Los Angeles 1950s, Wilshire Blvd | 4k and Remastered
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 มิ.ย. 2022
- A trip back to the 1950s in Los Angeles. The camera is mounted on the back of a car and we drive on the Wilshire Boulevard which runs from Santa Monica over Beverly Hills to the financial district. It runs a little south of Hollywood.
Vivid History is dedicated to restoring old black and white footage and creating high-quality colorized versions to give you an authentic and vivid experience of the past.
The video has been restored and colorized using state-of-the-art machine learning methods.
The restoration steps included:
- motion stabilization
- noise reduction
- colorization
- frame interpolation for increased FPS
- upscaling to 4K
- adding ambient sound
Please subscribe to my channel, if you want to see more videos that bring you back in time and let you experience the past.
The source video is from the internet archive under the creative commons license. - ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
![Residential area of Los Angeles 1940s in color [60fps,Remastered] w/sound design added](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/gRS1LGvI8Lk/mqdefault.jpg)
You have no idea how much I wish it were possible for me to climb through my tv screen, and walk down that sidewalk on that beautiful day in the wonderful 1950's.
Yes I do..and I'd be right there with you...life really was better.
...and with today's money.
@@eenusch9512 In 1955, you could buy a pack of cigarettes for 25 cents, a gallon of gas for 30 cents, and the average price of a first run theatre ticket cost 55 cents in California. Some people complained back then that things cost too much. Such is life my friend.
Me, as well 👍😊
I'm a 77 year old, and have always been facinated with thoughts of wondering where all those people seen in the street scenes are going. To work, to lunch, moments away from their first date, on their wat to see an afternoon matinee, etc. Really enjoy movies where everyone is unaware they are being filmed, just being themselves. A more true to life trip back in time.
It amazes me that this was barely 50 years out of the Wild West. It’s really amazing.
It was 70 years ago!
Indeed. It’s always made me feel slightly ill at ease about California, knowing that these busy streets are still even now comparatively new. In the days of these videos, and particularly in LA with the movie industry, the general spirit among (most) inhabitants must have been one of utter disconnection, rootlessness: that might feel like great freedom, of course.
But always there’s darkness visible, familiar to us through American Noir fiction from this area. Hollywood sparkle never covers up the layer of lawlessness and desperation I reluctantly see (look for?) on these streets! When these old videos leave the city centre and prowl around the scrapyards and railway sidings, I’m thinking that there’s some psychopath behind the sheds dismembering a waitress.
And you should see the thousands of homeless living on the streets there now begging and living hopeless lives with no hope now in only another 50 years.
You have the soul of a writer. Interesting comment.@@hannamccarthyh
@@billmeeker774 Homelessness isn't just a problem in California like right wingers want you to think.
I have to say "Wow!" too. It's like we were there driving in 1950's Los Angeles. The cars were eye candy. I kept thinking, "What's that car make?" The advertising billboards were also interesting: "Bomb Shelters $795!" But the shot of a man in a suit walking on the sidewalk toward the camera, probably thinking, "What are they filming?" really gave me an eerie feeling. He is looking into the lens of a camera which will enable people from 2023 to see him alive long after he has died.
Does make you think, doesn't it.
look how calm everything is everybody dressed normal clean streets
I once worked at the May Co Wilshire, that beautiful Art Deco building is now a motion picture museum
My mom worked at sears downtown in the early 60s. She grew up in Monterrey park. Born in 42.
We moved to L.A. from Texas in '56, when I was nine. I remember the May Co and Du Pars restaurant. Our family had a '55 Plymouth station Wagon with a luggage rack. We made the drive between L.A. and North Texas about five times, no AC, it was kind of miserable. My mom made up a game where we'd get a piece of bubble gum every time we spotted a Texas licence plate. Pretty soon I was bouncing off the walls on a major sugar rush, the whole trip. My favorite stop along the way was in Phoenix where we'd go swimming in the motel pool while my dad tried to take a nap. My sister, always pretty centered and wise, didn't care about the bubble gum, she mainly just read books and magazines the whole trip. Plus the scenery in West Texas, New Mexico and Arizona was pretty boring. At the California border, they had checkpoints to see if you had fruit. If you did, they took it. They were trying to keep insects out of the Central Valley orange groves. Of course, one or two would slip thru. :-) My dad liked to drive at night a lot because it was cooler. Two lane blacktop on Rte 66 most of the way. That station wagon had a 3 spd column stick shift.
