I’ll say it: the second half of the 20th Century will go down in history as the time when contemporary architecture went to hell. From the 1960s onward, rarely ever did a newly constructed edifice improve upon what was there before.
The example below shows the southwest corner of the intersection between Grand Avenue and 2nd Street in Downtown Los Angeles, where the old Bunker Hill landmark, the Dome Hotel, once stood at 201 S. Grand Avenue. Built in 1905 as a luxury hotel, the Dome was the embodiment of early century Southern California elegance. (Nathan Marsak has more historical information about the Dome here).
The hotel was later converted to an apartment building. Sadly, there was a fire on July 25, 1964, in which three victims lost their lives, and six more were injured. The reasons for the inferno and its severity have come under suspicion, but foul play could never be proven. By October that year, the ruins had been razed, and no trace of the hotel’s former glory remained.
For the next 44 years, the site was a parking lot. And today, it is home to one ugly broad of a building – the Broad Museum, below.
But since it’s surrounded by other unimaginative, modern structures ranging from bland to hideous, at least some might fight the Ugly Broad stands out as … “interesting”.
Dated at 1924, this appears to be one of the earliest known aerial photographs of the La Monica Ballroom on the Santa Monica Pier in California. The picture must have been taken shortly before or at the opening of the La Monica Ballroom on July 23, 1924, seen here at the end of the pier. (Dunning Air, Ernest Marquez Collection, The Huntington Digital Library)
Over time, the city of Santa Monica was home to several wharfs and piers, but only the Santa Monica Pier still exists today as a famous historic landmark.
Technically, what we see in the pictures consists of two separate piers. The long, narrow portion constitutes the “Municipal Pier”, which opened on September 9, 1909 and was originally constructed for the rather inglorious purpose of carrying sewage water beyond the breaking waves.
The wide “Pleasure Pier” to the south (on the right side in the pictures) was privately owned and also known as the “Newcomb Pier”. This portion was added by amusement park pioneers Charles I. D. Looff and his son Arthur.
Charles I. D. Looff (born Carl Jürgen Detlef Looff) was a Danish master carver and builder of hand-carved carousels and amusement rides, who immigrated to the United States of America in 1870. Looff built the first carousel at Coney Island in 1876. During his lifetime, he built over 40 carousels, several amusements parks, numerous roller coasters and Ferris wheels, including California’s famous Santa Monica Pier. He became famous for creating the unique Coney Island style of carousel carving.Photo: Long Beach Public Library.
On June 12, 1916, Santa Monica’s “Looff Hippodrome”, containing a carousel opened to the public. Eventually, other attractions included the Blue Streak Racer wooden roller coaster (which was purchased from the defunct Wonderland amusement park in San Diego), the Whip, merry-go-rounds, Wurlitzer organs, and a “funhouse”.
The La Monica Ballroom at the end of the pier and seen in the front of the photograph was designed by T. S. Eslick and featured a Spanish façade, and a French Renaissance inspired interior. It was advertised as “the largest dance hall on the west coast”.
La Monica’s 15,000-square-foot (1,400 m2) hard maple floor offered space for 5,000 dancers and competed with the the Bon Ton Ballroom (later renamed Aragon Ballroom) on what was then known as the “Lick Pier”, located a few miles down the coast in Venice.
Autos crowd the pier during the grand opening of the La Monica Ballroom on July 23, 1924.The event was reported to have attracted 50,000 people producing the first traffic jam in Santa Monica.
In the days before air conditioning, Santa Monica’s Pleasure Pier and its attractions thrived during the 1920s, but faded during the Great Depression.
Ca. 1926. Adelbert Bartlett Papers. Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.
Ca. 1930: The Santa Monica Deauville Club in the foreground, with the La Monica Ballroom rising in the distance above the pier.
People on the Santa Monica Pier looking out over Santa Monica Beach below, ca. 1930. The Santa Monica Athletic Club and part of the Deauville Club are in view at upper right.
Subsequently, during the 1930s most of the amusement park attractions were closed down, sold off, or falling into disrepair. Then in 1934, a breakwater was built. This provided protected docking for up to 100 fishing and pleasure boats near the pier, and helped attract new income.
