Forgotten Los Angeles

Forgotten Los Angeles A deep dive into the history of Los Angeles. Join me as I travel through time. Started on Instagram. Never colorized. Never AI.

05/30/2026

Filmed 45 years ago, this footage comes from Godfrey Reggio’s experimental classic “Koyaanisqatsi,” which is best known for its hypnotic pairing a mix of timelapse & slow motion footage shot by cinematographer Ron Fricke with original music by legendary composer Philip Glass.

Overall, the film took seven years to make, beginning production in 1975 and wrapping in 1981. This particular shot would have been toward the end of production, as you can make out the construction sites of both Manulife Plaza (foreground), which opened in 1982, and the Crocker Tower (now the Wells Fargo Center), which opened in 1983.

Burbank Airport turns 96 this week, so here are two panoramic shots taken during its dedication on Memorial Day weekend ...
05/27/2026

Burbank Airport turns 96 this week, so here are two panoramic shots taken during its dedication on Memorial Day weekend in 1930. Swipe through for the full effect.

Originally known as United Airport, the facility was built to rival Glendale’s Grand Central Airport, which had just been converted from a semi-rural airfield to a commercial air terminal the year before - primarily through Maddux, Western and Transcontinental Airlines, which would soon merge to form TWA. That left aviation pioneers William Boeing and Frederick Rentschler (of Pratt & Whitney) feeling somewhat boxed out of what was then America’s fifth-largest and fastest-growing city, so they formed a new holding company in 1929 called the United Aircraft and Transportation Company, which then commissioned in Burbank what was promised to be “the most complete aviation center in the United States,” and also led to the formation of United Airlines in 1931.

Looking through these slides, which present two similar views from slightly different angles, be sure to note what look to be early food trucks. The one in Slides 5 & 12 had a sign reading “popcorn,” while Slide 16 shows a crowd gathered another unknown booth. The Goodyear Blimp also makes an appearance in Slide 6.

What’s not photographed here is a narrowly-averted catastrophe that occurred that afternoon, when a local pilot took five spectators into the sky for a joyride and had the cabin suddenly catch fire after takeoff. At the helm was pilot Bob Bergen, who quickly turned into a power dive to bring the flaming machine back down for a landing, just in time for everybody to jump off and get away before the rest of the plane was consumed by fire. All four adults and both children escaped without a scratch.

—

Panoramas by F. M. Huddleston, via

As always, the broader panoramas are included as well.

Photos of Memorial Day in L.A.Originally known as “Decoration Day,” Memorial Day is generally recognized to have began w...
05/25/2026

Photos of Memorial Day in L.A.

Originally known as “Decoration Day,” Memorial Day is generally recognized to have began with an 1868 proclamation by General John Logan, calling for a day to honor the Union Soldiers who had died in the American Civil War. Five years later, it made the leap from tradition to holiday in the State of New York, and by 1890, it every other state had followed suit.

The name “Memorial Day” was first used in 1882, though this wouldn’t be the federally declared as the holiday’s name until 1967. The transition from Decoration Day happened gradually as the holiday was expanded to honor other fallen servicemen, first in the Spanish American War in 1898 and then in the First World War, and then finally to all those who died in service.

Photos:

• 1. Two Civil War veterans at a Memorial Day observance at City Hall in 1942. Taken by Gordon Wallace.
• 2. Decoration Day in Santa Monica, 1893
• 3. Ceremony at the Veterans Cemetery on Sepulveda, taken by H.H. West in 1895
• 4. Veterans march down Ocean Park Pier, ca. 1897
• 5. Civil War veterans at the Santa Monica Soldier’s Home on Sawtelle, taken by C.C. Pierce in 1905

• 6-7. A Memorial Day parade in 1912.
• 8. Parade on Spring Street, ca. 1915
• 9. Red Cross nurses of WWI carry a giant flag down 7th Street during a parade, 1920
• 10. Decorating graves at Rosedale Cemetery, 1922

• 11. A parade at the Coliseum, 1926
• 12. The GAR’s Fife & Drum Corps leads a Memorial Day parade down 7th Street, 1927
• 13. A parade at the Coliseum, 1929
• 14. Veterans march along a pier, ca. 1930.
• 15. WWI vet Joe Adgar (left) & Spanish-American War vet P.P. Finnerin (right), kneel at the Veterans Cemetery, 1939

• 16. Marching up Menlo Ave toward Exposition Park, 1940
• 17. Veterans stand guard at the Veterans Cemetery, taken by Paul Calvert in 1946
• 18. Veteran Charles Billstron, 47, looking for a friend’s grave, 1967. Taken by George Fry.
• 19. Juanita Lane kneeling at her son’s grave in the Veterans Cemetery, 1973. Photo by Fry.
• 20. Memorial Day, 1940.