They had checkpoints for fruits at California Nevada border back in 1995. I had to throw away an orange, bought in Las Vegas supermarket, crossing into California on I-15 around 2am. I bet the orange was originally from California :)
@@dmitripogosian5084 Hahaha! It probably was.
Thank you so much for sharing your stories! I was born in 2004, however I'm an old soul and wish I was born in the late 40's so I could've lived through the 50's. Although I never will live it, listening and reading these stories are the closest I will get. God Bless You!
DuPars such good breakfasts 😊
Du-Pars is still there
Wow the trees and atmosphere looks so much more natural and alive. This is beautiful, I'm just in awe rn
I was born in 1952 and let me tell you, the smells were better and unique. Spring and fall back then were a real natural high. Nowadays and not since the mid 60s I would say it just goes from cold to hot and back to hot to cold. God actually took the high away. I can't describe it but it was there.
I think it's because you were a child then. I feel the same way about the early 2000s, but I guess as a child you just pay more attention to/recognize smells and environmental feelings.
@@henrymenz1980 true, i feel the same about 2010s la, it seemed so much brighter and summers where vibrant and fresh, i grew up in mid city and i swear the trees and grass and flowers by peoples houses actually had more color, now in days la seems dull and cloudy
When I was young my dad had a business in Los Angeles and I remember it looking like this. So many good memories watching this.
Are you still around?
@@davidharris7235 Yes!....older people!....imagine that!!.....😂
The amazing thing is people actually filmed these locations like a time capsule.
Very surpised as well. Who would think to do this? I guess there has always been someone thinking about posterity
@@childrensstoriesreadbyme It was probably filmed as a background shot for a movie or movies that have a scene filmed inside an automobile.
@@WAL_DC-6B makes sense
Yes yes!
@@WAL_DC-6B dear god, they were filmed for other things than just film making..take home movies for example.
Los Angeles from what I heard was a very nice place in the 50's. Affordable. Cleaner. Not so many people. It looks great back then.
Unless you were black
look at how light the traffic is. There are many things about that time to really miss
Now it's crowded
Visually, LA was an interesting place back then and there was a comfortingly, human scale to the built environment. This was the era before cars started getting really big and sprouting fins, etc - "Happy Days!" It's great that this film footage was preserved by the movie studios.
Comforting human scale?
I grew up in Southern California and I remember a number of these places. In my early working years, I was employed by the May Company department store in the mens sportswear department. I didn’t work at the home appliance store, I was too young and dumb to assist home owners with those types of purchases.
It really did look like what you see here. Busy every day life . Sure there were social issues going on and the Cold War was huge as was the Korean War.
I think the May company was turned into the Petersen's auto museum
@@mgman6000 How cool! I’m nowhere near that area - haven’t been for about 40 years- but that would be great to see.
@@mgman6000 it actually now is the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures building.
@@gqmartinez1
Thanks I know Petersen's was some original building
Me 😊MUM used to take me to the MAY CO. for shopping for clothes in the 1950s and early 1960s. I remember the tea room at the top of the May company a little restaurant where you could get sandwiches and tea and coffee and relax what a great error. Now it’s an art museum in a bus terminal?!?! That’s bullshit. Love.
I Loved to go to the Van de Kamp’s coffee shop next to the May company their fish and chips which was halibut was incredible. My parents used to take us as children every once in a while to the Van de Kamp’s I would get a salad with blue cheese dressing. I would get the halibut, fish and chips main course and toped it off a nice slice of pumpkin pie with whipped cream on top for dessert! It was heaven just would’ve been in the mid late 1950s and early 1960s. Sadly that coffee shop is gone now.
This area was clean, orderly, filled with lush trees and greenery and sunny streets and boulevards. Fast forward 65 years and its almost unrecognizable. Incredibly sad and depressing.
Funniest part is this isn't even in color. And prides itself on already looking better.
