The Wilshire Slides 1978- 1979

It was a heck of an after-school project for a mother and daughter: do an informal photo survey of Wilshire Boulevard from downtown to the ocean. Mother Marlene was a Michigan native who’d come to L.A. in the late 1950s and loved everything about the city, especially the architecture. Daughter Annie liked the architecture too, and loved using her mom’s Minolta camera. Together, they spent about a dozen Tuesday afternoons in 1978-1979 walking Wilshire; Marlene taking notes and Annie taking pictures. The result was over 1000 Kodachrome slides, documenting L.A.’s iconic street from its great landmarks to its empty lots.

In 2012, Annie donated the Wilshire slides to the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collections. Nearly 40 years after they were taken, the slides have turned into a unique time capsule of a boulevard that is in a constant state of change. While many buildings (and palm trees) remain intact, much of what Annie and Marlene captured now only exists on their Kodachrome slides. This latest entry from Photo Friends Publications takes a closer look at some of the Wilshire slides, selected by Annie Laskey as she looks back on those Tuesday afternoons she spent with her mom on Wilshire Boulevard.