Last night I went looking for some of the places on
e_r's recent "Los Angeles Life Fun Map". My search led me to YouTube and to one of Alison Martino's videos titled
Los Angeles in the 1940s. Here are a few screengrabs. The second half of the video concentrates on various Brown Derby locations.
Edit: The YouTube video is now showing as private. It seems to have been a compilation of videos at The Producers Library which are still available:
Sarnez and Ollie Hammond's Steak House
Farmer's Market Stores
Brown Derby Bamboo Room
YouTube
Another of Alison Martino's videos,
Restaurant exteriors 1940, shows several more of the locations on
e_r's map, and a few others.
Edit: This video is also private. The relevant videos at The Producers Library are:
Lawry's, Romanoff's, Bob Dalton's, Richlor's and Henry's Tail of the Cock
Bit of Sweden and Ciro's
Sphinx Club and Mocambo
Chasen's
La Rue
Hostess House Smorgasbord
NB. The images in these videos appear to have been cropped compared to the video which was on YouTube.
YouTube
While I was looking through the videos, I came across a short black & white film called
Hollywood Blvd / Glory Days. At about 50 seconds in, the camera passes Coffee Dan's (the neon arrows can be seen strobing):
YouTube
I tried to find out something about Somerset House (just above Ollie Hammond's on the map), but Google kept showing me pictures of its namesake building in London. I did find this matchbook of Somerset House in Riverside.
Ebay
The photo below came with no indication of location. It looks quite similar to the building on the matchbook, but maybe the one near Ollie Hammond's looked something like this too.
Ebay