This 2-story retail and office building at 5649-5651-5653 Hollywood Boulevard (upstairs was 5653-1/2) was constructed in 1929 in the fashionable modernistic style that would now be called Art Deco, a term coined in 1968.

The key tenant, at 5649, was a grocery store chain with the not very catchy name of  “Clarence Saunders, Sole Owner of My Name.”

The Saunders chain had announced in February 1929 that it would be opening stores on the West Coast soon. In March 1929, the chain advertised in Los Angeles papers that it was seeking locations for 100 stores.

LA Times 3/14/1929

Los Angelinos may have been familiar with the name Clarence Saunders. He has revolutionized grocery shopping in the pre-supermarket era with his self service markets, Piggly Wiggly, which he founded in Tennessee in 1916. Customers could pick up a shopping basket as the entered the store through a turnstile,and pick out their own items from the shelves rather than presenting a list to the shopkeeper and waiting for their groceries to be retrieved. Due to Wall Street shenanigans, in 1923 he had been forced to give up his interest in Piggly Wiggly, which continued on without him.

In 1928 he founded the “Sole Owner of My Name” chain which likewise operated on a self-service basis.

The first Los Angeles area Clarence Saunders Sole Owner of My Name stores- 19 of them- opened on September 7, 1929.

By the time the Hollywood Boulevard store opened here, on December 21, 1929, it was one of 36 local stores.

This ad is kind of a downer, Clarence Sunders, Sole Owner of My Name. LA Evening Express 12/19/1929.

LA Evening Express 12/19/1929.

LA Times 4/11/1931

The opening came right after the Stock Market crash of October 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression. The store at 5649 Hollywood Boulevard closed at the end of March 1931, padlocked by the Sheriff’s office due to an insurance lawsuit. In April 1931 the company announced it was selling all of its stores in Los Angeles and San Francisco. In June 1931, Saunders filed for bankruptcy in federal court. He would begin again in a few years’ time.

It was a story that played out again and again during the Depression as chain stores expanded nationally. Unlike mom and pop stores who went into the breadline if they got into debt, corporations could file for bankruptcy, reorganize, and start fresh.

On June 5, 1931, 5649 Hollywood Boulevard opened as another chain grocery store, the Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, better known as A&P. A&P was only here briefly.

(A&P opened at 5719 Hollywood Boulevard in November 1933, and in June 1940 it moved next door to its 1931 home, at 5635 Hollywood Boulevard.

Hollywood Daily Citizen 6/4/1931

5651 was briefly a Safeway in 1931.

5653 opened in January 1930 as an outlet of Famous Cleaners, who moved here from across the street at 5654 Hollywood Boulevard. Was this the sunny side of the street?

Hollywood Daily Citizen 1/4/1930

The studio on the second floor, 5653-1/2 Hollywood Boulevard was initially to be a physical cultural studio started by Hayden Phythian, physical director of the Hollywood Athletic Club; announced in October 1929, its not clear that it ever opened. The space briefly became the Hollywood School of the Dance, run by I.C. Overdorff; the school moved to 5760 Sunset Boulevard in June 1930. Japanese dance/fencing instructor Micho Ito took it over in October 1930. Ito had previously been a guest instructor with the Edith Jane School (later known as Falcon Studios) and appeared in recitals with Ralph B. Faulkner. (See my posts on the Edith Jane School/Falcon Studios here and here). It became Mrs. R. R. Crow’s Fine Arts School in 1933.

LA Times 6/14/1931

The building is still standing, a good example of a modest late 1920s moderne style that looked to the future for inspiration rather than the past.