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- Killed by Amtrak
- Back to the Future
- Heckuva remote control!
- Sometimes — Things Go Bump!
- I SEE THE LIGHT
- Union Switch and Signal Company
- Get That Light Out Of My Eyes
- Eggs. Eggs. Eggs. The Egg Man is Here!
- Foreboding caption
- Famous Hollywood faces
- Not just S&P
- re: Those things in the jar
- Up In Smoke
- Medical Smoking
- Quick fix
- A Quink Comment
- If You’re Like Me, Never
- Delivering the News
- U.S.A.
- S&P
- 1940 Zenith radio model 6G601
- Quality goes in before the name goes on!
- Snazzy skirt
- Carbon Arc Lamps
- Illuminate us
- I remember it well
- I can't prove it
- Complicated then, forgotten now
- Bryan-Stevenson
- Skinny is as skinny does
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Fill Noir: 1942
April 1942. "Hollywood, California. Gasoline filling station at night." Photo by Russell Lee for the Office of War Information. View full size.
Showcase
The "Showcase" gasoline pump was manufactured by at least 3 different companies during the 1930s.
Strange pump?
Anyone know what that "pump" is in the center of the front lane? I swear, it looks more like an arcade "Claw Game" cabinet than a gasoline pump, and I've never seen anything like that that I can recall.
Car Wash
According to the BLI inflation calculator, that 69-cent car wash is equivalent to $10.76 today.
These are the days
Accounting for inflation, 69 cents in 1942 was pretty much exactly the same as the ten bucks you paid for that car wash yesterday, if not just a bit more.
Dave ?
EIViego sends a copy of news clipping to support his comment. You offhandedly dispute as we must accept what you say. Where is your support?
[That clipping is from me. Maybe you should read it again! - Dave]
Glassware giveaways and girls on roller skates
Mark C. Bloome immigrated to Southern California from Canada in 1924 and parlayed a 15-cent-a-gallon Richfield gasoline station into one of the nation's largest chain with 45 tire stores and service stations
He was a boy when he left Canada to find his fortune and only 22 when he opened his Richfield station at Compton Boulevard and Slauson Avenue in South-Central Los Angeles.
He survived the Depression years by offering glassware giveaways and other free premiums at his expanding chain of stations and at one point even had women on roller skates speeding among the pumps dispensing gasoline.
Bloome was 89 when he died at his Beverly Hills home, Dec.3, 1991
My oh My that signage
Getting a little light-headed over all those signs. And that neon clock. Hope they have those clocks in heaven.
Cheap wash
I paid ten bucks for a car wash yesterday ... those were the days!
Still Tired
The location was 6210 Sunset Boulevard at El Centro Avenue. There's still a tire store on the corner.
Film Noir
If it's taught me anything it's that this will soon be the scene of a crime, most likely a murder, or maybe some poor sap will pick up a stranded "dame" at this service station, sending his life careening off the tracks and ending in death.
Blackout, Shmackout?
If the date is right, the picture depicts a pretty blatant violation of the blackout rules, especially two months after the "Battle of Los Angeles."
[Except for the occasional air raid alert (see clipping below), Los Angeles was not under blackout. - Dave]
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