There’s almost nothing we like better than a great local historic photo archive. Back in July, we told you about a fun new online roadside photo collection…and today we’ve got another one, from famed artist and photographer Ed Ruscha, who was known (among other things) for his stark documentary-style images of large swaths of streetscapes in Los Angeles, many of which have been highlighted in books such as Twenty Six Gasoline Stations (1963) and Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966).
Ruscha’s vast streetscape archive is at the Getty, but in the past you had to visit in person to peruse the contents. Just recently, however, the Getty released a new online Research Collections Viewer, which allows the public to browse many of its research collections online for the first time. And one of the big treats the tool reveals is Ruscha’s huge trove of Los Angeles streetscapes, with more than 71,000 images taken from the 1960s to the 2000s, including thousands from Melrose Ave., Santa Monica Blvd., Sunset Blvd. and Hollywood Blvd.
If you’ve got some time to travel down a huge and fascinating rabbit hole, we highly recommend spending a few hours exploring the collection. The images are labeled with their approximate location along one of the major east/west streets listed above, noting which direction they’re located from a major north/south cross street such as La Brea, Highland, Cahuenga, Bronson, etc. But the labels are often quite approximate, and there is no other identifying information, so many mysteries – such as the identity of the figure above – remain for you (or those with much longer-term memories than ours) to solve.
Here are a few more images from Melrose Ave. between La Brea and Western, most taken in 1975, which we found intriguing.
If you’d like to go digging in the archive yourself, here are the links to several of Ruscha’s specific streetscape collections on the Getty site:
Melrose Ave.
Santa Monica Blvd.
Sunset Blvd.
Hollywood Blvd.
Happy photo hunting!
Update: Thanks to Buzz reader Rick Brown, who says the header photo is of “the old KHJ-TV Channel 9 building at 5515 Melrose. The vertical sign partially shows “RKO GENERAL INC” which was the parent company. In 1990 Disney launched KCAL9 News there. The building was used for technical operations – and the newsroom and studios were located in sound stage on the Paramount Lot (I was part of the launch team). KCAL9 is now on the CBS Lot in Studio City – and the building at 5515 Melrose is now the Paramount Studios Tour ticket office.” Unfortuantely, Rick did not know who the giant figure was in front of the building, so that mystery persists. Anyone else have any clues?
About Elizabeth Fuller
Elizabeth Fuller was born and raised in Minneapolis, MN but has lived in LA since 1991 - with deep roots in both the Sycamore Square and West Adams Heights-Sugar Hill neighborhoods. She spent 10 years with the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council, volunteers at Wilshire Crest Elementary School, and is the co-owner/publisher of the Buzz.
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The street location captions have a high error rate. These are fixable, without much work. As for the “statue”, it looks like a papier mache prop from an old RKO project.