Bradbury mansion near the corner of Court and Hill Streets in downtown Los Angeles.

1920’s

of Photo of 1885 SOUTHEAST CORNER - Haas-Lilienthal House, 2007 Franklin Street, San Francisco, San Francisco County, CA

A rambling, wood-framed hotel – often the only building in sight – greeted eager buyers at nearly every boomtime subdivision. Opened in November 1886, the Garvanza Villa Hotel was located at Avenue 63 and York Boulevard. Photograph courtesy of Security Pacific National Bank Collection, Los Angeles Public Library.

Part of the old Los Angeles..

A brass band and a free lunch on opening day in 1887 brought out buyers for an auction of “ocean-view properties” in Monrovia. Photograph courtesy of Security Pacific National Bank Collection, Los Angeles Public Library

Called “a paradise of fruits, ambrosial shades and flowers,” Gladstone was a boomtime townsite in 1887. Its developers imagined Gladstone might outgrow Los Angeles, but Gladstone never grew much beyond its original 500 acres. Photograph courtesy of Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley.

Playa del Rey: Speed Capital of the World, The Los(t) Angeles Motordrome, 1910-1913

Cutter's design was to be dominated by a slender, pointed tower similar to those at St. Augustine, and also reminiscent of the Campanile of St. Mark's Square in Venice. (It is perhaps no coincidence that 1902 was the year the Venetian Campanile collapsed, creating worldwide concern for the loss of a powerful landmark.) Below the tower the hotel spread out under expansive hipped roofs. Cutter arranged it around two courtyards, one of which, named the Palm Court, had a large fountain at the center. Along the front, a loggia of Gothic arches opened off the principal rooms onto a broad, raised terrace. The restaurant and dancing pavilion, each with a gondola landing, were linked across a canal by a bridge distinctly Venetian in character. Their walls were enriched with Venetian Gothic tracery, and they offered romantic silhouettes enlivened by several towers.

Original Del Rey Lagoon development scheme drawing by Hunt & Eager, Architects. Los Angeles.

Early 1870s - San Pedro Street, a muddy dirt street, near 2nd Street in the early 1870s. A gas lamp post can be seen standing in a pool of water.

ca. 1882 - One of the first of seven electric street lights installed in the City of Los Angeles at Main Street and Commercial Street in 1882. It stood 150 feet tall.

ca. 1882 - Another look at one of LA's first electric light poles. View is of the buildings on the east side of North Main Street at Commercial Street at near right, looking toward the Baker Block. A man can be seen standing on a platform half way up the street light mast.

1880s - Main Street looking north from atop the Temple Block. Baker Block is just right of center. This vantage point is now occupied by City Hall. This gives a good view of where one of the first 150-ft. tall street light poles stood.

ca. 1889 - A parade on Main and Temple streets, looking north. The City's new 150-foot tall electric light pole can be seen in the center of the photo.

ca. 1892 - View showing one of the City's 150-ft tall streetlights in the residential area of Orange Street (later Wilshire Boulevard) at Lucas Avenue.

1890s - A sailboat and several row boats are seen on the lake at the City's new park, Westlake Park (now MacArthur Park). The hillside is beginning to be filled with new homes. The very tall pole in the background is one of the City’s new streetlights (150-ft tall).