What did L.A. used to be like???? (Sacramento, Orange: amusement park, credit)

[JustPassinThru]

"Well wait a second; many posters here have stated that gangs were just as plentiful and violent back then as they are now. Are you saying we didn't have drive-by shootings and all that sort of thing in the fifties? No MS-13 or anything like that?"

Hi James T
I wrote
"We weren't aware of the horrific elements of society which surely must have existed then."

and
"Although there were gangs in L.A. and biker clubs in the valley, most of the valley HS kids joined car clubs, if anything."

One of these biker clubs was the Hell's Angels, and another was the Road Drifters. Most of the 16 year olds I knew were too busy with work, school, and having fun to worry about gangs. On one occasion, the Drifters crashed our party in Van Nuys. We all ran like he**, jumped in our cars, and took off.
We all laughed about it later, agreeing that being a "chicken" wasn't all that bad.

Hi Chinghis
Was selling insurance in Inglewood for Prudential in '65. My manager would hand out his business cards at every place he stopped, then give me the leads when the calls came in. On the day the riots started I had just left a home in Watts when I saw several hundred people marching down the street. Thought that it was some kind of neighborhood parade and proceeded to my next appointment without incident. Later, watched events unfold on TV.

We may have been poor in the forties, fifties, and sixties but we thought that we were middle class. In denial?

[Chinghis]

Hehe. Poor, middle-class - the disparities were not as wide as they are today, I think.

Funny story about Watts. Kind of similar to me teaching a university class during the Rodney King riots... School administration, late in the day, announced that campus wasn't technically closed, but professors could cancel class if they wanted to let folks go home. Me, being oblivious to the outside world, walked over to my room to start class. There were maybe 10 or 12 students, out of a class of close to 100. Guess class is cancelled....

Of course, I had just arrived in LA a few months earlier and was still in East-Coast mode; I didn't understand that few students actually lived anywhere around campus, and might have to drive through areas where the riots were going on.

[fastfilm]

photo (C) Fastfilm (me) do not copy or link.
You've heard of a trick question? This is a trick photo. It purports to be vintage 1966 Sunset Strip, in front of the Whisky a Gogo. It is in fact 1990, a night shot I took of the production of Oliver Stone's "The Doors" movie, stuntmasters driving the vintage cars into place. Look at those cars! (and the gas price...)

Cruising the Strip, in 1966 or 1990, was about young people driving and meeting other young people. Cruising today is about gangmembers looking for victims. Accordingly, even Hollywood has laws against cruising (repeated driving past the same place.)

Justpassin', when we moved to the Valley 14 years ago, there still was the last of the "biker nights" down Van Nuys Blvd. (Wednesday.) Angels, Mongols, Sundowners, whatever, it was more like rowdy Southerners gunning their motors rather than gangbangers gunning down perceived rivals or victims (as happened a month ago down the block from us.) Longtimers tell us that for gearheads and motorheads, the Valley used to be a fun place.

Today, there remains no place in L.A. that is fun for people who don't have money to cocoon themselves from the pervasive gangs and mean people, with the exception of the beaches during the daylight hours. One can't even have intelligent conversations with people one meets, as 7 out of 10 probably cannot speak or understand English. Some paradise...

[arrohead]

I was born in L.A. in 1934 and I grew up there. We first lived on 4th street behind the Yellow Cab company. I walked to school and my father walked to work at 8th and Figueroa.

L.A. was safe, gorgeous on a clear day. Smog was always there and in the forties and fifites it got so thick you couldn't see across the street. We moved to Glendale when the population there was fairly low. There were few cars and no freeways, no Disneyland but Knotts Berry Farm was a hot spot.

Movie theaters ran nickle movies with serials and double features and kids could go without worrying about pedafiles, kidnappers, drug dealers, etc.

Schools were terrific and teachers had the run of the classrooms instead of the students taking control.

The hot drug of the day was a cigarette and most of us avoided those. The girls wore non provocative clothes, the boys usually always wore Levis.

I sold newspapers on a street corner during WWII (Age 7 through 11). School kids all got jobs after school and during summer months. At all ages.

When the air was clear the mountains were gorgeous and actually had trees on them.

Freeways entered the picture late forties, early fifties. Before that the only "high speed" highway was the "Arroyo Seco."

There was no TV (except when we went to a store front and watched Dick Laine annnounce wrestling - late forties early fifties), there were no boom boxes, no dirt bikes, no Harley gangs, no drug dealers, no insolence among young people and everyone was held responsible for their actions. And movies and radio had real stories, not much violence if any at all. TV became big early fifties.

