Bizarre Los Angeles

Downtown Los Angeles, taken from City Hall in 1952.

The Vermont Ave. exit off the Hollywood Freeway, c. 1950s.   The Cahuenga Pass and the Hollywood Freeway (101) under construction in December 1953. (LAPL 00041089)    

Crawford’s Village Store in El Monte at Five Points (corner of Valley and Garvey). Here’s a link to a great tribute site with lots of pictures and memorabilia: http://crawfordselmonte.blogspot.com/

A Disneyland Parade, circa November 1955. In this photo, five-year-old Kandra K. Craig rides a baby elephant named Minnie. (LAPL  00106414)

The opening of a Dairy Queen in 1957 at 11334 Moorpark Street in Studio City, now the site of the Girasol Restaurant. (LAPL 00021847)

On February 2, 1954, the Hollywood Ranch Market on Vine Street drops its coffee price from ten cents a cup to five in an act of rebellion over skyrocketing prices. What made them angry enough to slash their prices in half? A pound of coffee had finally crossed over the $1 mark. It was coffee crisis […]

A view of Olvera Street taken by photographer Bob Plunkett, around 1950-51 (my guess). Notice the Theatre sign? That was the Olvera Street Puppet Theatre that once occupied the Old Machine Shop Building.

A look at crime in Los Angeles in the 1950s. Photos are from undisclosed locations. Above Photo: Three gamblers wishing to keep their snake eyes hidden during a crap game somewhere in Los Angeles, November 10, 1951. (LAPL 00039498)   According to the Los Angeles Public Library, in October 1952: “Five women and a man were jailed […]

Traveling along South Broadway Street, north of 9th Street, in 1951. (LAPL 00104599).   Broadway and 7th Streets, around 1959. The State Theatre (703 S. Broadway) is showing Ben-Hur.