1505 at North Figueroa and York Blvd.
Alan Weeks Photo, Alan Weeks Collection
Los Angeles Transit Lines (ex-Los Angeles Railway) W Line car no. 1505 approaches the intersection of North Figueroa Street and York Blvd. in this image captured February 15, 1948.
Alan Weeks Photo, Alan Weeks Collection
From Alan Weeks (12/14/10):
Here is a group of my earliest photographs. I was fifteen years old and still used my parents old Ansco Box Camera. I grew up in Southwest Los Angeles. I had a Herald Express paper route. My route was quite large and was bounded by Gramercy Pl. on the West, and Western Ave. on the East. 48th St. on the North and 54th Street on the South. My parents insisted that I save half of the money I made. The U.S. Post Office where my father worked sold U. S. War Bonds. I started purchasing one a month. I still have the first two I bought. They were large like Stock Certificates. Engraved like money. Now they are IBM cards.
So when my parents moved to Eagle Rock the Route Manager called some one at the paper and I got me a new route in Eagle Rock. My old route was totally flat and easy to cover on my bicycle. The Eagle Rock route was almost all on the hills. I guess no one wanted it so I grabbed it.
Every day a Model A convertible would drop off my papers at BVT (Buena Vista Terrace) and N. Figueroa St. There was a
stairway going up the hill and a small Market. A little hot dog stand was next to the market. A good place to end a Street Car Line and that is where the W car line ended.
After school I would ride up to the end of the line. I would deliver all my papers and come back to the terminal. For about an hour or so I would change trolley poles and reverse seats in the cars. I got to know almost all of the crews on this line. Once in awhile I would get a free round trip to Washington and Rimpau.
Here is a contemporary view of the location:
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The tower on the right in the distance (at Garvanza Ave)is extant in the Google Street photo dated October 2011.
I grew up just two streets up from York Blvd in Highland Park. I used to ride the street car to school back then. My God brother and I would walk down the street and cut through the back of the Woolworths store coming out onto York Blvd. Then we would walk to the corner and wait for the street car. Since the line ended in the middle of the street, we would wait in front of the corner drug store and watch for the street car to arrive. The motorman would stop, raise the opposite pole and lower the first one. Then he would walk through the car to the “new” front end. When he was ready, he would walk us kids from the corner out to the streetcar and we would begin our trip back down York Blvd. I did this until about 1954 (??). My memory is a bit cloudy now that I am 77. I w2ill always remember riding the LARy and also the PE out to Long Beach! One can only wonder at the stupidity of scrapping all of these great routes only to now “reinvent” streetcar service as Light Rail with many of the routes on the original Row. truly a sad note in our history.