😥😥😭😭😭😭😭😭
Green trees are great but they don't make money
Democrats destroy every city they dominate.
@@Phil-nd2ug you should seek to be an astronaut...get to go to the moon...you'd certainly be happier there w/o things alive...make all the money you want there...worship your god of money and live as you ever so desire...
NOT!!
So many gorgeous Art Deco and Streamline style buildings, probably built a couple of decades earlier. Interesting to also see earlier 20’s styles too. Really a beautiful place! A real shame it’s gone now.
Glad some folks had the insight to capture these seemingly ordinary events on camera
These were taken to be used by Hollywood studios as a sort-of "green screen" backdrop in movies and TV shows when they needed actors to look like they were driving down the street in an automobile.
This proves the most advanced society doesn’t necessarily mean who has the most advanced technology it’s how you use the technology you have to make life better for everybody and they were much better at doing that than we are today. That’s why the standard of living was much better then than at a time when technology is far beyond we’re it was at the time.
I wish I could step into this time machine!
But for a few years I coulda been IN this time machine. This was filmed around 1951, I was born in L.A. in 1956.
this is just incredible to peer into a day when my long dead father had lived in these days in Los Angeleeze
It's like we have literally gone back in time but in real time.Just AMAZING!!!!!
Love these old films. I like playing sleuth to see if I can locate exactly where on Wilshire we are and the year and then compare it to google maps today to see what buildings are still standing. This was easy because the El Rey theatre(which is still there) had a movie listed on it's marquee called "Fugitive Lady" which was released in July 1950. Other notable buildings that still exist are The Orbachs/Prudential Building at 3:21 which is now home to SAG-AFTRA, The May Co building at 4:42 and when the car stops at 2:32 the building on the upper left(General of America insurance) known as the E. Clem Wilson Building. Also love the glass structure in the same-looks like a car dealership. Too bad that's gone
According to IMDB "Fugitive Lady" was from 1934. "The Frogmen", also on the marquee, was from 1951.
@@goplad1 that's true but there was also another "Fugitive Lady" film from Italy released in the US in 1951.
The Googie-styled diner just west of The May Co. building on Fairfax hadn't been built yet. The location is a parking lot with billboards in this video. The diner was built a few years later.
Apparently the movie didn't release until 1951 in the US, so it's 1951
The El Rey theater was a filming location in 1984's Night of the Comet.
I wish there was some footage of actually going inside some those buildings. The shops, cinemas etc. But this looks incredible.
As a teen in 1982, we went to the May Company for Christmas shopping next to the La Brea Tar Pits. At the time, nothing had changed and they still had the mid century fixtures and vibe. Even then I felt it was historic. The La Brea Tar Pits used to smell like rotten eggs until the City of L.A. fixed it.
It still smells like rotten eggs
@@femmebrulee5053 All of LA smells !
1951, when most parts of Europe were in rubble, LA was an incredible modern and clean place to be. Beautiful vid! And alas, things have changed.
Having been born in 1956, '51 isn't ancient history to me; but looking at the shape of L.A. now compared to how clean and orderly it was back then makes it LOOK like ancient history.
I love the "Bomb Shelters for $800" billboards. I like how people generally drove slower and didn't rush up to red lights (so stupid).
I think the Cold War was gathering pace.
@@SunriseLAW Some people in our neighborhood in the Valley started talking about bomb shelters. My dad talked them out of it. Basically he said, "Are you gonna stay in those things for the rest of your lives?"
After driving a heavy car, I think it's somewhat impossible to speed up to a red light in those things!
My parents had a bomb shelter salesman come to our house and give us a sales pitch! The bomb shelters were made by basically the same companies that installed swimming pools. I remember the brochure for the bomb shelter - sure wish I still had it! It showed a family way down below sitting at a table and playing cards, while a big tube went up above ground and brought down filtered breathable air. There were compartments for food storage. A toilet. We never got a bomb shelter, and I never knew anyone else who did.
5:15 Rust Proof Gasoline. Ya sure..
Sucker bait.
