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The historic Capitol Records Tower and Equitable Building dominate my slide from August 1963. But we're more interested in the Checker cab, the weird streetlight, the fallout shelter sign, the men in suits, the women in hats carrying purses and the Via Vigna Inn, aren't we? Less interesting: bizarre color issues courtesy Montgomery Ward-branded film. View full size.
Our family ventured west from South Bend, IN to Los Angeles on the Sante Fe RR in June of 1963, and visited this same iconic corner. I may have a B&W snapshot of this locale, but I think it would pale in comparison to this image.
The American Airlines ticket sales shop on the corner jogged my memory back to the days of yore when you either booked airline travel via a travel agency or at a stand-alone ticket retailer like the one pictured. I don't recall seeing them in the US, but while traveling abroad in my misspent youth I frequented "bucket shops" to buy airline tickets.
[It's not a ticket sales shop. American Airlines owned the building. -tterrace]
Caption says Checker cab but the cab itself has Yellow on roof. They were two different companies.
[It's both. Checker is the make of the car. - Dave]
Nice photo, but I must ask - what are all the slides you post so fuzzy? Is that the nastures of the medium, an artifact of blowong them up, or do you need a better scanner?
I have seen plenty ofsharp slides, Kodachrome or other, but your Shorpy ones seem badly off focus...Why?
[Well, not really all, if you check my own photos in my gallery here. But some of my shots from the 1960s show I had a tendency to misjudge depth of field. Note how in this one the closer passenger loading sign is in sharper focus than the taxi zone one. -tterrace]
At least in the lighting Industry. I sure hope some knowledgeable "Shorpyite" (I hope that's the correct terminology) has a story about these lights. They look amazing, and decades ahead of their time. Those can't be LED-lit stars, but they sure fit the application.
Wards film or not, thanks tterrace for another fine look at the Capitol building. This 2013 article provides interesting background--including reference to the famous Capitol echo chambers. Also two more photos of the building, one during construction. I wonder if any Shorpy members have seen inside the echo chambers and can report?
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