-
Photo Sources:

LA Times: 1,6,7,9,10,12,13,15,17-19
UCLA - 2,3,11
LAPL - 4
Huntington Library - 5
CA Historical Society via USC- 8, 14
Dick Whittington Collection (via USC) - 16,20

Finally, special thanks to Scott Harrison for pulling so many of these LA Times photos together for his 2017 Framework article.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DYxgRl-gZbR/?img_index=1

Beethoven in L.A. - 1955 / 2026This first shot was taken by John Malmin in 1955 for the L.A. Times’ “Know Your City” ser...
05/24/2026

Beethoven in L.A. - 1955 / 2026

This first shot was taken by John Malmin in 1955 for the L.A. Times’ “Know Your City” series, which offered readers a new image each week and challenged them to guess where it was taken. Shot from the back, this was Arnold Foerster’s statue of famed German composer Ludwig van Beethoven which was placed in Pershing Square in 1932, where the maestro looked upon LA’s old Philharmonic Auditorium, which used to stand at the corner of 5th & Olive.

The second shot was taken a few days ago by me.

While Beethoven never made it downtown to see the statue for himself, he did spend a little bit of time at the San Dimas mall in 1989, when he was brought to Southern California by two time travelers to help them with a high school history project so that they could eventually record music that would finally bring forth an everlasting peace on earth.

—

The LA Times shot is via

The beautiful Casa Palmeras apartment hotel in Palm Springs in 1930 & today.Designed in 1928 by renowned African America...
05/23/2026

The beautiful Casa Palmeras apartment hotel in Palm Springs in 1930 & today.

Designed in 1928 by renowned African American architect Paul R. Williams, the eight-unit apartment building took a little over a year to build and cost $40,000, which is equal to about $780K today. Built on undeveloped land in the vicinity of the El Mirador Hotel (Palm Springs’ biggest feat at the time), the property now sits at the intersection of Tamarisk and Indian Canyon Drive.

As for who picked up the check, that’s a bit trickier to pin down, but it appears to have been James L. Miller, who was also one of the proprietors of Santa Monica’s long-forgotten Mission Drive-In Market at Ninth & Wilshire, which he also hired Williams to design.

In 1932, the property was purchased by a Motion Picture Engineer & Hollywood camera wizard named Leslie Cuffe, who spent six years working in the labs at Paramount before leaving to head the camera and projection departments at DeMille Studios in Culver City. With these specialties, he took on a side hustle of opening cinemas in Hollywood resort towns like Palm Springs & Lake Arrowhead, earning him the funds to buy Casa Palmeras.

According to the website of the Paul Williams Project, regular guests included Clifton Webb, Ann Southern, Bert Wheeler, and Harold Lloyd.

—

Photos by Mott Studios via the California State Library

The Taube Plumbing Supply Company in El Monte, 1936.Taube’s was located at Five Points, on Valley Boulevard just west of...
05/22/2026

The Taube Plumbing Supply Company in El Monte, 1936.

Taube’s was located at Five Points, on Valley Boulevard just west of Garvey. The street address at the time was 987 E Valley Blvd, but I think the street must have been renumbered as that would put it in Alhambra.

As far as I know, there are only two photos of the ship, as seen in Slides 1 & 4 (Slides 2&3 are zooms of the first shot). Slide 4 is undated, but it looks to be a little later as the ship looks considerably more finished.

I don’t know why it’s a boat. Most programmatic architecture at the time would have buildings take on a shape related to a business so that motorists would be able to identify them from a distance, but I just don’t think of seafaring when I think of plumbing. I guess anything is better than building a giant toilet on the side of the road, though. Still, it’s just a strange choice considering that the company previously occupied a pretty normal looking building in City Terrace throughout the 1920s and first half of the 1930s (see Slide 7).

According to newspaper ads, William Taube retired from the plumbing business and closed up shop in 1942, presumably to take his giant silver ship out onto the open seas to sail it around the world.

—

Photos: 1. Taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt for LIFE Magazine; 4. Source unknown, found in a 2016 post to a Facebook group; 7. by Dick Whittington Studios via

It’s a little surreal that dentist’s offices have looked the same for at least 100 years.[NOTE: I just went to the denti...
05/19/2026

It’s a little surreal that dentist’s offices have looked the same for at least 100 years.

[NOTE: I just went to the dentist and my face is still numb from my nose to my ear, so this is what we’re doing today.]

Photos 1-7 were taken in 1928, at the office of doctors John and James McCoy at 3839 Wilshire. The two men were brothers and were third-generation dentists, following in the footsteps of their grandfather Milton, who, according to the L.A. Times, became one of the first Americans to practice dentistry in 1866. Their father John came to California in the 1880s, and s said to have been the first resident dentist of Los Angeles County, and was a founding faculty member of the S.C. School of Dentistry in 1898. His sons started this practice in the 1920s.

The one room that does look distinctly different from today, of course, is the X-Ray room in Slide 3. That technology has significantly improved.

That and the antique light fixtures throughout.

Photos 8-9 were taken in 1937 at the office of Dr. Cecil A. Dickinson somewhere in Santa Monica. I don’t know much about him, but the photos were taken by G. Haven Bishop of SoCal Edison to document the more modern lighting.