Ca. 1934: A crowd amid beach umbrellas watching two pugilists boxing in an outdoor boxing ring on the beach in front of the Santa Monica Athletic Club. The Santa Monica Pleasure Pier with the La Monica Ballroom and Municipal Pier are in the background.
1936: Crowds of people standing in line at the Catalina Steamer Landing on Santa Monica Pier across from the La Monica Ballroom.
A 1936 postcard view of Santa Monica Beach showing the La Monica Ballroom on the pier. A portion of the Deauville Club (opened in 1927) can be seen in lower right. Photo by Burton Frasher Sr. (1888-1955), Pomona Public Library, Frasher Foto Postcard Collection).
The “Swinging Years” of Big Band Jazz from 1935 to 1945 also brought new crowds to the ballroom. And country music and “western swing” star Spade Cooley began broadcasting his weekly television show from the the La Monica Ballroom in 1948, where the program remained until 1954.
After that, in the summer of 1955, the Hollywood Autocade opened at the La Monica, featuring roughly one hundred famous and unusual cars, including Jack Benny’s Maxwell and a Rumpler Drop Car. Between 1955 to 1962, the ballroom served as a roller skating rink, first as “Skater’s Ballroom”, and later as the “Santa Monica Roller Rink”. A local speed skating club is said to have won many state and regional championships. Speed skater Ronnie Rains became a Roller Derby star. The rink’s operator was a former vaudeville and silent film star, Jack Goodrich, whose daughter, Michelle Goodrich, later became a showgirl in Ice Capades.
The owners of the pier and the ballroom, the Newcomb family didn’t invest enough in upkeep and upgrades to keep the venue from decaying.
And so, the La Monica Ballroom was closed to the public 1962, and demolished in 1963.
Only very few of the original space pioneers are still with us, and we keep losing the last remaining few.
Fellow pilot, war hero and astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who keeps very engaged online, posted this:
Grieving the loss of one of my best friends, Jim Lovell. His extraordinary legacy is cemented by many space missions: Gemini VII, Gemini XII, Apollo 8 and Apollo 13.
Our mutual respect had no limits. The Gemini XII mission we flew together paved the way for the Apollo missions. Heartfelt condolences to Jim’s family. Farewell Jim. You will be missed, my friend. Godspeed!
Few details about this photograph can be substantiated. The original caption was supposedly “Radio Pictures Chorus Girls“. This might have been a reference to RKO Radio Pictures Inc., which operated from 1929 to 1959.
The girls were almost certainly entertainers who were photographed while having fun exercising on a Hollywood rooftop — possibly in 1938. The automobiles in the background were likely built in the 1920s and 1930s, and the boxing scene was obviously posed for the photographer. (If you can identify the street address or know any of the girls in the image, I’d love to hear from you!)
RKO Studios at Melrose Avenue and Gower Street, Hollywood, circa 1937.
On this day in 1863, Abraham Lincoln was born into poverty. His birthplace was a log cabin on Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky. Raised on the frontier (mainly in Indiana) he was well-read and self-educated, and became a lawyer who opened a law practice in Springfield, Illinois.
I asked DALL-E to simulate what Lincoln might have looked like as a young man during this period of his life, using historical images as reference. Here are the results:
At the time this map was printed, Los Angeles County was booming with droves of new arrivals pouring in mostly from the East Coast. According to the U.S. Census, the county’s population had grown by 196% during the decade following 1900. By 1910, it had reached 504,131.
At the following census in 1920, the county’s population had swelled to 936,455, which translates to another 85.8% increase over 10 years . Within 20 years of 1900, the population had increased by 5 1/2 times, and 13 times by 1930, ending the decade with a total population of 2,208,492.
Most of the new settlers arrived by railroad. But when the above map was printed, the first automobile affordable to middle-class Americans, the Ford Model T was already in its 9th year of production. While there was a frenzy to build electric tram lines and a bus infrastructure connecting the Los Angeles area, people’s preferences, and the future of personal transportation, were clear. Then as now, people preferred private automobiles over communally shared vehicles the same way as they prefer private bathrooms over public toilets. For much the same reasons, they always will.
By the end of production in 1927, Ford had sold 14,689,525 Model Ts, with the least expensive model selling for just $260. (At the time of this writing, this would amount to an inflation-adjusted price of roughly $5,000 in 2025).
