When I first saw this photo taken outside the Melody Lane restaurant on the Hollywood and Vine intersection, I assumed it was taken on V-J Day, celebrating the end of WWII. But then I saw the bleachers set up with its back to Melody Lane which meant it was facing the Taft Building on the southeast corner. A little digging revealed that these people were part of the estimated 25,000-person crowd who showed up on Tuesday, August 6, 1946 to witness the unveiling of the Trans-Lux Flashcast news ribbon mounted on the Taft. It was owned by local radio station KFWB (which itself was owned by Warner Bros.) and was a big deal because it was the first moving news ribbon sign in the west. According to one report I found, the list of luminaries in attendance included: California Governor Warren, L.A. Mayor Bowron, the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, Tom Breneman, the Earl Carroll Showgirls, Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, Trigger, Hedda Hopper, and a score of (Warner Bros. I assume) film stars.
According to JH Graham: “On October 12, 1931, the Los Angeles Times had unveiled its “Times-Richfield Electric Newspaper” on the side of the Paramount Theater at the northeast corner of Sixth and Hill downtown LA.” So maybe it wasn’t the first moving news ribbon in the West, as the ballyhoo guys might have had us otherwise believe.
This ad claims 40,000 which I think it a bit of a stretch.
This rather stunning shot gives us a panoramic view of Hollywood taken so high in the air that we can even see the San Fernando Valley behind Mt. Hollywood. For a photo taken more than eighty years ago and from such a great height, it’s remarkable how many details we can pick out. Apart from the Hollywoodland sign, we can see the towers of the Hollywood First National Bank building at Hollywood and Highland, and the Hollywood United Methodist Church farther north. We can also see the Taft Building and The Broadway department store at Hollywood and Vine. And around the center of the photo, the Cahuenga Pass heads towards the valley in a pre-freeway Los Angeles.
This must have been an impressive sight when it was going up. This is the Colorado Street Bridge under construction across the Arroyo Seco in Pasadena. The bridge opened on December 13, 1913, and as the bridge looks about halfway done, I’m guessing this shot was taken earlier that year.
This circa early 1940s (judging by the sedan delivery (probably a Chevrolet) is from at least 1941) shot looks to me like a scene from a Damon Runyon story. On the wast side of Main St between 6th and 7th in downtown L.A. the Star Loan Office pawn shop (at 641 Main St) was bookended by the 5 and 10 M&S Café and Big Nickel Coffee and Donut. Five cents for a cup of joe and a donut sounds like a pretty good deal to me, however you can’t help but wonder what a dime got you over at the M&S Café.
Auburn-Cord manufactured slick roadsters during the first few decades of the 20th century. What we’re seeing here is their L.A. showroom at 3443 Wilshire Blvd, circa early 1930s (if that Ford Model A in the foreground is anything to go by.) The photographer would have been standing half a block west of the driveway to the Ambassador Hotel and could have crossed the street to have lunch at the Brown Derby. That impressive tower was part of the neighboring Wilshire Christian Church (known today as Oasis Church) at Normandie Ave.
Every now and then I’m asked “If you had a time machine, where would you go?” This photo is exactly my first choice. What we’re looking at here are the preparations for the West Coast premiere of David O. Selznick’s “Gone With the Wind,” which took place at the Carthay Circle Theater at 6316 San Vicente Blvd in Los Angeles on December 28, 1939. Those bleachers on the right is where the lucky fans got to sit and watch the parade of even luckier movie capital A-listers walk into the theater to see the most anticipated movie of all time.
There are plenty of vintage aerial photos of Los Angeles, but I don’t think I’ve seen one from such a great height as this one taken probably in the late 1920s. That cluster of buildings near the center is downtown L.A. We can see the white tower of L.A. City Hall (which opened in 1928). We can also see the greenspace of Pershing Square and the Biltmore Hotel in the heart of the city. Farther to the left we can see the lake in MacArthur Park (then called Westlake Park), and past that, Hoover St which is where the layout of Los Angeles shifts from the Spanish way of aligning streets to the standard American north-south axis.
The Garden of Allah Hotel on Sunset Blvd at the gateway to the Sunset Strip was open from 1927 to 1959. During those years, it underwent a succession of management teams. At some point in the 1950s, one of those managers decided it was time for a new sign on the southwest corner of Sunset and Havenhurst Dr. I love the exotic, vaguely Arabian lettering they chose. And that sign advertising “APARTMENTS – BACHELORS – VILLAS.” Can anyone tell me in this context what a “bachelor” was? Is it what we now call a studio? In the background, we can see part of a sign advertising Manny Lopez, who billed himself as the “
I recently posted a photo from 1926 in which Figueroa St had no lanes painted on the road. This photo was taken 3 years later with still no lanes to guide motorists. We’re looking west along Wilshire Blvd toward La Brea Ave, and it’s a good thing traffic is light, because I’d wouldn’t like to have been facing a lane-less, free-for-all peak hour without them. (Wait, did they even have a peak hour in 1929?) On the far left we can see the blade sign (not neon but 
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