…but back to grandfather Milton McCoy, whose story was told in the L.A. Times in 1950, when his ninety-year-old dental tools were discovered by salvage workers with the Volunteers of America and returned to his descendants who hadn’t realized they were missing. Upon receiving them, John told the Times that Milton had been a surgeon during the Civil War, working for the Union Army despite his sympathizing with the South. He was apparently the only doctor in a small town where northern troops had posted up for the winter, so he wound up regularly tending to the men (for context, Missouri was one of four pro-slavery states to vote against secession and remain in the Union through the war). When the war ended, he switched his practice to dentistry and co-founded the Missouri Dentist College, which was the first dental school west of the Mississippi River and operated for 125 years.

—

Photos 1-7 by Mott Studios via CA State Library
Photos 8-9 via

Swipe across for an 80-year-old panoramic view of the city of San Fernando, taken from San Fernando Road and Maclay Aven...
05/19/2026

Swipe across for an 80-year-old panoramic view of the city of San Fernando, taken from San Fernando Road and Maclay Avenue around 1946.

I had to quadruple-check the location here because I couldn’t find a single building that was still standing today, which is extremely rare in the smaller cities. Apparently everything here was destroyed by the Sylmar earthquake in 1971. According to the LA Times, the residents of the Mission Hotel on the left in Slide 1 woke up to find themselves staring into space as the building’s walls fell away almost immediately as the shaking began, and they go on to say that the 1000 and 1100 blocks of San Fernando Road were completely devastated, and looked as though the area had been bombed. This after these two blocks had already survived arson attacks in 1955 and 1967, both of which included fires set inside the hotel.

Adding a list of businesses below (the ones I can make out), and, as always, the unbroken panorama has been added to the last slide for reference.

-

Slide1: Mission Hotel on the left, and a sign that looks to say Sears. The small tower at the next intersection is for Hayward Lumber, which had been in the area for decades.

Slide 2 (L-to-R): Montgomery Ward, Western Auto Supply, Harry’s Kooler Keg Cafe & Cocktails, and a liquor store.

Slide 3: a Western Union and a store selling linoleum, tile, plumbing needs, blinds, and other home supplies.

Slide 4: City Transfer Storage in distance, at 1125 1st St., w/ a Metal Works company next door. Can’t read the billboard.

Slide 5: Scott’s Apparel Shops, “where women of exquisite taste will shop with confidence.” They opened Sept 1946, so this is the most concrete clue I have on the year. Can’t read the sign behind it. The long building on the right is a Southern Pacific depot, w/ a tiny insurance office in front.

Slide 6: that’s a Safeway on the left, down on the next corner, and Whelan drugs on the right.

Slide 7: Whelan Drugs & the State Hotel next to Jay’s jewelers & Bendix, and a music center.

Slide 8: Multiple cafes and liquor stores, as well as a cleaners and a Florsheim Shoe Store.

——

Via the Ernest Marquez collection at

https://www.instagram.com/p/DYf4ZjXj9nz/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

Late night photos of a 76 Station in Monterey Park, circa 1941.Tricky one to track down, but this station was located at...
05/18/2026

Late night photos of a 76 Station in Monterey Park, circa 1941.

Tricky one to track down, but this station was located at the corner of Garvey & Moore, and was owned and operated by Kenny Gribble.

The building is now home to Silver Star Service.

—

Photo by Doug White for SoCal Edison
via

The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906: the deadliest in American history.Lasting more than twice as long as the Northridg...
05/14/2026

The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906: the deadliest in American history.

Lasting more than twice as long as the Northridge earthquake of 1994 and four times as long as the Long Beach earthquake of 1933, the San Francisco earthquake hit just before dawn on April 18th, 1906, and shook for 42 seconds, jolting the earth so violently that it was felt from Oregon to Los Angeles, and as far inland as Nevada. Ruptured gas mains then led to more than 30 fires which burned for several days, destroying 25,000 buildings across 490 blocks, which was about 80% of the city. While initial death tolls were reported at 375-500, it was later learned that at least 3,000 people had been killed.

This earthquake predated the Richter Scale by about three decades, but it’s since been estimated to have been around a 7.9. What we do know for sure is that as the seismic waves rippled across the surface of the Earth, they were recorded 19 minutes later on a seismograph in Albany, New York, nearly 3,000 miles away.

But, while this is a major event in the history of San Francisco, it’s also a significant event in the history of Los Angeles, because even though they were quick to rebuild, the disaster caused a significant amount of trade, industry, and population growth to be redirected here. It was perhaps temporary at first, but thousands of the refugees that we’d taken in had decided to stay, and our relocation of the Port of Los Angeles from Santa Monica to San Pedro in 1909 allowed for a local boom in shipping as well.

In 1900, S.F. was America’s 9th largest city, while L.A. was ranked 36th, but by 1910, S.F. had slipped to 11th while L.A. had jumped to 17th. By the 1920 census, Los Angeles had overtaken San Francisco as the largest city west of the Mississippi River, and has remained so for 100 years since.

—

Photos pulled from the CA Historical Society, the CA State Library, the National Archives, and the AP, which all have significant overlap.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DYTVPCxG_fX/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

Address

Los Angeles, CA

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Forgotten Los Angeles posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category