LA in the 1940's

[Widebrim]

Binkie - one of the biggest changes in the last fifty years has been the loss of space. Up until the 60s - Wilshire Blvd still had many empty lots. And little traffic. A drive from Hollywood to the beach along Santa Monica Blvd. took about 30+ minutes and you could find parking once you got there. Just before I left LA almost five years ago it took me almost twenty minutes to go just a few blocks from Fairfax to La Cienega along Beverly Blvd. during lunch hour traffic. The loss of space, the great increase of people and development make movies from the 40s and 50s seem quaint. Hollywood has been developed with a 'theme park' atmosphere for the day tourists and (again when I left, may be different now) at night a red zone for prostitution and drug addicts. I can remember how shocked I was when I first realized Sunset Blvd. (in the area where the old Schwabs drugstore used to be) was becoming a zone for streetwalkers. Lana come back!! Remember taking the red cars to school when I was a kid. Only problem was you had to step off the sidewalk to get onto the trolly and watch out for cars not paying attention.

Yes, there was considerably less traffic even 25 years ago, but that's what happens when: 1.) people from other states and countries continue to move here; 2.) illegal immigrants continue to come here in larger numbers; 3.) families insist on having an auto for every member old enough to have a license; 4.) many of the above residents refuse to use public transportation, which is still not always close enough to one's home to be feasible; 5.) there seems to be street construction going on every few miles, even at night...

Regarding Hollywood, it has been cleaned up a bit. Drug dealers are not that common anymore (or at least they're not in your face as much) and you see fewer strawberries and Johns on Sunset Blvd. nowadays, even at night.

 

[Widebrim]

One of my favorite thing to do, when I have the time and gas money, is to drive to downtown La and walk or drive around looking for remnants of the 1930s and 1940s.

So do I, and quite often! There is still a lot of old L.A. downtown, like City Hall, 9th Street School, Union Station, Chinatown, Olvera Street, Coles, many of the old movie palaces, Philippe's, St. Peter's Italian Catholic Church, Italian Hall, Angel's Flight (although not its original location, and still not running), Pershing Square, Central Market, the Biltmore Hotel, the old Herald Examiner building, the Oviatt building, the Bradbury building, the Eastern Insurance building, and Clifton's Cafeteria:eusa_clap. So, some of Chandler's Los Angeles lives on!

 

[Jack Armstrong]

Drug dealers are not that common anymore (or at least they're not in your face as much) and you see fewer strawberries and Johns on Sunset Blvd. nowadays, even at night.

"Strawberries?" Never heard that one before. I'll have to remember that.

 

[John in Covina]

One thing is that the city and surrounding areas had really gone down in the 70's and 80's. In the 80's the concept, love or hate it, of redevelopement started in around Southern California. Pasadena and Hollywood got some serious work done. Quietly parts of downtown are getting turned around too so there are some neat improvements and the blight of earlier times needs to fade from the memories of the patrons of LA.

We just hope they can save the cool old stuff. Some sucess stories are the Egyptian Theatre and the Pig N Whistle in Hollywood revived to former glories.

 

[Idledame]

I too remember the red cars. I thought all the electric wires overhead and tracks criss-crossing everywhere were frankly pretty ugly and would have made driving quite a challenge. I also recall going to downtown L.A. when you couldn't see across the street because of the smog. I thought it was so cool! It made everything so mysterious like in old films taking place in London. We may still have bad smog but not like that! Apropos to this thread, is Matt still working on our walking tour?

 

[Tourbillion]

"Strawberries?" Never heard that one before. I'll have to remember that.

That particular piece of slang refers to unfortunate women who are addicted to crack, not just any street walker.

And yes, there do seem to be less than there used to be on the streets, they have moved indoors or to newspapers/Internet/"agencies".

Anyway, I was going to plug the Art Deco Society's Miracle Mile Walking Tour, but the Aug 8, 2009 one is sold out (ASDLA.org).

I guess you can check out LA Conservancy's Self Guided walking tours of downtown. http://laconservancy.org/tours/tours_selfguided.php4

 

[Widebrim]

Apropos to this thread, is Matt still working on our walking tour?

Well, as you now know, he is and the downtown tour is official! Just picture twenty men and women, dressed to the nines, strolling down Broadway in broad daylight. I can hear it now: "Are you in a movie?" Yes, we are, in our own minds...

 

[Dagwood]

...Quietly parts of downtown are getting turned around too so there are some neat improvements and the blight of earlier times needs to fade from the memories of the patrons of LA.

We just hope they can save the cool old stuff. Some sucess stories are the Egyptian Theatre and the Pig N Whistle in Hollywood revived to former glories.

And what is old may become new again.

While the ink hasn't reached a contract, it looks like the Pig'n Whistle restaurant is set to make its return to Downtown, reopening in the Fine Arts Building space that it occupied between 1926 and 1952.

The move comes two and a half years after the eatery had been linked to that same space, a deal that eventually fell through. "The history in that space has always intrigued me," said Pig'n Whistle owner Chris Breed today. "I think it's my fate."

Breed and his partner Alan Hajjar were in talks to open in the Fine Arts building in early 2007, but those talks fell apart when the building decided to court another restaurant concept.

Discussions resumed after the 1926 structure was purchased by attorneys Brian Kabatek and Mark Geragos in 2008. A final lease agreement has not yet been signed, and is contingent on the approval of a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) for the space.

Pig'n Whistle was founded as a Downtown candy shop in 1908. The first location was right next door to City Hall, then on Broadway between 2nd and 3rd.

The firm died out in the late 1960s, but in 2001 the Hollywood Pig'n Whistle was revived by Breed and Hajjar. The menu offers bistro cuisine, focusing on American and British classics. Breed said the 7th street spot would offer the same menu as the Hollywood location.