I just played this again and was paying particular attention to the cars, and was amazed and surprised at what I saw at 3:11, the car parked at the curb, just in front of the dark blue truck is a Willys Jeepster, and, judging by the grille, probably a 1949 model. This was my first car, and I loved it, wish I still had it! And what really stands out is that amongst all those Fords, Packards, Dodges, Studebakers, Willys's, Plymouths, Chryslers, etc, there's not one foreign made car
My grandfather had one when I was a kid. My first was a Kaiser/Willys Jeep 66 CJ5.
Holy Shit, It's crazy how I know this street front to back but can see how much different it looks without all of the tall buildings, billboard bus stops, etc. Wow!!! Times can really change a place
A great video thanks! Those cars were like tanks. It is hard to believe that I rode around in them as a kid.
And you rode around without a seat belt!
@@flyshacker Yeah those cars don't have seat belts, some people that drive them now adays add them but not that many
Life was so GRAND. Just look at the civility of it all.
At 1:06 of the video, The Flying Saucer BBQ restaurant, my dad’s favorite place. Seems like it was the only restaurant we went to as a child in the 1960’s.
Flying Saucer, huh?.... Sounds kind of wild.
Hard to believe what a beautiful city LA once was.
I'm Speechless...
This is one of the best
Vintage Cali' Videos
EVER
I'm amazed and saddened at the same time about how many buildings have been lost to time.
I was comparing Maps Street view with the video and it took me a long time to find a reference point since I'm not from the area and it's abit before my time.
Once I found The El Rey Theater I had my refernce point.
Whole city blocks are changed and the streets looked much better in the past but the drivers were a bit worse it looks like,
Thanks. Seems even the Ralphs is still there. 5601 Wilshire Blvd.
@@m.3257 Yes and no. The Ralphs was not there when I lived there in the 1970s/80s. They tore down almost everything in the 90s and early 2000s and built a new Ralphs. But for several decades, it wasn't there. What they've done to that neighborhood is an embarrassing shame. The whole stretch of Wilshire is now a lifeless stretch of giant nondescript buildings.
@@gooddayhuman thx for the info anyways. So many buildings and streets had a good feel to it back then.
They'd rather tear down beautiful buildings than keep them. That's why Los Angeles has no soul.
No culture any more
Incredible! Brings back pleasant memories. I grew up in Los Angeles.
It's interesting to see how different cars were from 1951 (in this video) to the late 1950s where you had "rocket-age" designs with tail fins and all that.
Yeah the flashy "new" designs in the late 50s were inspired by our entry into the Space Age; but people were also ready for something new, because it was the late 50s -- literally everybody had money and a job and in L.A. it was a way of life to trade up the family auto every year to get the latest flashy model.
At 0.48, the El Rey theater has movie Fugitive Lady. That movie came out in 1950.
Thank you for uploading this.
Frogmen, 1951
I wish we still had signs that moved, like the spinning windmill on that bakery or the rotating 76 balls.
Somebody at a DOT somewhere decided that signs that moved, revolved or rotated were a "dangerous distraction" to drivers.. I remember a lot of spinning AMOCO and SUNOCO gas signs back in the day.
Drove the "Miracle Mile" (known locally) stretch of Wilshire many times! I worked a few blocks north at CBS TV City....Beverly and Fairfax. Great part of town!
Wilshire Boulevard looks way different today. I saw them drive pass The El Rey Club, still standing today. That part of Wilshire is called The Miracle Mile...
Beautiful time very clean city’s no homeless along the streets ❤❤❤❤❤
Marvelling at the perfectly-suited Deco architecture, it’s easy to overlook the many far more Modernist buildings there. (At 2.32 there’s an extremely far out-looking place that’d have looked brand new in the mid-‘60s) All that sleek plate glass and the simple lines in some of the luxe stores, looking madly glamorous. Astounding and fascinating. (Oh, and the advert for bomb shelters for $795! That must have been a fortune then)
Thank you, really brilliant.
The architecture is amazing, confident, stylish and doing its job.
I checked with an online inflation calculator and it said $800.00 in 1950 Money would require $10, 367.00 in 2024 bucks.. ...Let's go Brandon.
Did you notice the El Rey movie theater-"The Frogmen"? I saw that in June 1951, 7 years old. I thought it was super cool. I've seen it recently, it comes across today as total cornball....B movie.
