Oh LA, what a city you are. How the people (including me) call everywhere in Southern California you. How you’re covered in smog and cannot actually be seen. Yes indeed. How polluted you are. But you didn’t used to be! You used to look nice! Way back in time, over fifffffty yeeeears agoooo, you looked pretty spiffy! Kinda swanky, didn’t you? Yes you did. Let’s have a short look at some of your longer structures, the tall ones and the short ones, the really nice ones and the weird ones. Photos in a collection as collected by Actionlog, a hero for collectors.

This man named Actionlog has a vast collection on flickr of items that fall under the category “vintage.” Now he’s got one amazingly simple and lovely manifesto which I’ve included here below this paragraph, and I think everyone who has the ability to should follow his lead suite. That means get your scanners out, Johnny, it’s time to compute.

I collect vintage postcards, slides and magazines which I scan and put online for everyone to enjoy. I feel it is very important to put this kind of stuff on the internet as to make sure it does not disappear into obscurity.

The photos you see below all come from the Los Angeles California area, if not right in the heart of the city. If you place your mouse over any photo, you’ll see a little bit more detail in the filename of each jpeg. These photos come from a span of time around 20 years, but they’re all from single dates in these years: 1941, 1954, 1962, 1964, 1965. Fantastic colors from a bright moment in time!

BONUS: for an extended conversation on these images and the thought of living in modern-day Los Angeles, head on over to A Continuous Lean.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies brightness category.