The Rainbow Pier, Long Beach, California

 

It always seems like Long Beach is looking for another tourist attraction.  Right now, it's the Queen Mary and the Long Beach Aquarium, which I admit, is pretty impressive.  So, in 1931 it was the Rainbow Pier.  It was a rainbow-shaped fishing pier, 3800 feet long, with a roadway on the top that allowed cars to drive over the Pacific Ocean.  Eventually, rotting pilings and storm damage made repairs prohibitively expensive so the Rainbow Pier became the Rainbow Lagoon after a hell of a lot of rock and dirt was dumped where the pier once was.  This card was once pasted into a photo album, so most of the back is covered in black construction paper.  I can't make out any of the written message, just a few letters that were exposed when it was removed from the album.  I can make out part of the postmark, so it was mailed.  Dated, 1937. 

Owl Drugs

 

Old Los Angeles.  Well, sort of.  Actually, it's Beverly Hills and while somewhat smaller, this building is still there.  Many years ago, I worked nearby and used to walk down there on my lunch hour and buy a snack.  Anyway, I found some information to pass along, but not as much as I'd like.  I know the store opened in 1947, but I couldn't find the name of the architect.  I know the building was commissioned by Justin Dart, the CEO of Rexall Drugs, and that it wasn't just the world's largest drug store, but also the headquarters for the company.  Today, it's a CVS and Target.  The caption on the back of the card, "World Headquarters, REXALL DRUG COMPANY, Beverly and La Cienega Boulevards LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA."  It was published by "WESTERN PUBLISHING & NOVELTY CO., LOS ANGELES, CALIF."  This card was never mailed.  

A Vacation in Hamburg 2

 

A quick turnaround for part 2, but after this one., there will be a bit of a break before I post more from this collection.  The top photo looks like it's probably a private home, perhaps a German relative's house of the vacationers.  Written on the back, and the only photo with any notation, "6 JULY 1989."  I know that a large portion of Hamburg was destroyed during World War 2, which makes me wonder if the modern buildings of Hamburg were painted to give a medieval feel to a rebuilt city. Click on the Hamburg Vacation Collection in labels to see the rest of the lot.  At least once I get around to putting them all up on the site. 

A Vacation in Hamburg 1

 

I've mentioned this before.  If I were being completely honest, this blog would be called the recently purchased photography since almost all of the photos I post are bought in antique stores, thrift stores, flea markets, and online.  Every once in a while, I actually find photos, and these are some of them.  This afternoon I took a walk to Hollywood and found envelopes of color negatives and fifty-plus prints, just lying on the street.  In total, there were six envelopes, and each one contained a processed roll of Kodak Gold color film, all 36 exposures.  Not every frame had an image, but the prints I found don't add up, so I didn't get every photo from these images printed in Hamburg, Germany.  It's possible that some Germans moved to L.A., but I think it's more likely that they are vacation pictures. Too, a couple of the photos I found have a date written on the back, "July 1989."  Anyway, I'm not quite sure how I'm going to post these images, most likely five per post, but that's not a final, set-in-stone decision.  Click on the Hamburg Vacation Collection to see future posts.  And what's really weird, about a mile further down the street I found some transparencies, but since the scanner I own doesn't scan slides or negatives, they may never get posted.  It's nice to know that Germans use the same type of urinals we do in the U.S.