Fabulous Boulevard [*SIGNED*]

New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company. Good. (c.1949). First Edition. Hardcover. (pictorial boards; no dust jacket) [a decent reading copy, but no more, with bumping and visible wear at all extremities (including exposure of boards at a few corners]. INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on the half-title page. A breezy portrait of postwar Los Angeles (with plenty of history thrown in), as seen from the perspective of Wilshire Boulevard, the almost 16-mile-long traffic artery that starts in the heart of downtown L.A. and dead-ends a few hundred yards shy of continent's end at Santa Monica. Although many of the landmarks described and discussed herein (the Brown Derby restaurants, the Ambassador Hotel, etc.) are long-gone, a drive along Wilshire will still take you past plenty of vestiges of the Boulevard's glorious past -- until you get west of Westwood, from there on out it's pretty much modern crap all the way. Random fun fact: in 1949 there were no fewer than fourteen drive-in eateries scattered along Wilshire; pages 301-302 include a colorful (and a bit sexist) discussion of the car-hops, "the real belles of the Boulevard." Signed by Author .