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When Mitzi Schector, the fifteen-year-old heroine of Mitzi of the Ritz, arrived in El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles, the town had metamorphosed from a sleepy Mexican village near the Los Angeles River (El Rio Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles) into a metropolis of 1,238,048 citizens. Thankfully by 1930, the name had been shortened to Los Angeles.  

The Santa Fe Railroad completed its line from Chicago to Los Angeles in 1893 and thousands migrated westward. By the beginning of the 20^th Century, entrepreneurs looking to make their fortunes realized the potential of the Western town with abundant land, sunshine and blue skies. By the start of the Great Depression, the city’s finances centered around two industries, motion pictures and aviation. 

After a cross-country trip on the famed 20^th Century Limited and the Santa Fe Chief, Mitzi and her mother’s first vision of Los Angeles was the beautiful La Grande Station. The Moorish styled rail station was an exotic collection of archways, domes and palm trees. Though long gone, this intriguing structure that blended several architectural styles was the gateway to Los Angeles.  

On the way to Los Angeles, Mitzi mentions the community of Boyle Heights, now a Mexican American enclave located east of downtown Los Angeles; however, in the 1920s and 30s, Boyle Heights was one of the centers of Jewish life in Los Angeles with a community almost as vibrant as New York’s. In 1930, Boyle Heights was a mix of Jews, Russians, Yugoslavs, Hispanics and Japanese Americans. Cantor’s Deli, the Fairfax Boulevard institution was originally located in Boyle Heights and for a time, make-up maven, Max Factor, made his home in Boyle Heights.  

Instead of moving to Boyle Heights, Mitzi and her mother take a room in the fictional Dorchester Arms, a boarding house on Bunker Hill. In the early 1900s, Bunker Hills was a charming hillside community that overlooked downtown Los Angeles. It was a collection of splendid Victorian mansions and the location of the shortest railway in the world, Angels Flight. Since Los Angeles is a city in perpetual flux, the affluent residents abandoned the community for homes in choicer locations like Pasadena and Beverly Hills. Bunker Hill went into a decline after Word War I, and many of the grand homes were converted into rooming houses.  The old Bunker Hill is long gone. The remaining Victorian homes were relocated and skyscrapers of steel and concrete took their place.  

The Grand Central Market opened in 1917 and is the largest open-air market in the city. It has long been a Mecca for anyone looking for bargains in fresh produce and baked goods. The Grand Central Market overlooks Broadway.  Unlike New York’s Broadway, which was the center of live theater in America, the famed Broadway theater district of Los Angeles was home to some of the most beautiful movie palaces ever built. Stunning edifices like the Million Dollar, United Artists, Orpheum and Los Angeles Theatre, were all tributes to the movie going experience before the age of the Cineplex. All were built in eye-popping opulence and not a penny was spared on making them as lavish as possible. After talking movies became the standard, theaters no longer needed the orchestras that accompanied silent drama in the bigger movie places. Those with orchestra pits were able to accommodate the traveling variety shows that visited Los Angeles. Though most of the theaters have fallen into disarray or no longer exist, the Los Angeles Conservancy continues to offer tours of the area and is actively involved in its renewal.   

Downtown Los Angeles was never the bustling center of commerce that Manhattan was. It was often maligned for lacking the unified architectural style of older cities yet there were many handsome Edwardian buildings, the Romanesque Bradbury Building and the English music-hall styling of the Broadway Arcade along with the art deco style of some structures including the department stores, Bullocks and the Broadway. The Los Angeles Central Library, constructed in 1927, was designed in a beautiful faux Egyptian style and there were lovely retail shops on every street. At the height of the Great Depression, a family of restaurateurs, the Clintons, made it their mission to feed the masses at their premier cafeterias, Clifton’s Pacific Seas designed in an opulent South Sea island motif and in later, Clifton’s Brookdale, with its waterfalls and mock redwoods. The founder, Clifton Clinton, was a man of deep religious principles and while other downtown restaurants turned away people of color, Clifton’s eateries were always open to everyone. In fact, Mr. Clinton would feed the hungry regardless of ability to pay. During the height of the Depression in 1932, the Clinton family opened a penny “Cavateria” where anyone could buy a nutritious dish for a penny. Clifton’s Brookdale continues to open its doors and serve delicious fare.  

Mitzi mentions the Wilshire Temple, declaring it to be too hoity toity for her. The congregation was the oldest in Los Angeles eventually moving from downtown Los Angeles to its Wilshire location in 1929. The magnificent building with its impressive Byzantine dome features fine mosaics, black marble and beautiful murals commissioned by studio head Jack Warner. The temple was located on Wilshire Boulevard, a marvelous thoroughfare that moves from downtown and ends at the city of Santa Monica and the Pacific Ocean. Wilshire Boulevard runs through some of the choicest parts of the Los Angeles including Beverly Hills and Westwood.  The famed Ambassador Hotel, home of the Cocoanut Grove and the location of Mitzi’s memorable encounter with a famed actor, was located on Wilshire.  

