Inside Tinsel TownBeyond what you see on the big and small screens, Los Angeles really is a lot of bright lights and red carpets, but also real people, real crimes, and even real ghosts.
Updated March 6, 2021 27.3K votes 4.4K voters 308.4K views
Over 4.4K Ranker voters have come together to rank this list of 40 Mind-Blowing Photos of Historic Los Angeles
Travel back to a time before smog and freeways ruled Los Angeles with a list of vintage LA photos. We all have an image of LA, whether it's based on the beaches of Santa Monica or the glitz of Hollywood, but these photos from the 1800s and early 1900s show the City of Angels in a whole different light.
Los Angeles is a city that is constantly changing, which makes looking at old pictures of the LA area a strange experience. Though the city's history goes back much further, California's induction into the United States and the railroad's arrival in the mid-19th century resulted in a massive immigration boom and breakneck industrialization. That's when LA as we know it began to take shape.
These mind-blowing black and white photos from the period allow us to trace the origins of modern Los Angeles, illuminating just how much has changed and how much has stayed the same in the Southland.
31 years later, the Ambassador Hotel would be the site of Robert F. Kennedy's assassination. The hotel was demolished in 2005 and the site is now home to the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools.