 

[Richard Warren]

And don't forget when the coal, steel, and locomotive industries conspired to bribe Congress to put the Conestoga wagon business out of operation.

 

[HarpPlayerGene]

And don't forget when the coal, steel, and locomotive industries conspired to bribe Congress to put the Conestoga wagon business out of operation.

Yeah, if not for the 'bribery' we'd all still be traveling under covered wagons. How charming that would still be if not for all that bribery. lol

 

[Professor]

The Red Car still had some lines in operations in the early to mid 1960s.

The last passenger line, operating under the former MTA, was the Long Beach line, which ceased operation in 1961. Pacific Electric continued operating freight service until 1964, when it was absorbed by parent company Southern Pacific (today's remaining lines are of course now Union Pacific).

 

[Professor]

The Red Car system was long gone by sometime in the 1950's I believe. It is true that GM (and Standard Oil) played a large part in doing away with the rail line. It was well traveled and served from Long Beach to as far east as "The Inland Empire", Riverside and San Bernardino. The idea was to bring in the new GM buses (which of course burned Standard Oil fuels) and the birth of the new "Rapid Transit District" followed. Flip

The myth lives! Truth is, National City Lines only purchased in '45 the Los Angeles Railway "Yellow Car" line from Henry Huntington's estate, renaming it "Los Angeles Transit Lines". Pacific Electric passenger service was sold in '53 to Metropolitan Coach Lines, a local organization closely tied with City Hall and unrelated to NCL and their shareholders (oil, auto and tire companies included). Ironically, MCL was more focused on bus substitution than NCL. In fact, by the time NCL purchased LARy, they were already under scrutiny and actually improved rail service and instituted trolley coach service in hopes of taking the heat off.

In 1958, all rail service in Los Angeles was consolidated under the newly formed Metropolitan Transit Authority, which ran the last electric lines in '63.

 

[Professor]

Around 1960 there was still a freight train, altho a very short one, that came down Santa Monica Blvd. occasional to Sepulveda Blvd. I am sure why because the only manufacturer of any size in the area that I can think of was Everest and Jennings who manufactured wheel chair. After the trains no longer ran, the tracks were still there for a rather long time.

That was the "Santa Monica Air Line", which actually began as a steam line in 1875! It was electrified by the Los Angeles Pacific in 1908 and absorbed by Pacific Electric in 1911 as part of the "Great Merger" under Southern Pacific control. Passenger service ran till '53, and freight till '87. The right-of-way is slated to be back in service soon as the Metro Expo Line.

 

[Professor]

There are a number of areas spread through out LA where train tracks are still embeaded in the streets. Near to Union Station is the werehouse district and you find sections all over the place. Another thing is if you take Huntington Drive and go east from LA I was told the center island is there because it was a trolley right of way maybe the Redcar.

Standard gauge street trackage on Alameda was originally the Southern Pacific mainline! Narrow gauge trackage near Union Station is of course Los Angeles Railway, whereas the Pacific Electric ran on Aliso Street, which disappeared in '50 with construction of the freeway, and subsequent discontinuance of Northern District (Pasadena and all points east) passenger service.

The Huntington Drive right-of-way was a four-track main of the Pacific Electric, with interurban service on the center tracks and local on the outside. That's where as early as 1905 Henry Huntington himself would run his private car at speeds approaching ninety miles per hour (though the actual speed trials were held on the four-track main to Long Beach).

 

[Professor]

After the trolley cars were gone from L.A. we had some 'trackless trolleys' (busses powered by overhead electrical wires) for a while. I can't remember where they ran.

I used to ride the big Red Cars when I was young - showing my age here but I don't have the faintest idea how to get any place by bus. The trolleys were easy - the went where the tracks went.

Cheers, Jim.

Los Angeles Transit Lines actually began trolley coach service on three former rail lines in '47, with the first fleet of coaches being a canceled order from another National City Lines property, Oakland's Key System. They ran till '63, when all remaining electric lines were converted to bus.

The very first trolley coach line ever was operated in Laurel Canyon from 1910-15!

http://www.erha.org/latl.htm

 

[Professor]

Thanks for posting the picture of the Big Red Car that operates at San Pedro. It sure bring back memories and the copy of an early century model does not look much different from the ones I rode in the 40s and early 50s.

Back in the day, the ones that went to downtown L.A went to the Subway Terminal which I believe was on Hill St. The underground portion was only about a mile or so as I recall. It was only about a half block or so from the telephone office where I had a summer job as a janitor. The work was easy, but I did not care much for the hours of the second shift.

I forget where the end of the tunnel was (maybe that should be the 'start' of the tunnel), but I saw in used in one or two movies a long time ago before it was bricked up. I believe that was the only place that the trolleys ran underground in L.A.

Cheers, Jim.

The replica cars in San Pedro are "Five" class suburban cars. The originals were all retired by '38 and today three are preserved at the Orange Empire Railway Museum (there may still be others out there, the bodies were often sold for other uses). In the forties, you would have ridden "Ten" class interurban cars, and they were all retired by '50, with two preserved at OERM. In fact, wooden equipment only survived as long as it did because of the war. After '50, all remaining equipment was steel. The finest all-steel cars were the "Twelves" (built in 1915 for the San Bernardino Line and 1921 for the Long Beach Line), but they were sold for scrap to Kaiser in '51 in favor of the larger "Blimps" and the fact that they weighed nearly a ton per foot of length (lot of steel!).

Fourth and Hill (Subway Terminal Building) was the terminus for all Western District lines, whereas Sixth and Main (Pacific Electric Building) served the Southern and Northern Districts.

 

[Professor]

Los Angeles Streetcars - The Final Years

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[Professor]

OERM Behind the Rails of Pacific Electric 1001

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