I love these videos! It makes me want to go there like for a vacation. I wish that were possible. One thing I've noticed though, is how cars make left turns across traffic without the aid of a left turn light and the oncoming traffic just stops and waits patiently. That would never happen now.
In 1958, I lived at Wilshire and 5th in Santa Monica. This brings back memories.
I was born in Torrance and we moved to Buena Park in 1956, right close to Knott's Barry Farm; my dad was in construction and was elected mayor of Buena Park so kinda necessitated a move to Orange County; but the first 15 years of my life was spent in the L.A. area and this all brings back fresh memories.
Oh, for a time machine.
I'd go back in a minute. Grew up in the L.A. area in the late 50s/early 60s and it was a whole different vibe back then. Everybody had money, everybody had a job, everybody took pride in their property, parents had control of their kids -- plus we had the beach, the Island, the mountains, the desert, all within a couple hours drive. It pretty much defined my life when I got older, even though I finally left L.A. for good in the early 70s.
I love to see the old gas stations
Looked eminently livable back then with stores, cafeterias, grocery, shops. Now it's a ruthless concrete jungle of de facto defunct office buildings that sit vacant
Great, 1968 to 71, my office was in Mullen and Bluet building shown in one ,,the Blvd had changed little…thanks
What a beauty. To whomever filmed this. Thank you!
Sad that Wiltshire Blvd looks like a massive dump these days! Truly unrecognizable. So many iconic buildings torn down.
Wilshire looked this good in the early 70s even. Last time I drove down Wilshire was in 1973 when my dad had a condo in I think Century City - there or Beverly Hills, I can't remember which. But by then more large buildings had sprung up and it was _the_ business district. At night it was gorgeous. I wouldn't be caught dead there now or I might be caught dead.
Remembered the old May Co.building, Ralphs,La Brea tar pits much props My family many memories..
Epoca dorada,una auténtica postal de cine! 😍.Maravilloso video!👌
This is 1951. The theaters in those days did not show old movies but were very current. The movie queue at 0:48 shows two movies that came out in 1951.
Excellent work! Could watch this for hours - my productivity is zero!
00:30 I love the art deco Du-Par's on the corner. When I lived in L.A. I was lucky to regularly patronize the Farmer's Market location, the Studio City location, even the Thousand Oaks and the short-lived Glendale locations. Sadly, all that's left is the Farmer's Market restaurant.
Love the billboards etc. My dad would travel down to LA and around southern California during the late 50s. I can see why. Wow just so cool. Remember......Be Happy Go Lucky
Beautiful video!...Life seemed so much more calmer back then.
7:36: That Ralph's looks awesome!
It really was. Now they have a new building. It is 5601 Wilshire Blvd.
It looked small!
Wow so crazy, I wanna cry.
Lot of memories, THANK YOU, Fantastic job!!!
fascinating! looks like it was filmed yesterday
Double feature, Fugitive Lady and The Frogmen showing at the El Rey Theatre on Wilshire. Love it.
I know those places. Miracle Mile Art Deco buildings. La Brea. Used to live near Western and Wilshire in the 80s and 90s.
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”
― L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between
Interesting quote.
Impressive - beautiful restoration. I lived off Sepulveta and Manchester near the LAX in the 50s and 60s. I wonder if there's any film like this of that area. Love seeing those old ads - bomb shelters and my dad's favorite beer - Brew 102!
It’s so weird and crazy to see 5th and San Pedro before it was skid row when It was a nice decent area
Priceless footage
More pleasant looking back in that time not so much traffic to deal with.
i love the billboards and advertising from then..i was a little kid in the 60s and remember a lot of signage that still looked like that
What a beautiful restoration, yet depressing because it shows how far we’ve fallen. The streets and sidewalks were impeccably clean and the people were far fitter than they are today. We are living in the dystopian future.
WHOOPS ! UPON A SECOND LOOK, THE NEWEST CAR SEEN WAS A 1953 CHEVY !
Magnificent! But how/why did anyone know to film something like this and how much it would be enjoyed decades later?
This video is yet another sad reminder of everything we have lost.
Van De Kamp's Wilshire !! Gone !! I cry...
Dorn's House of Miracles: radio, televisions, appliances, records.
