This photo is almost painful for me to look at. In 1951, Pershing Square, which had long been considered the center of Los Angeles with its shade trees and lawns and fountain, was ripped up so that a five-level parking structure could be built underneath it. And because of that, when it came time to recreate the square, the amount of earth needed to support large, shady trees was no longer there, so instead LA got…concrete. I know that downtown needed more parking, and to dig down was a practical solution, but it seems an awful price to pay.
This satellite photo from January 2020 shows us what the square looks like now. On the plus side, at least the marvelous Biltmore Hotel is still there. (That’s the terracotta building on the right.)
The workmen building the Janss Steps on what was then the new campus of UCLA (University of California Los Angeles) in the Westwood part of LA would probably never have guessed what would eventually come to fill that wide-open pastoral landscape stretched in front of them. The college’s early students and faculty must have felt they were out in the boonies.
The February 17, 1948 premiere of “Adventures of Casanova” at the Bruin Theater in Westwood attracted a huge crowd of movie fans, which is surprising because it wasn’t released by a major studio, nor did it boast any big stars. I guess the producers hired a very good publicity person. Or maybe those moviegoers thought the lead was played by Errol Flynn.
Even though I know The Owl Drug Co had locations across California, I tend to think of them as a very LA thing—maybe that’s because one of them featured in the film of “LA Confidential.” This one was on Main St in downtown Los Angeles on the corner of either 6th or 7th Street. I couldn’t find any buildings to match my favorite part of this photo, which are the gorgeous medallions and grillwork between the first and second floors. I also love that corner streetlight with the five lamps. I bet it looked rather film-noir-y at night. This photo is from 1941.
This rather atmospheric building was known as the Amestoy, and it stood at 260 N. Main St, downtown Los Angeles. Constructed in 1887, by the mid 1950s, when this photo was taken, seventy years of air pollution had blacked its walls—except on the first floor around Fagan’s Fountain, although it looks like Fagan’s is no longer open. On the other side of the street we can see the sign for a bar called The Stake Out. It was a favorite hangout for police officers as it was across from headquarters, which was then located in City Hall. Not surprisingly, this building came down within a couple of years of this photo being taken.
We’re seeing Pacific Electric streetcar #710 stopping outside the Hollywood Bowl. It’s come from through the Cahuenga Pass from the San Fernando Valley, and is heading down to Santa Monica Blvd, and ultimately the Subway Terminal in downtown LA opposite Pershing Square. We can see the sign – “BOWL PARKING” – on the right. These days, parking is still there, but it looks nothing like it did in this circa 1930 photo. And the sign on the left for the L.A. PET CEMETERY – I’ve never heard of a cemetery near the Bowl, so I’m guessing that was just a sales office attached to Rollins Jones Real Estate office.
Los Angeles has a number of instantly recognizable buildings, and this one happens to be a favorite of mine. Maybe because it’s Art Deco, maybe because it gives an air of solidity and dependability. It’s the sort of thing you want in a newspaper, which this building was designed to house. It was the new home of the LA Times under construction on the southwest corner of Spring and 1st Streets in downtown LA in 1934 ahead of its 1935 opening.
For those of us over a certain age, this billboard will take you back to the time when travelling abroad meant having to get travellers cheques as a safe way to carry money with you. It was especially annoying when traveling around Europe during a pre-Euro age when each country had its own currency. This circa 1930 billboard stood outside Stendahl Art Galleries at 3006 Wilshire Blvd, a block or two east of the Bullocks Wilshire department store.
Roy Knabenshue was an aeronautical engineer and aviator, who worked with the Wright brothers, so he was there at the very start of aviation. He was big into dirigibles and was the first person to make a dirigible flight over New York in 1905. In this photo, he’s flying 13 brave and trusting thrill-seekers over the Raymond Hotel in Pasadena in 1913. (The Raymond was popular with Easterners who came to California to escape the brutal winters.) I’d have been very wary going up in that thing. It looks awfully flimsy, if you ask me.