People from all over the city descended upon Pershing Square to witness the lighting of a 105-foot Christmas tree. With the flip of a switch, the holiday season in Los Angeles had begun.
The year was 1949.
Photo from UCLA Library Digital Collections
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Now *THAT* is a Christmas tree.
Wow…that must have been amazing, imagine at the height of the post-war boom something like that to make the holiday seem even bigger and brighter.
Wow, there were actually trees in Pershing Square once.
I want to join in the beauty of that picture, but the truth of the matter is in LA around Pershing Square during that celebration people who were brown and black wouldn’t have been allowed at that celebration. We also would not have been allowed to have a drink at the Biltmore’s Gallery Bar next door, so from far away and 70 years past it looks beautiful, but at that time there was nothing beautiful about a still very segregated Los Angeles.
Just to give you a feeling of LA at that time. Six years from that date in 1955 my mom wouldn’t have even been allowed to go inside Disneyland.
I’d rather have a fake tree at LA Live than the reality of 1949.