Serving Larchmont Village, Hancock Park, and the Greater Wilshire neighborhoods of Los Angeles since 2011.

Historic Larchmont Photos Now on Display

Historic photo posters featuring The Larchmont Theater, which was located where the new Tailwaggers will open later next month.

You may have noticed some new photos posted in the windows of two Larchmont storefronts. They are the first in a series of images in the Larchmont centennial project, we’ve dubbed “Windows of Larchmont 1921-2021.” The idea is to celebrate the history of our neighborhood street, which has been home to a range of businesses since it was developed around 1921 by Julia La Bonte to serve the surrounding neighborhoods.

The idea of the posters came from a conversation we had last summer with Brookside resident and art director Charlie Hess, brainstorming a way to perk up the street at a time when there were many vacancies on the street. We decided to use images (with permission) we had access to for the book “Larchmont,” a pictorial history of the street published in 2015 by Arcadia Press and, where possible, place the historic images in their modern day locations. The idea would provide a nice connection to the efforts to celebrate the street’s 100th anniversary this year with events being planned by the Larchmont Boulevard Association (LBA), which is hoping to organize centennial festivities around the annual Larchmont Family Fair in October, pandemic protocols permitting. In keeping with celebrating Larchmont’s local businesses, we are pleased to say the UPS store on Larchmont is partnering with us print to the posters on their large format printer at a reduced price.

The first poster to go up was placed in the window at the former Trina Turk location, thanks to building owner Ron Simms, who gave us permission to post the image inside.

Gina St. Aubin, representing building owner Ron Simms, helped us hang this poster featuring an image of the Carter and Hess IGA grocery at 245 N. Larchmont at Christmas in 1932. (l-r) Gina St. Aubin, Charlie Hess and Patty Lombard.

 

The next two posters were put up on Saturday at Tailwaggers, the new pet grooming and retail store, opening at 147 North Larchmont Blvd later next month. When we told Tailwaggers owner Todd Warner that his new store was once a theater on Larchmont, he was really excited to be part of the project, and even helped us hang the posters.

Todd Warner, owner of Tailwaggers, lent a hand hanging the posters in his windows, working around painters finishing out the interior of his new store.
Kris Boling, Tailwaggers Director of Operations and Inventory; Owner Todd Warner, and Charlie Hess helped hang the Larchmont Theatre posters on Saturday.

 

Each poster contains historic information about the image based on the captions from the book, “Larchmont,” available down the street at Chevalier’s Books. Where space permits, we plan to translate the captions into Spanish and Korean. (The captions are a work in progress so please report any errors!)

We are working on more posters to share more local history about Larchmont and welcome your comments. In case you aren’t able to make it to Larchmont, the images we posted are below.

 

 

 

 

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Patricia Lombard
Patricia Lombard
Patricia Lombard is the publisher of the Larchmont Buzz. Patty lives with her family in Fremont Place. She has been active in neighborhood issues since moving here in 1989. Her pictorial history, "Larchmont" for Arcadia Press is available at Chevalier's Books.

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