I would drive this stretch of the San Bernardino Freeway into Hollywood every day in 1973-74 to go to work at the studio. This was known as "the interchange". It took you through the heart of downtown and into the areas known as Rampart, Silver Lake, Echo Park, along the way. The "Brew 102" Brewery was right here at "the interchange", and man did it stink. Beer being brewed does not smell as good as beer, and "Brew 102" could peel the paint off of a wall. Awful stuff. For many years the City Hall building was the tallest building in L.A. at 25 stories. Now, it gets lost in the landscape of the taller ones. Classic building, though. It always scream "LOS ANGELES" everytime I see it. I always expect to see Lois Lane and Jimmy Olson. These outdoor malls sprang up much earlier than the enclosed ones that we have today. In the 50's and early 60's we were actually tough enough to make it from one store to the next without being in air conditioning. Notice the red wheels on that car. Probably has skulls and cobwebs welded on the grill...
Rolling down Imperial Highway with a big nasty redhead by my side..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le5aIqn_MfE Hard to believe that this video was over 25 years ago...yikes
Best thread ever on LA... That city has such a cool history. It's so sad that the powers that be don't think so, they have knocked down most of the cool buildings and history. It is amazing how much has been lost in such a short period of time. Thank you very much for this post, I've lived in LA for 18 years and have never seen most of this in these photos...
So ya'll need to tell me if I should post LA history stuff that does not have an old car in it, or is not car-related. There is an absolute shipload of this stuff: Prostitute<WBR>s at a bar on Main Street in Los Angeles, Calif., circa 1949 Women's Christian Temperance Union lecturing in a crowded bar in Pasadena, Calif., 1947 Women's Christian Temperance Union lecturing on evils of liquor in bar in Pasadena, Calif., 1947 Entrance and tower of Los Angeles' Wrigley Field on E 42nd Place at Avalon Blvd. 1956 Joe Louis vs Jack Roper boxing match with surroundin<WBR>g crowd at Wrigley Field, Los Angeles, Calif, 1939 Crowd viewing a 20-foot basking shark caught by fishermen in Long Beach, Calif., 1955 Eight girls laying in the sand while tanning with jetty in the background at Cabrillo Beach, Calif., 1947
I'd like to see them, but I'm not the man to answer that... What Bob's Big Boy is that in the original post, does anyone know? That's not Toluca Lake is it?
Paramount Ranch was located off of the Ventura Freeway (101) at the north end of Los Angeles. It was owned by Paramount Studios and many films were shot there since the 1920's. For several years in the mid-1950's there were sports car races and even a USAC stock car race on its road course. Most of the course was made up from existing roads that were part of the movie lot. There were three fatalities during a sports car race and it might have been another factor in the track no longer holding races. <embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://static.pbsrc.com/flash/input.swf" style="" id="IMGTag-code" bgcolor="transparent" quality="high" name="IMGTag-code" wmode="transparent" allowfullscreen="true" swliveconnect="true" allowscriptaccess="always" flashvars="ipt=%5BIMG%5Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fi189.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fz72%2FMazooma1%2Fearly%2520Los%2520Angeles%2FFrazerNash-Oker1.jpg%5B%2FIMG%5D&trk=image_code_click_FULLVIEW_IMG&width=175&height=21&color=#000000&border=#BDBDBD&cont=IMGTagContainer" height="21" width="175"> today <embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://static.pbsrc.com/flash/input.swf" style="" id="IMGTag-code" bgcolor="transparent" quality="high" name="IMGTag-code" wmode="transparent" allowfullscreen="true" swliveconnect="true" allowscriptaccess="always" flashvars="ipt=%5BIMG%5Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fi189.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fz72%2FMazooma1%2Fearly%2520Los%2520Angeles%2FFrazerNash-Oker1.jpg%5B%2FIMG%5D&trk=image_code_click_FULLVIEW_IMG&width=175&height=21&color=#000000&border=#BDBDBD&cont=IMGTagContainer" height="21" width="175">
If it has a car in it, it's fair game for sure: Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif., 1959 1973 is pushing the envelope, but here goes: Beverly Hills looking east along Wilshire Blvd. at Santa Monica Blvd, Calif., 1973 First foreign cars (besides VW) don't become noticeable until mid-70s: Sunset Strip in Hollywood, Calif., 1975 Mazooma, here's your Steamliner to Chicago: Airplane being transporte<WBR>d down Wilshire Blvd. to the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, Calif., 1937 Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, Calif., 1965 Just thought the EC billboard was cool: Sunset Blvd. near Larrabee in Los Angeles, Calif., 1979 Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles, Calif., 1966
