I recently obtained this panoramic "double postcard" view of Downtown, circa 1904. (I think it may actually be a M. Rieder photograph, but that's only my amateur opinion.) Anyway, I just think it's a really neat view of Broadway and the Edwardian cityscape in general! Hard to grasp that it hasn't even been a hundred years yet since the city looked like this...
Is there any way a normal person living here today would recognize this as Los Angeles? Amazing that a city of such significance could change so completely in only one-and-a-half human lifespans, isn't it!
(For those who may want a better look at the old city, there's a nice hi-res enlargement of this image available on
my most recent blog post.)
-Scott