In 1930, Hollywood Boulevard was pristine, crime free and placid.  It was not however, the street of glamour and dreams that Mitzi imagined. There were however, beautiful theaters like Grauman’s Chinese and the Egyptian, eateries like the Pig ‘N Whistle and Musso and Frank’s Grill which has continued relatively unchanged since 1919. C.C. Brown’s moved to Hollywood Boulevard in 1928 and served generations of ice cream lovers. While C.C. Brown’s is gone, their delicious hot chocolate sauce is still available at another Los Angeles institution, Lawry’s The Prime Rib.  There were hotels like the restored Hollywood Roosevelt and the long gone but not forgotten, Hollywood Hotel. Max Factor’s famed beauty emporium was located right off the Boulevard on Highland and created a standard of beauty that was adopted by women across the globe. Hollywood was also home to Paramount Pictures, one of the most prestigious studios in the business and the Poverty Row home of Columbia Pictures. RKO Radio Pictures made Santa Monica Boulevard it home and was founded after the advent of sound. Many a star has been laid to rest in the Hollywood Cemetery.  

The fictional Regal Pictures lot is located in what is now West Hollywood. In the 1930s, West Hollywood was an unincorporated area between Hollywood and Beverly Hills that included the famed Sunset Strip. Since it was unincorporated and not under the auspices of the Los Angeles Police Department, a number of clubs and speakeasies dotted the area.  West Hollywood was, and is, the home of the famed Sunset Strip. It is the location of the famed Chateau Marmont, a West Hollywood marvel that has hosted the rich and famous since it was transformed from an apartment house into a hotel in 1931.   

Regal Films is made up of descriptions of several of the movie studios that sprouted up after the movie industry relocated to California. While not as large as the greatest studio of the period, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Regal Pictures is just as premier a studio as Paramount and Warner Brothers. Regal withstood the transition from silent to sound and in addition to the established Paramount, MGM and Warner Brothers, had to compete with newer studios that were built after the change over to sound, RKO and Twentieth Century Fox.  

In 1906, a real estate company opened a tract of land called Beverly Hills. Beverly Hills was located between Los Angeles and Santa Monica, “between the city and the sea”. The individual lots sold for $2,000 and buyers could create custom homes in any stile they wished. In 1918, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford purchased enough land to build their dream house, Pickfair and were soon joined by other stars. Beverly Hills became the name most associated with the wealth and lavish life style of the entertainment industry. In 1912, a lavish pink edifice designed in the Spanish tradition, the Beverly Hills Hotel opened and became one of the haunts of the rich and famous.  

It’s fitting that Mitzi’s journey ends at the sea or in her case, the Pacific Ocean, in one the most beautiful spots on earth, Malibu. The development of Malibu started in 1928 when a real estate developer started leasing thirty-foot lots at $1.00 per ocean front foot per month. Members of the motion picture community quickly snapped up the lots and the Malibu Movie Colony was born.   

Mitzi gets her first look of the Pacific Ocean in Malibu and sees surfing for the first time as she watches young athletes brave the waves. The famed Olympic swimmer, Duke Kahanamoku, introduced the Hawaiian sport of surfing in to the mainland in Malibu. Duke lived in California in the 1920s and became a close friend of one of the first residents of Malibu Colony, the British actor, Ronald Colman.  
 

Links

www.grandcentralsquare.com - this cheery site details the history of the Grand Center Market, a Los Angeles institution since 1917.  

www.laconservancy.org - An excellent site for anyone interested in the history of the architecture of Los Angeles and the movement to restore the great theaters of Broadway. 
 

www.cliftonscafeteria.com - The Clinton family fed the poor during the Great Depression and opened their doors to everyone regardless of color. This lovely site tells their history with photographs of the downtown Clifton restaurants. 

www.theambassadorhotel.com - Anyone interested in Los Angeles/Hollywood history will find this site with its unique links fascinating   

www.hollywoodusa.co.uk - A UK site full of information about celebrity graves, Los Angeles gangsters and famous homes. Definitely worth a look  

www.paramountstudios.com - This premier movie studio has opened its gates to the public for tours.  

matineeatthebijou.blogspot.com - A fascinating blog for anyone interested in the history of the smaller Hollywood studios located on Gower Street, a.k.a. Poverty Row 

www.mussoandfrankgrill.com - Musso and Frank’s has been a Hollywood Boulevard favorite since 1919.  

www.pignwhistle.com - Details the history of the now restored Hollywood restaurant which adjoins the Egyptian Theater, opened its doors in 1927 and became a favorite with Shirley Temple, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy. 

www.hollywoodforever.com - The place where Valentino and other film greats rest through eternity 

www.chateaumarmont.com - The official site of one of the great hotels of the world that happens to be located in the city of West Hollywood on Sunset. 

www.thebeverlyhillshotel.com - The site of the famed Pink Palace