Looking north on Vermont Avenue south of Fourth Street, c. 1920s-2011

c. 1920s-2011

The original photograph in this montage presents a fairly representative view of the Wilshire District’s appearance at the end of the 1920s, for each of the picture’s easily visible buildings was completed during that decade. One can also see Vermont Avenue in the midst of its transition from a sparse, mostly residential boulevard into a major commercial thoroughfare. The left foreground of the top photo shows part of the lawn of an estate that originally occupied the corner, and a few residential buildings are slightly visible in the distance.

Today’s Vermont Avenue is largely unrecognizable from its Depression-era self, as most of its historic residences and commercial buildings have made way for strip malls and other automobile-oriented businesses. Were it not for the survival of the Park Lane Apartments one block west on Fourth Street (photo far left), the original photograph’s precise location would have been far more challenging to pinpoint.

Source: Insurance maps of Los Angeles, California, Volume 7. New York: Sanborn Map Company, 1921.
Original photo: Dick Whittington Studio. “Facing north on South Vermont Avenue in Wilshire Center / Koreatown – whit-m1883.” Dick Whittington Photography Collection. USC Digital Library. USC Libraries Special Collections. http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assetserver/controller/view/DW-8-75-2-ISLA.