We made skateboards out of 2 x 4s and roller skates, made racing carts out of orange crates and in general made all our own toys. We played in parks until we got to high school and played sports there.

During high school I worked at a Texaco gas station where we pumped gasoline for 17.5 cents to 19.5 cents a gallon. I also worked at a drugstore soda counter making malts and sundaes. Other jobs were also worked and all at the great salary of about 30 to 40 cents an hour.

It was a good time.

Today, L.A. is a mess. And probably not repairable.

[JustPassinThru]

" Longtimers tell us that for gearheads and motorheads, the Valley used to be a fun place."

So true. You could not walk down a residential block without seeing a restoration job, a rail job, or someone putting a '55 Olds in a '49 Ford.
Lived around the corner from Don Prudhomme in Granada Hills, but never spoke one word to him. We were more interested in the Destruction Derby at Saugus Speedway at the time.

Thanks for posting that picture, Fastfilm, although the gas price was shocking. Was only 17 4/10 at Atlantic Richfield when I was in HS.

Have attributed my current malaise to old age, but after reading some of these posts I realize that I do miss the civil ways of yesteryear. Don't misunderstand me - I'm all for change. Usually behind the curve when it comes to hi-tech, but just have to ask the grandkids and they catch me up. Now have my personal GPS so that if get lost I can find my way back to my car at Wal Mart.

[Hungry For Cheese]

Man it sounds so nice. The valley I mean. My dad was born and raised here since 53, I since 82. He told me stories of his days and it goes with working hard, having fun with cars. He had a 55 for his first car he bought for $50 back around 1970 (he woulda been 17). He use to take me to Saugus Speedway and see his friends Bill Sedgewick(sp?) and Ron Hornaday (Jr.?) and the fun times up there. He says the valley was fun on Van Nuys Blvd with all the cars. Open fields, running over lil rodents as he drove dirt road. He was raised in Sun Valley. A poorer area, but not as ugly as today. I am 25 and hate this valley.
I just think its not me.

[artichoke63]

Watch the movie "Sunset Boulevard" if you want to see old L.A. It's a great movie!

Artie

[JerZ]

Originally Posted by arrohead

When the air was clear the mountains were gorgeous and actually had trees on them.

Wait, whoah whoah whoah, hold the phone! There were trees??? How I miss trees...my DH has told me he always remembers the hills looking the way they do now. He thinks them quite beautiful and if I'd been born here, I'd probably feel the same way, but when you've been spoiled by lush rolling green hills, it just doesn't compare. DH is only 36, BTW. Can I ask what happened to the trees? Was it because of land development?

I really liked this entire post (arrohead's post). It was so nostalgic and it all sounded so nice. Just wanted to put that in.

[3tulips]

I had to reply to this old thread just to say that I was raised in the Pasadena area - my whole life - and I have never thought the mountains were pretty, except for the 2 months out of the year they are actually green. Brown just isn't a favorite color of mine. I've always longed to live somewhere green, although I will probably never leave the beach and warm weather.
I grew up in the 70s and 80s and remember having "smog alerts" when we had to stay inside and my chest burning from playing outside. So....the air must be better now, right?

[Charles]

Lots of neat photos on the LAPL photo database http://catalog.lapl.org/cgi-bin/cw_c...seDatabase_968
and also at the CSUN San Fernando Digital History database
Oviatt Library Digital Collections

All photos below were taken by my dad. The Kodachrome slides were scanned by me with a Nikon LS-2000 film scanner.

Hollywood Bowl late 1950s


Looking north from the house I grew up in on Ducor Avenue in Canoga Park (now West Hills).
Parents paid $18K in 1962. These 1300 sqft houses are in the mid $500K now. Sick.
Ingomar street in the foreground.
Snow Capped Oat Mountain (3747 ft, part of the Santa Susana range) in the background, February 1962.



From the corner of Gilmore and Jumilla streets in Reseda, looking north around 1961.


I think this was what the original poster was looking for.
The house I grew up in, Ducor Avenue Canoga Park, CA mid 1960s.
You couldn't get a better shot of middle class Southern California suburbia.
Manicured lawn (dichondra of all things...when was the last time you saw a dichondra lawn???).
Eucalyptus trees in the background. The valley was full of them until the middle of the century.
(Imported from Australia, they were planted to keep the soil in place from the winds...)