Thank you so much for your excursion to the Bank of America on Colorado Boulevard,
sopas ej. I wasn't expecting you to go so quickly!
Today's Julius Shulman post is coming straight outta Compton, although the photos date from at least a decade before any members of N.W.A were born. Here's
"Job 1031: Bank of America (Compton, Calif.),1951", showing the Bank of America on the corner of Compton Bouelvard and Tamarind Avenue.
On the far side of the bank, it looks like the stores were competing for the tallest blade sign.
Here's a close-up of the stores on the right. Security First National Bank also had an attractive building. Next to that was Florsheim Shoes and Nygard's gift and toy store.
Here's the view looking the other way.
I'm guessing that the car with the great roof rack belongs to the guy up the ladder. The stores here are Senit's (? apparel and accessories), Kirby's Shoes and Hart's Jewelers.
All from
Getty Research Institute
This area has been drastically changed since 1951, and none of the buildings in the Shulman photos are still standing. So, with an absence of meaningful "now" pictures, I decided to show the changes with some aerial shots. Here's how the area looked in 1953, just two years after the pictures above. Notice that the buildings to the south of Compton Boulevard backed onto the slightly angled Palm Street.
Historic Aerials
Everything stayed much the same for about 20 years. The 1972 image shows the area between W Compton Boulevard and W Palm Street cleared, and the Compton Library under construction. The east section of Palm Street can still be seen on the 1980 image (below), but the first part of the west section has been wiped out by a new plaza between the library and the new courthouse (W Palm Street continues out-of-shot to the left). The area south of E Palm Street has been cleared of everything except a parking lot.
Historic Aerials
The area from the Shulman pictures now looks like this. Although the street below Compton Boulevard is still named E Palm Street, it is now further south. A sign at the intersection of Compton and Tamarind calls it "Compton Town Center". Personally, I think it looked more like a town center in 1951!
Google Maps
Although it's not visible in the Shulman photos, there is a survivor from that era. On the corner of Compton Boulevard and Willowbrook Avenue is the 1935 Compton Post Office.
Charles Swaney/
livingnewdeal.org
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I'm curious about that white vertical rectangle on the building. I can't figure out why it's there.
Linear Mode
