Ad from 1930s Civic Repertory Theatre of Los Angeles program courtesy J. Eric Lynxwiler. In naming their brand of toroid treats “ Optim...
MARTIN TURNBULL - Author of "The Garden of Allah" series of novels set during the golden years of Hollywood
by Paul R. Spitzzeri As we celebrate the birth of the United States today, some of us will go to a parade, others to a firework show, and there also trips to the beach, picnics at the park, and bar…
RED JADE, my first Avery Shepard novel, takes place in and around Los Angeles in late 1926. Modern day time travelers might need to orient themselves if they were to visit that world, for the Los A…
In 1929, newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst, sent the Graf Zeppelin dirigible on a 20-day flight that circumnavigated the world—quite a feat in 1929. On August 8th, it landed at Los Angeles…
A visitor to Los Angeles in November 1926 who asked how to get to City Hall would have been directed not to the beautiful Art Deco City Hall we know today, but the 200 block of Broadway.
Audiences thronged the rustic camps of the Southern California Chautauqua Assembly each summer. They came to be educated, entertained, and uplifted.
The Red Kimono (1925), a searing drama notably produced and written by women, captures a remarkably comprehensive visual record of early Los Angeles. From Broadway and posh gated communities to Chi…
Nowhere else in the country have imported flora so overpowered the native.
MARTIN TURNBULL - Author of "The Garden of Allah" series of novels set during the golden years of Hollywood
Vintage photos of Los Angeles in the 1920s.
It didn’t have a flashing rooftop sign. In fact it didn’t have a sign at all. The distinctive Beaux Arts/Spanish-Italian Renaissance building by architects Schultz & Weaver spoke for itself- an…
Most tourists once came to Southern California in the winter – and then the All-Year Club invented the L.A. summer.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, so are the stories behind how this massive collection came to be.
The glorious Richfield Tower (aka the Richfield Oil Building) stood at 555 South Flower Street in downtown Los Angeles between 1929 to 1969. Erected in 1928 at the prominent Bunker Hill intersectio…
In post-war Southern California, Japanese Americans created the built environment as much as much as anyone else, and few suburbs demonstrate Asian American agency like South Bay's Gardena.
You may have come across Bonnie Brae Street and wondered, who exactly was Bonnie? A silent film actress perhaps? The daughter of a city founder?
In 1926, this classical Romanesque structure housed the Los Angeles main Post Office & Federal building. Though only 16 years old, its days were already numbered.
MARTIN TURNBULL - Author of "The Garden of Allah" series of novels set during the golden years of Hollywood
MARTIN TURNBULL - Author of "The Garden of Allah" series of novels set during the golden years of Hollywood
Walt and Roy Disney started their studio in their uncle's garage on Kingswell. They moved to Hyperion in 1925.
Before Woodland Hills, there was Girard, a town with false storefronts and shoddy cabins
Audiences thronged the rustic camps of the Southern California Chautauqua Assembly each summer. They came to be educated, entertained, and uplifted.
MARTIN TURNBULL - Author of "The Garden of Allah" series of novels set during the golden years of Hollywood
Radio vastly expanded the reach of Los Angeles personalities like "Sister Aimee" Semple McPherson and "Fighting Bob" Shuler. Their radio ministries were controversial, however.
I love casual “slice-of-life” photos like these because someone thought to capture a moment of what was a regular old day in (circa) 1928. But to us in 2018 it shows us a bunch of things that are n…
[All photos via the Los Angeles Public Library] Downtown's elaborately-decorated Millennium Biltmore Hotel (née the Biltmore Hotel) turned 90 yesterday, and with its marble walls and crystal...
The phenomenon of the megachurch began in no less coastal and cosmopolitan a city than Los Angeles.
Today’s “Around the world in LA” residence is probably not going to seem that special to Angelenos, I fear. But the fact that this place is met with, “Yeah, that place. Yawn…
Where business and design collide
6626 Franklin Ave., via Google Street View. Hollywood, California, exploded in population during the late 1910s and early 1920s with the influx of moving picture companies arriving in town and peop…
After the film industry came to Los Angeles, Lummis advised several producers and directors. He called them “the most conscienceless pirates” he'd ever met.