A LITTLE BIT OF HEAVEN RIGHT HERE ON EARTH ❣️
The added sound is nice and clear. Situation is different now a days is more people and cars now. I see the stores most likely new stores have taken place.
That's a 1950 Hudson sedan parallel parked facing the opposite direction at 5:44.
It's so strange to see the old cars that you've always seen as rust buckets sitting in salvage yards and in overgrown fields actually in mint condition... New paint and everything.
1951. Wow, it was lovely then..
Those are some nice cafeterias.
Everything has been a perpetual downhill slide since then. Like living on another planet.
People get what they vote for
The Ralph's sign hasn't changed much.
GREAT VIDEO!! I LIVE IN LA AND I KNOW THESE AREAS AND SOME MOST CHANGED.. THANK'S!!
So uncluttered looking, and CLEAN looking. Saw a Bus, going westbound, probably the #83 line RTD, went from downtown LA to Santa Monica.
The jaywalker @10:07 liked to live dangerously.
Nice restoration, but having grown up in the 50's, I can assure you cars were not painted dark purple.
It depends on the condition of the film
it's something to do with the color properties of a.i. it seems to misread certain tones in b&w film.
This seems the future, not the past, and much more beautiful than today.
My favorite part: "F ollow the plan until it doesn't work."
The movie marquee shows "Fugitive Lady", which was released in the USA in July 1951 - so we know about when this wonderful clip was shot.
"Do you remember back in old L.A.
When everybody drove a Chevrolet?"
My dad had a Chevrolet
"Beach Baby " a one hit wonder by British bubblegum pop group The First Class. Came out in 1974.
@@hestheMaster th-cam.com/video/9FWyi7TGYw0/w-d-xo.html
This is actually from 1951. If you look at the Theater Marquee at 2:49 you can see they are promoting the movies The Frogmen and Fugitive Lady which came out early 1950, but The Frogmen came out May of 1951.
Fugitive Lady didn't release in the US until 1951 from what I researched
Great video👍
Thank you!
According to the movie marquis (The Frogmen) this was Summer 1951. I love seeing the cars and the well dressed ladies.
4:58 "$795 Bomb Shelters." If THAT ain't a sign of the times. I lived in Long Beach in the early 60s and I still vividly remember the "drop-and-cover" drills in 1st Grade, the air raid sirens being tested, this was 1961 right around the time of the Bay of Pigs debacle and the Cuban Missile Crisis. My parents had transistor radios handy in case of a bomb-drop and fallout, as well as a 2-way VHF radio. Hell, I was in 1st Grade, I didn't know what the hell was going on; but my parents and teachers sure did. Not long after did I get to read and see that recent history and I was like wow -- now I know why everybody was paranoid and protective of me.
I knew there was a lot of stress due to the Cold War, but I've never seen so many booze billboards in one area in all my life! And I like the double entendre of the Signal Gas billboard..."Go Farther!"...like second base with your date? Pretty racy for 1951.
4:46 Johnie's Coffee Shop was built in 1956 across from The May Company
There are no cars dated beyond 1952 in this footage so Johnie's coffee shop has to date earlier than 1956.
@@goplad1 1951 because of the movies playing at the theater. Definitely isn't 1956.
Now if you have cars that are 25 maybe 30 years apart in age, they are not easily distinguishable.
This looks like the Miracle Mile district on Wilshire between Fairfax and Highland. A lot of these buildings are still there today
So much nicer without all of todays clutter, traffic, crime, gangbangers, bad music and ugly ass foriegn cars.
I really enjoy watching these videos.
One thing I've noticed is a problem with the colorization. At first, I thought many of the cars looked rusty. But I realized that was unlikely. I believe this is actually some negative effect of the colorization process. Can you clarify?
The only factor was dust, not rust. And it hardly was true for vehicles especially in Los Angeles. Thank goodness I told you this before a modern biased person came waltzing along to subvert your expectations.
th-cam.com/video/HFi6NM0VK2k/w-d-xo.html
Ignore the music, it doesn't accurately fit the poise of that era.
The colorization is based on a machine learning algorithm and will not be historically accurate. At the same time it makes the experience more vivid.