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 and Now, in the same view today we see that the Lankershim has been replaced by a retail/parking structure and the street frontage of the building that housed the Bank of America branch has been modernized. 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.
Then ... 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 filmed elsewhere.
Two readers (see their comments below) have ID’d this drugstore as being at 6th and S. Vermont . Sure enough, the 1941 L.A. city directory listed the Imperial Drug Co. address as 600 S. Vermont Avenue.
… a vintage photo ... Citysleuth found this c. 1938 image of a market at this location - the Imperial Market. Check out the angled doorway details at far left on the corner of 6th Street; the glassed double doors and the single pane above them match the drugstore entrance in the Then image above, so the Imperial Drug Co. apparently was part of the Imperial Market. The market was later renamed Leo’s Market and later still it became Kal’s Market.
... and Now, the market is long gone; today the Young Oak Kim Academy, a Koreatown middle school, and an apartment complex occupies its site.