When I first saw this photo, I couldn’t understand why Carmen Miranda would be dancing on a car in front of the Melody Lane restaurant on the northwest corner of Hollywood and Vine. And why did it look as though the intersection was packed with people? So I did some digging and found that the photo was taken on August 14, 1945, which is the date that President Truman announced to the American people that the Japanese had agreed in principle to the Allied’s terms of surrender, which meant that World War II was finally over. The news hit the west coast at 4pm at which time it felt like, according to one report I read, “every siren and automobile horn in Los Angeles went off.” The unofficial epicenter of the celebrations quickly became Hollywood and Vine. I don’t know how Miranda ended up performing for the crowds, but if they ever make a time machine, this time and place will be one of my destinations.
There’s just something about night shots with all those shadows, especially at drive-in restaurants where the bright lights bounce off the polished paint jobs on the cars. Tiny Naylors was a very popular place that stood at the northwest corner of Sunset Blvd and La Brea Ave. This photo was taken in 1949, which is the year the place opened, so everything here was brand spanking new.
A week after the November 11 Armistice brought World War I to an end, the main public square, which had been known as Central Park since 1894 was renamed in honor of General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force in France. These days, Pershing Square has only a few patches of greenery, but back then, it was offered a calm and shady respite from the L.A. sun and a lovely fountain to splash in as we can see from this 1918 bird’s-eye view.
I couldn’t find which hotel this was other than it was in Long Beach and that this photo was taken in 1887. Still, it gives us an idea of what the hotels back then looked like. This looks to be quite a big one, with lots of open-air verandas…but shared bathrooms. That couple sitting on the sand look like they’re fully clothed because God forbid anybody show some skin at the beach. The place also looks like it’s all wood, which made it a fire hazard. Like many of the piers at the time, they often burned to the ground, which this one did a year after this photo was taken.
This circa mid-1950s photo of the Angels Flight funicular pulling into the Hill St station in downtown Los Angeles has been colorized by ‘Imbued With Hues.’ I think they’ve done a pretty good job of giving us an idea of what it would have been like to actually stand at that corner that day. I don’t know if the colors of those cars are realistic (feel free to weigh in) but the Angels Flight arch and carriage are spot on. (T
In this photo we’re looking east along Waring Ave toward the Gower entrance of what was then RKO Studios (and is now Paramount). It was taken on January 18th, 1933, which means somewhere in those buildings, editors were finishing post-production on what was to become one of their most iconic movies, “King Kong,” whose New York premiere was on March 7, 1933.
This shot looking up Hill St from 4th St in downtown L.A. in 1905 looks like a city in transition from horses-and-carriages to horseless carriages. We can also see the streetcar tracks, so Angelenos had no shortage of transportation options back then. It’s hard to know what day of the week this photo was taken on, but it seems like the Angelenos we can see here were living such a genteel pace of life.
One of my favorite theaters in Los Angeles is the Warner Bros Theatre that stood at 9404 Wilshire Blvd at Canon Drive in Beverly Hills, from 1931 to the late 1980s. I especially love the tower that soared into the sky over the building. It was striking during the daytime, but must have been a real eyeful at night, lit up like the way we can see it in this 1931 photo. The theater opened on May 19, 1931 with a George Arliss movie called “The Millionaire” so the shot we’re seeing here would have been taken not long after that because the movie playing that night, “The Finger Points,” opened in the US the month before.
This aerial photo gives us a rather spectacular view of the Ocean Park Pier in Santa Monica in 1930, four years after it opened. It had two big roller coasters on each side, plus a tower with what looks like a curly slide, and at the end of the pier a water slide called The Chutes. I’m impressed by the size of the dancing pavilion to the left (i.e. the north side of the pier) – there appears to be plenty of elbow room for waltzing couples, as well as tons of parking. The pier closed in 1956 and reopened in the summer of 1958 as Pacific Ocean Park.
In a city known for its nightlife, it can be hard to imagine a time when Hollywood didn’t offer anywhere to go at night. That changed in December 1922, when Eddie Brandstatter opened the Montmartre Café at 6753 Hollywood Blvd, just east of Highland, near the Hollywood Hotel. Its snappy motto – “Where everyone goes to see and be seen.” – wasn’t just bragging. It was a popular lunch meeting spot by day, and by night a hopping dance joint. This photo, showing crowds packing the sidewalk out front is circa 1927.