Motoring at the time would have been both fun as well as challenging. Many Los Angeles area roads at the time were still unpaved and rural. The various towns, settlements and cities were scattered about the vast county, and surrounded by farm or ranch land. Cars frequently broke down miles from populated areas. Flat tires were common. The quality of gasoline was unsteady and questionable, and filling stations were a novelty.
Melrose Avenue, 1910
Most gasoline pumps were installed in front of hardware stores, feed companies, livery stables, and a variety of other retailers. Service Town, the earliest known gas station in a modern sense, was built in 1914, three miles from downtown Los Angeles. Before that time, motorists went one place for gas and oil, and other places for lubrication and cleaning, for repairs, or for tires and other accessories.
As automobile sales increased, the demand for fuel led to a more systematic and standardized way of delivering it. In 1914, Standard Oil of California opened a chain of 34 homogeneous stations along the West Coast, and other oil companies quickly followed suit to secure an outlet for their now increasingly branded and advertised products.
The Gilmore Gas Station was one of the first gas stations in Los Angeles. It was located on the northeast corner of La Brea and Wilshire Boulevards. Photo from ca. 1920. (Los Angeles Department of Water and Power).
View showing Mabel Demspey standing on the gas pump island at the Whitsett Service Station located at 2912 Whitsett Avenue in North Hollywood. Photo from 1923.(Los Angeles Department of Water and Power).
A man and boy sit in a car at the Central Service Station which is selling both Violet Ray Gasoline and Associated Gasoline. Note the dog sitting on top of what appears to be an oil dispenser. Photo ca. 1928.(Los Angeles Department of Water and Power).
View of service station with gas pumps on either side located at 1800 1/2 Long Beach Boulevard, South Gate. The signs advertise General Gasoline, Richfield Gasoline, Gilmore Gasoline, Hood Tires, United States Tires and Pennzoil. On the right, an attendant is climbing a ladder. Photo ca. 1928. (Los Angeles Department of Water and Power).
Some of the cities on the road map shown above no longer exist, but were absorbed by Los Angeles or other cities. Examples (on the Westside) are the historic City of Sawtelle and the town of Venice, which were annexed by the City of Los Angeles, and the City of Ocean Park, which opted to join the City of Santa Monica
In 1910, the semi-rural town of Hollywood had voted to merge with Los Angeles in order to secure an adequate water supply and to gain access to the L.A. sewer system. This was very common development at the time, and one which many cities later bitterly regretted.
The community of Pacific Palisades, which was consumed by the horrendous fire of 2025, didn’t exist yet. Neither did the City of Malibu, nor the Roosevelt Highway (later renamed to “Pacific Coast Highway”). But there was a “Beach Road” along the coast, as well as a steam rail line from Downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica. The latter was how most beach goers arrived to take a few days of respite from the summer heat further inland.
By 1912, some motion-picture companies had moved out West to set up production facilities near or in Los Angeles, one of the first one being short lived Nestor Studios. (Originally known as Nestor Motion Picture Company, then Nestor Film Company, it merged with the Universal Film Manufacturing Company, headed by Carl Laemmle, in 1912).
At the time, the pioneering movie studios were still a newfangled and rather suspect industry, viewed with skepticism by investors, polite society, and cultural guardians alike. They certainly weren’t the main reason why people from all over North America (and Europe) wanted to move to Los Angeles. More important factors were the discovery of vast oilfields and seemingly endless opportunities to make money and fortunes. There was affordable and available vacant land on which one could build quickly, cheaply, and year-round. And all this came with a pleasant climate, and a plentiful supply of fresh meat, fruit and vegetables throughout the year. (This would have been a major draw at a time when heating consisted of building a fire in an oven or fireplace, and electric refrigerators were a rare novelty).
But I would argue that of all industries, it was the motion picture industry which drove America’s rapid motorization in the first part of the 20th Century. Cinemas would soon reach every corner of the country. And there, on big silver screens, huge crowds of people saw all segments of society happily motoring around Southern California. Often in open cars no less, far from snow and ice, and enjoying the joys of personal, individual transportation. To audiences back then, all this looked like magic. And of course, the car industry back east could not have invented a better publicity campaign.
