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.
The auto-colorizer does a pretty good job of bringing this scene to life (even though it doesn’t seem to recognize sky and color it in blue.)
This is a satellite image of how the bridge looks these days. This image is from March 2021. In the 25+ years I’ve lived here, I’ve never driven across it because, as you can see, the 134 Freeway kind of dominates the area.
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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I do enjoy coming across a vintage color photo taken in Los Angeles during yesteryear, and I particularly love this one dated 1964. We’re looking east along Wilshire Blvd from around Hauser Blvd toward a stretch of stores that had something for everyone. From left to right we’ve got Ralph’s groceries, DuPar’s restaurant, Bond clothes, Bank of America, Ontra cafeteria, Silverwood’s (men’s clothing), Mullen & Bluett department store, and The Broadway department store. One-stop shopping all withing a few blocks.
The land around the corner of Wilshire Blvd and Fairfax Ave is so densely developed these days that it’s hard to imagine it was once home to an airport. This aerial photo was taken in 1922 looking west along Wilshire Blvd. That cross street is Fairfax Ave and that line of buildings was the Rogers Airport, home to Rogers Aviation (one of whose pilots quite possibly took this photo.) They could pretty much land anywhere because there are very few buildings to get in their way.
