Post cards from Karel

An ‘Auto’biography of History

The postcard that I got from Karel, with an Iris Blue MGA, is from the Hollywood Downtowner Motel, in Los Angeles, CA. Take a good look at the words Hollywood Downtowner on the sign. The shape of the white back ground doesn’t quite fit the oval shape of the sign and the perspective of the text is not quite in alignment with the rest of the picture.

After Google’ing around a little bit it turns out that the motel was built in 1956 as the Coral Isle and later was renamed the Hollywood Downtowner. Apparently they didn’t want to invest in new photography and just put the new name on the old, existing, photograph. Here is the old postcard, with the same Iris Blue MGA, from when the motel still was the Coral Isle.

~~ Reinout Vogt