Things moved so fast these days, what with airmail cutting 30 hours from the time it took to get mail from New York and high speed trains getting here from Chicago a whole business day sooner. A Kodak Brownie camera could capture a fleeting moment forever. As of 1926 you could get one at 643 S. Hill Street, Los Angeles when Eastman-Kodak Co. of Rochester, NY opened its local branch headquarters there. Continue reading
The first Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles had been only the second of the vaudeville circuit’s chain in the West when it opened in the former Child’s Opera House on Main Street in 1894. The newest Los Angeles Orpheum Theater opened in a grand new building in February 1926, the year vaudeville celebrated its 100th Anniversary. Continue reading
Located between Sixth & Seventh and Alvarado & Park View streets, in 1926 Westlake Park was a scenic oasis west of downtown Los Angeles, overlooked by fashionable apartment houses, hotels and tearooms. Continue reading
When The Breakers Hotel opened on Long Beach’s Ocean Avenue in 1926, ocean bathers could exit out the back by way of a special elevator and walk right out across the sand. The building still stands, but the sea and sand is more than a short stroll away. Continue reading
It was a double premiere- the opening of the new Belasco Theater at 11th & Hill streets and the Los Angeles debut of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes on November 1, 1926. Author Anita Loos and the crème de la crème of filmdom society were in attendance. Both the play and the theater were a hit. History doesn’t record whether the theater’s major financial backer enjoyed the show; he was about to leave for Washington, D.C. to testify in his bribery trial. Continue reading
Los Angeles could be justly proud of the shining white temple that opened in February 1926. There was high praise all around for the design by the Allied Architects Association and the beautiful interior appointments, which lent a dignity to what were often sordid proceedings. But almost immediately it was tainted by controversy when several prisoners escaped from its “escape-proof” jail, and then there was the sheriff’s wild party on the roof… Continue reading
The restaurant business was booming in mid-1920s Los Angeles, with a new cafeteria, coffee shop, café or chop house opening almost every week. In late 1926, businessman Herbert K. Somborn, ex-movie producer, ex-husband of Gloria Swanson, threw his hat into the ring. Continue reading
In July 1921 Georges Carpenter and Jack Dempsey made history in the “Battle of the Century” for the world heavyweight title in Jersey City, NJ. Images of Carpentier lying prone on the canvas flashed from coast-to-coast almost instantaneously via the new press photo wire service. Five years later, in July 1926, Los Angeles finally got a look at the Orchid Man in the flesh. Continue reading
Located at 215 W. 5th St. on the northeast corner of Fifth & Broadway, the dazzling white terra cotta structure designed by Curlett & Beelman opened in December 1926. But pioneer businessman Chester Williams didn’t live to see his namesake building occupied. Continue reading
The beautiful twin sisters were originally from the east coast but like others before them they’d drifted west by the early ‘teens and ended up in Los Angeles. They were recruited by the US Navy during WWI and saw the world. But by the 1920s, having had a major facelift, the Los Angeles Steamship Co.’s Harvard and Yale were again plying the California coast, billed as the “floating playgrounds of the Pacific.” Continue reading
J. H. Graham 