L.A. Scenes

I've probably told this story before, but when I was a child, my grandmother would tell me about the days when she first married my grandpa, and she moved from Illinois to Los Angeles. She loved it, and talked going to see the popular bands of the day, or enjoying going shopping at Bullocks Wilshire, and so on. So I've had an interest in the history of Los Angeles for many years; while I don't have a large collection of slides from old L.A. (they can go for a lot of money!), I do have some fun examples.

Let's start with this neat image showing Interstate 10 as it was under construction in downtown L.A. The route east from Los Angeles was added to the Interstate Highway System on August 7, 1957. It was assigned the I-10 number on August 14, 1957, and the short piece west of I-5 was approved as I-110 on November 10, 1958. Most of you probably recognize the wonderful art deco city hall, completed in 1928, and blown up by Martians in 1953. They obviously rebuilt it, good as new, by the time this picture was taken!

Also, notice "Taix", one of the oldest restaurants in Los Angeles, serving French food. The brick building had a tin ceiling, hanging chandeliers, and dark wood floors. Owing to its location in the civic center, the restaurant was popular with government workers and reporters from the Los Angeles Times and held a special table reserved for staff. It was demolished in 1964, and replaced with a parking lot.

You know how I like to try to capture a contemporary view if possible. This is about as close as I could get on Google Maps "street view". Nothing has changed at all!

Visitors to downtown (especially years ago before so many glass skyscrapers existed) were almost undoubtedly intrigued by this architecturally-striking tower. What is it? It's the tower that is part of the AT&T Switching Center. From Wikipedia: The AT&T Madison Complex Tandem Office is a 17-story, 79 m (259 ft) building in Los Angeles, California, completed in 1961. With its microwave tower, used through 1993, bringing the overall height to 137 m (449 ft), it is the 29th tallest building in Los Angeles.

Here's a contemporary view. Upon its 1961 completion on Bunker Hill, the Pacific Telephone Communications Center became the tallest building in downtown Los Angeles. It achieved this distinction largely because of the enormous steel microwave tower rising from the roof, enabling the free lines of sight needed for telephone communications at the time. 

The tower is one of three adjoining buildings in the communications complex, but it is the largest and the best known because of its microwave tower, an icon of mid-century technological might. It was the hub of telephone service throughout downtown Los Angeles and beyond. (source: DTLA).

I was amazed to learn that this building is no longer being used, although there are websites out there that claim it is being used for nefarious purposes (spying on us and collecting every morsel of data). Who knows!

This one is kind of "meh", but I decided to share it anyway - we are on Fairfax Avenue looking north toward the Hollywood Hills. The street running perpendicular to us is Hollywood Boulevard, which might surprise some folks. The western end of the boulevard is more residential, as you can see. But landmarks like the Chinese Theatre are only a mile or so to the east.

Here's a modern-day look at the intersection. Notice the blurred-out structure to our left, if you "drive" up Fairfax on Google Maps to get a better view, it is blurred out in every angle. Very strange! Looking at the satellite view, it appears to just be a home, can people ask Google for privacy on the Maps app?

I hope you have enjoyed these L.A. scenes!