COAST TO COAST: Venice Boulevard Through the Lens of the Coast Realty Archive
In 2019 the CLUI acquired a collection of 15,000 old real estate listings from Coast Realty, a real estate office located next door to the Center’s main office on Venice Boulevard. The listings cover a period from the late 1950s through the mid-1960s, and, whether commercial or residential, each sheet has a photograph of the structure for sale, taken from the street. As a result, this collection of ephemera provides a unique block-by-block photographic survey of the westside of Los Angeles, at that time.
Drawing from the vast inventory of the Coast Realty Archive, we have coupled a selection of these images with contemporary photographs of the same location, taken in 2020 by the CLUI. Looking at the changes, from then to now, shows the transformation that took place from the early city, booming with post-war possibility, to the city of today.
2020–2021 CLUI Research Project
