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Description

Los Angeles is the Wonderland of the World and to see it properly is to see it by Streetcar and Coach!

Fascinating transportation map of Los Angeles, highlighting the lines of the Los Angeles Transit Company.

The map is very interesting in that it provides one of the final snapshots of Los Angeles before the Automobile Industry completely remade the Los Angeles transit scene.

This undated example of the map is quite likely the first edition, as all others we have located bear a "revised" date.  The map provides a fine overview of the street car, trolley and bus lines operating in Los Angeles immediately after World War II and immediately before the automobile industry completely remade the Los Angeles transit landscape.

Operating lines include:

  • LA Transit Trackless Trolleys
  • LA Transit Coach
  • LA  Transit Car Lines
  • Los Angeles Motor Coach Lines
  • Pacific Electric Railway Local Car Lines
  • Pacific Electric Railway Local Car Lines

The numbers and letters on the map are keyed to explanations on the verso, giving additional details on the various lines, and highlighting landmarks and tourist attractions around Los Angeles.  The verso also includes an enlarged map of Downtown Los Angeles and a nice chamber of commerce type booster message, boasting about LA's rapid growth in population and manufacturing.

The opening of the Arroyo Seco Parkway in 1940, linking Downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena with the first of what would be a network of freeways. Over the next decades, the car culture flourished in Los Angeles. America's automotive industry successfully conspired to emasculate LA's public transportation system, buying up and ending the street car bus and trolley service which had previously served LA and advocating the construction of auto-friendly roads.  Within only a short time after this map, public transportation in LA would be nearly completely wiped off the map.

Rarity

The map and guide are quite rare.  This 1948 edition is not recorded in OCLC.

We note the following editions in OCLC.

  • February 15, 1946 (1 copy -- Stanford)
  • January 15, 1947 (1 copy --  LA Metropolitan Transit Library)
  • October 1, 1947 (3 copies -- LA Public Library, LA Metropolitan Transit Library and Hagley Museum)
  • March 1, 1949 (1 copy -- American Geographical Society / University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee)
  • June 15, 1950 (2 copies --  LA Metropolitan Transit Library and Hagley Museum)