As I recall, during the 60's there were many "cruise" streets. Whittier Blvd., Colorado Blvd. (the Rado, we used to call it), Hollywood and Sunset Blvds., and many more. But one great place to cruise on saturday nights and wednesdays was Van Nuys Blvd. Using Bob's Big Boy as a focal point, everyone would cruise back and forth and for the most part the cops were OK with it until someone pulled a much anticipated stunt of some kind. I remember that different parking lots were used by people with different types of vehicles as a "home plate" for them to find their friends and people with the same kind of cars. There was a hangout in one parking lot for Corvettes, another for low-riders and a few customs, and on and on. In 1967, we would go at least once every few weeks. There were some race cars that would make the scene trying their best to blend in with the "regular" hot rods and muscle cars (a term that wasn't used at that time). Some of the machinery was pretty wild. Straight axle cars, one Corvette complete with a parachute and it was no poser. That thing was scary kind of fast. I rmember that most races took place to the east on Forest Lawn Drive, but the cops knew it too, so it was always a gamble to go there. I had the honor and dis-honor of blowing my trans in my Model A in front of Bob's one night...and then make the slow "glide of shame" as you made your roll to the curb. Everyone would applaud and you had no choice but to smile in a crappy sort of way. Hollywood, of course, made some really dumb movies about Van Nuys Blvd. all full of dramatized junk that didn't even remotely mimic reality. And, now cruising is back again on the Blvd, so it's nice to see people enjoying their cars once again on good old Van Nuys Blvd.
This guy is Bob Oker, a very successful sports car driver from So. Cal. He raced AC Bristols, Morgans, and Aston Martins. Here is a link to color film of the 1956 Paramount Ranch Races. You have to watch this, this is vintage sports car racing at its best! http://vimeo.com/9498899 Kurt O.
When focusing of Los Angeles, you can't ignore the music and sound effects that were captured here. From the Beach Boys music to images of Tom McMullin's roadster to Jan and Dean at the drag strip...
There was a race track called Mines Field in the area of Los Angeles' LAX International Airport. The track's location is just east of where LAX is today, and was bordered on one side by Century Blvd. and Sepulveda Blvd. The track held races in the years in the mid 1930's. It was kind of part oval and part road course.. As you can see by how small the spectators cars are in the aerial shot, the track was huge.
Mickey Thompson's shop in the Long Beach area when he was also managing Lions Drag Strip. The whole greater Los Angeles area south of downtown was riddled with speed shops, race team headquarters, engine and chassis builders, and all of the businesses that were speed, racing, customs and/or hot rod related.
Up the Long Beach freeway from Mickey's shop, in the L.A. suburb of South Gate was Keith Black's engine shop. Black built some of the baddest fuel burning Chrysler motors for the drag strip and drag boats. Black had a tight relationship with the honchos at Chrysler for obvious reasons, and one saturday Black opened his shop as an "open house" for the big wigs from Chrysler. Drag racing photographer Jere Alhadeff was invited to capture the event. "Wild Bill" Shrewsberry was there with his "L.A. Dart". One of the "suits" asked "Wild Bill", "hey, whats this race car do?". Bill asked the gentleman if he wanted to go for a short ride, and the man accepted the offer. The Chrysler honcho sat on the aluminum flooring and held onto the roll bar support...and the rest, as they say, is "history".... Keith Black
Wrecking crew tearing out streetcar tracks on Vermont Ave. in Los Angeles, Calif., 1948 Last cable streetcar completing its final run in Los Angeles, Calif., 1963
one of the fist-fighting jalopy drivers of the 1950's at the rag-tag arena of Gardena's, Western Speedway......Scotty Cain
another icon of speed that is no longer, Ontario Motor Speedway, east of Los Angeles about 30 miles. It only operated for about ten years and closed it's doors in 1980. I watched everything from Indy cars, to Nascar, F5000 & F1 cars at the Questar GP, diesel semi-truck races (!), Grand Prix motorcycles, and on and on. The last Nascar race was in 1980, won by Benny Parsons
The Jalopy Journal
