A billboard on Wilshire Boulevard in old-time Los Angeles

I was looking around the Duke University site a few days ago, which specializes in billboards, trying to find locations that would interest me, especially Los Angeles. For this one, I recognized the type of tree there (although I really don't know what they're called - I just call them "Hollywood trees") which were typical in old parts of LA. And since there was a name on the building there: James Webb, it was identified as being on Wilshire Boulevard. I went on Google Street View, and the building is still there, and got the address: 3010 Wilshire.

To be fair to the nice people at the Duke University, to them it's all about the billboard, which was clearly identified as for travelers cheques from California Bank. They don't id the exact locations, and tha's what I like to do, with the help of friends who are as fascinated by this stuff as I do. It's a lot of work, but it's a labor of love!


You're driving east on Wilshire, and you have just passed the magnificent Bullocks Wilshire (I wish it showed in this pic!). The building that says James Webb is now being used as a Post Office, and if you live around there, and can see between that building and the one that was squeezed right next to it (looks like it's the Cafe E-Um), let me know if you can see the "ghost sign" of the writing that once said James Webb. It looks like the two buildings are actually stuck together, but the triangular part is sticking up, and I'd love to know if the lettering is still there!


By the way, I've saved this file as 1937 based on the license plates of the cars. If you have more information (like what type of cars those are), please comment and I'll update this post and credit you (if you'd like).


Since I'm an old graphic designer, I'd like to point out something that you may not have noticed, which is the shallow angle of the billboard. This gives you an idea that traffic was moving at a more leisurely pace then. Nowadays billboards are set at a 90-degree angle to the road, this one has such a slight angle it's hardly noticeable. 20 degrees? 30? Also note the beautiful frame around it, and the well-cared-for lawn and hedges. I'd also like to point out the fonts, and especially the elegant little "streamline" graphics up there in the upper left. Yeah, I notice stuff like that.

Finding an image like this really tickles me. It appeals to my sense of history, especially of Los Angeles, to architecture, even the billboard, and of course the cool old cars!

Thank you for driving down Wilshire Boulevard in 1937 with me!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is ...
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the...
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me...
Read more