D.O.A. - Narrow Escape
The chase continues from the previous post ... Bigelow is pursued north along the 700 block of Broadway by Chester. He ducks into a corner drugstore (click image to enlarge).
Then ... Chester follows him into the store. Note the pillar behind him and the gawkers across the street watching the filming taking place.
... a vintage photo ... the 1956 photo below shows where this took place. The view looks north along Broadway towards W. 7th Street. The Lankershim Hotel is on the corner at right, where the pillar seen above can be seen (map). Across 7th is a Bank Of America branch where the gawkers were standing.
... and Now, in the same view today we see that the Lankershim has been replaced by a retail/parking structure and the street frontage of the building that housed the Bank of America branch has been modernised. Still there though is Clifton's Cafeteria at 648 Broadway, on the left. This same street corner shows up in another scene in the movie, as does Clifton's.
In the drugstore Chester fires several shots at Bigelow before a cop enters and guns him down, allowing Bigelow to slip out unnoticed. The sign over the door says Imperial Drug Co. but the Lankershim Hotel didn't have a drugstore at this corner so the interior action was either filmed on a studio set or at a different drugstore location. In the comments below a reader suggests it might have been the store at 6th St and Vermont Ave: CitySleuth would be grateful if one of his readers could confirm this. Finding a contemporaneous photo of the pharmacy would help.