Of the 16 miles of Wilshire Boulevard, most of my memories are of the Miracle Mile, the stretch between Fairfax and La Brea... actually as far east as June Street, where we attended John Burroughs Junior High.

I grew up in the 1930s and '40s, just west of Fairfax adjacent to the Carthay Circle Theatre, which was an outstanding architectural gem, and was demolished to make room for an office building... it was a terrible waste; unfortunately, there was no L.A. Conservancy then to save it... the theater was part of the "Fox West Coast" theater chain, as well as the El Rey (still there, now a nightclub), and the Ritz, which was located just east of La Brea.

The Miracle Mile was a promotional name to introduce that area of new stores being built there in the late 1930s and early '40s… the kids at Fairfax and Los Angeles High Schools were asked to enter a contest of "slogans" befitting this new commercial idea. The winner of this contest was a Fairfax junior named Muriel Wallace (my sister), and her winning slogan was "Mile of Style, Miracle Mile."

Let's take a memory trip down Wilshire, beginning at Fairfax... before the May Company department store (now part of LACMA) was built, the lot was vacant and used for temporary venues for Christmas pageants and circuses. Across the street, where the Petersen Automotive Museum is located, was originally a café, and then Ohrbach's Department Store...

LACMA was just vacant land with a tar pit... little did we realize as kids the historic significance of that area... Museum Square (the ten-story office building), just east of LACMA, was originally called Prudential Square, after the owner/developer Prudential Insurance Company... it was built right after WWII; it was designed by Wurdeman and Becket, who also designed the Pan Pacific Auditorium a mile or so north at Beverly Boulevard….the initial location of the Ohrbach's store was in that complex, which opened about 1948.

Continuing easterly, there were many small two-story buildings with stores and shops including Van de Kamp's bakery, (prior to the bakery, it was a Slapsy Maxie’s nightclub, where allegedly [Dean] Martin and [Jerry] Lewis got their start), Ralphs Market, Ontra cafeteria, Phelps Terkel men's store, Coulter's department store at Hauser (where there is still a large hole in the ground left over from its demolition), two chain men's stores, Desmond's and Silverwoods; the building they were in, on the south side of the street across from the El Rey Theatre, still has their names on the top of the building...

A Thrifty drug store at Cochran, Wimpy's hamburger stand across the street, and A&P market, Mandell's shoe store, Vic Tanny's gym (upstairs)... and around the corner on La Brea was a Tips restaurant, whose motto was "thick steaks and thin pancakes," and the La Brea bowling alley. In those days we set pins for each other, as automatic pin setters weren't yet invented.

The Ritz movie theatre was on the south side of Wilshire just east of La Brea; another Art Deco palace that was a victim of a wrecking ball for an office building! When we were at J.B.'s, there was a hot dog stand one block east of the Ritz; it was called Gimpy's…(as I recall, the owner had a limp; he named it, not us)... and it was our meeting place/hangout. I have many, many fond memories of meeting the guys and gals there... it was an outdoor clubhouse with food service!

Something I still remember is the Wilshire Bus we took along Miracle Mile to J.B.'s. It was a double decker, and the top deck was open... and boy what pranks we played throwing things off of it... (pretty tame compared to some of today's kids)... when I finally got to Fairfax High, a bunch of us worked at Ohrbach's... we worked Thursday night and all day Saturday... and were always closed on Sunday! And on those days that we were paid, we usually hurried down to the Simon's Drive-In at the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax...

There are some other memories along other parts of Wilshire... my mom and dad were married in the Ambassador Hotel in 1923... we had many "special occasion" dinners at the Cocoanut Grove and Perino's... we spent many hours ice skating at the Sonja Henie Ice Palace, a block off Wilshire in Westwood... and my wife's dad took her and her sisters to the fountain at Santa Monica Boulevard to see the water change colors (it was actually the changing of the lights in the water)... and the huge coffe-esta ice cream sundaes at Blum's at the corner of Beverly Drive... these are my many Wilshire Blvd. Memories...