A vanished city lives again...

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Third Street at Hill: Then, Then, Then and Now

Within a span of only two lifetimes, one street intersection in Los Angeles undergoes an almost unimaginable series of transformations...

c.1890:


Courtesy U.S.C. Digital Library.

c.1935:


Courtesy Los Angeles Public Library.

1978:


Photo by William Reagh, Courtesy California State Library.

Today:


Photo by J Scott Shannon.

 

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now in my 70's it is sad to reflect on the Old Los Angeles that I once knew. I drove, walked and rode on the yellow car, shopped at the Grand Market, rode Angeles Flight, 3rd street tunnel, the old zoo. Somewhere atop Bunker Hill stood a house in an Oriental motive. Only saw it once, its gone. I didn't carry a camera then, Should've, would've could've.. Yes, the Joe Louis painting on the Olympic Stadium Bldg. too.... The young whipper snappers of today, don't know, nor do they care what once was. One feels that one is truly in Logan's Run and tomorrow another memory will be torn down for something modern that will not be remembered as Old Los Angeles.....

Anonymous said...

There are some of us who are younger (myself being 31) who care very much about the past. I feel as if my generation has been ripped off by not getting to enjoy Los Angeles as she was. Los Angeles is the greatest city that ever was and every time they tear down one of her beloved buildings I become enraged. I guess when much of you were young you thought things were just as they were and always would be. As this wonderful blog points out: things change dramatically and in my opinion...not for the better. Downtown has been ruined being nothing but a third-world sewer these days. I dream of an old mysterious war-time Los Angeles as I read my Raymond Chandler novels and look for sites such as this one, and wish that I were in my seventies so that I could look back at a wonderful era...

Anonymous said...

When I was about seven or eight, my sister, who was 12, would take me and we'd hope on a bus from Downey to Huntington Park where we'd hop on the electric trolley car to downtown LA. We'd wander around and check out books at the library there. Spend the day. Always felt safe. Although I'm really not sure our mother knew where we were. That was about mid fifties. Different world though.

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