)
This is how that building looked in March 2021. It’s bland, it’s boring, it’s an IHOP, hey, at least it’s still around.
