Schwab’s Pharmacy – “Movieland’s Drug Store”

Norstrom & Anderson designed this retail and office complex that included the future Schwab’s, in 1931 (1). Offices occupied the second floor. The ground floor retail shops included a Bank of America branch, a cleaners, florists, a jewelers and Crescent Heights Market (8018 Sunset). Schwab’s moved in to an existing drugstore in 1935, the second location for the firm (2). This is the only location listed in the 1946 phonebook. Contrary to popular legend, Lana Turner wasn’t discovered here, but it was a popular location for people working (or hoping to work) in the film industry. The building got a modern makeover 1956. Schwab’s closed in 1983. The shopping complex itself was demolished in 1988.

The arched opening led to parking.

Across the street from 8000-8024 Sunset Blvd., 8001-8033 Sunset was also designed by Norstrom & Anderson in 1931 and survives. Greenblatt’s Delicatessen “where the stars go to shop,” occupied 8001 in 1946; it now houses the Laugh Factory. The Sunset-Laurel Market at 8025 became Lowy’s Music Shop as of 1946. The open-air markets like Sunset-Lauren and Crescent Heights Market were typical of Hollywood at the time. Most were later enclosed by plate glass.

8001-8033 Sunset Blvd. across the street from Schwab’s.

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(1) The original owners, Thomsen & Easley, applied for a permit on May 22, 1931.

(2) Jack Schwab stated in a 1945 permit for alterations that he had been at this location 10 years. The same information appears in a 1949 permit. It first appears in the 1936 city directory. In a 1981 retrospective L.A. Times article on the Sunset Strip, Leon Schwab, another of the brothers, would mistakenly recall the year as 1932.