New Years Eve in Los Angeles 75 years ago

As 1936 gave way to 1937, a precursor to Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve held court in Los Angeles. NBC radio networks, along with KFI and KECA, broadcast the 'sounds of America dancing, shouting and singing' from such locales as New York, Chicago, Denver, Honolulu, San Francisco and Los Angeles.



Locally KHJ broadcast both Phil Harris's Palomar Orchestra, and Duke Ellington's Orchestra performing at Sebastian's Cotton Club.



Just as in decades past, Broadway was blocked off from First to Ninth streets to the delight (and safety) of the teaming throngs. The Los Angeles Times noted that it was 'the greatest New Year's Eve celebration the city had seen in many years.' It was also noted that the crowds were orderly and 'according to police observers, there was a marked absence of destructive rowdyism, public drunkenness and crime'.

Happy New Year Los Angeles 1911!!

An option for celebrating the New Year in 1911 would have been dinner at Casa Verdugo. Hop on the Pacific Electric Railway and be dropped practically at their door. Ads of the day described Casa Verdugo with the words: convenient, appetizing, service, attractive, vintage, elegance, refined, dainty, ultra, gratifying and original. The first letter of each of these words spells out your destination: Casa Verdugo. For an excellent and informative lecture please check out Charles Perry's Culinary Historians of Southern California lecture on the history of Casa Verdugo.



Other New Year's ideas that year prove timeless - an ad asks that "When you dine tonight ask for California wine. Remember that a dollar spent for California wine means a dollar left in California, while a dollar spent for foreign wine goes out of the country."

When the dawn broke on the first day of the new year it was noted that 'Police Surgeons and Police Sergeants were disappointed in the numbers, respectively, of injured and intoxicated.' The celebrating crowds were larger than ever before, thousands of people thronged Spring, Broadway and Main Streets, but there were only twelve arrests made the whole night and all were for drunkenness. The population in Los Angeles proper was approximately 320,000 in 1910 and apparently the police were hoping for a little more excitement!!

Happy New Year! (mid-1920s Version)

Federal and state law enforcement want to remind you that the Volstead Act still stands regardless of the fact that it is New Years! That society gal you've been dancing with? She's an undercover agent. The coronet player in the orchestra- he's undercover too. You WILL be caught!

And for those of you planning 'church meetings' on New Years Eve-- you'll find yourself short of sacramental wine, we just seized 20,000 gallons which we currently have under lock and key.

Just to keep things safe all motor vehicles will be barred on Broadway (between Third and Ninth) and on Sixth Street (between Main and Hill). You may now safely wander all over the streets so long as you stay off the streetcar tracks. They'll be running as usual.

Happy New Year! (mid-1910s Version)

Pre-Prohibition merriment!! Two hundred thousand revelers descend upon downtown Los Angeles- from First to Tenth streets, from Hill to Main streets. The biggest crowds could be found on Broadway (lined with theaters/theatres) and Spring ("Wall Street of the West"). According to The Times "It was a drunken crowd, a crowd not drunk with liquid measures, but intoxicated to frenzy by exhilaration that was pregnant with resolve to shoot the city onward in the modern rush for supremacy, commercial, industrial and financial." Heady times indeed.

You can still check out the sites for yourself!