Tell me what L.A. was like back in the 1950's/1960's (Long Beach: apartments, for rent)

[Steve Bagu]

Nmnita; You lived west of the old Shopping Bag mkt and south of Northview high. Remember the dairy down the street from the school before it was built.? I ate at the In & Out in BP many times. You probably remember the McDonalds on foothill Blvd in Azusa near the drive In theatre. They would have .10c burgers and my wife would add tomatos and lettuce to them for the kids and we would go into the theatre to eat and watch the movie on Sat nights.
Such old memories. Steve

[Cameron Cayman]

I would love to have Inn-N-Out right about now. When my wife and I were in O.C. last year we made a habit out of that place. Oh well, I guess I'm stuck with Steak-n-Shake for now.

[fastfilm]

My pat answer is for folks way younger than me to watch "L.A. Confidential" for the bad, and "American Graffiti" for the good (its smaller Calif. town persona matches the non-inner-city mien of '60's L.A. Wild kids then had raucous but innocent fun, and didn't become violent gangmembers as they now do.) No one misses the horrid racism and corruption of "L.A Confidential;" likewise, no one should condone what L.A. morphed into with never-to-be-solved overpowering of infrastructure problems (public transportion will never catch up,) insistance on density destroying all quality of life for the non-rich, and illegal immigration (200-300 arrive daily) overburdening the city services and creating an overtaxed citizenry who will never receive the same services for which they increasingly are taxed exponentially.

The major differences betwixt L.A. then and now also were relative expense, significantly less congestion, (the freeways actually worked!) and assimilation of legal immigrants into American culture, wherein their contributions were celebrated by all and welcomed, which happened then but not now. (Foreign nationals are less likely to even want to associate with anyone not from their prior country now.) Xenophobic social aberrations of the distant past, a la Chavez Ravine and housing covenants, thankfully were not the norm by the late 50s/60s, which was more like "Let's have a barbecue for our new neighbors the Wongs from Taiwan!"

Here's a link for The Inflation Calculator so one can have a better idea of what oldtime prices really reflected, which underscores how unjustifiably expensive L.A. has become.

For instance, my first friend to buy a house, in 1969, paid 25K which would translate to 132K in today's dollars, and no, you can't buy a nice 2-bd. house in a nice part of Venice like they did for that today, despite the downturn. When I lived in Venice, my neighbors were a postal worker and stay at home mom who bought their house there in the 1950s. A one-income family of a postal carrier could not afford more than a tiny condo in a non-dangerous locale today. Rich people bought houses in the late 50's here for 80K, which translates to 525K today. Nowadays, that buys a starter shack in a good neighborhood, or 2-3bd. house in a not-good one.

The aforementioned aspect of the California dream is gone forever, as is hope of anything beyond a dysfunctional city lumbering on in the pretense that it is working. To me, just surviving is not indicative of a good quality of life, especially for the non-wealthy like me.

[Cameron Cayman]

Originally Posted by fastfilm

The aforementioned aspect of the California dream is gone forever, as is hope of anything beyond a dysfunctional city lumbering on in the pretense that it is working. To me, just surviving is not indicative of a good quality of life, especially for the non-wealthy like me.

What a shame this is. Everytime I have been out there, whether visiting relatives or just going for vacation, I have loved it. Last year, my wife and I visited again staying in Newport Beach and we did not want to come home. But, then again, there is a difference between living there with the daily grind that we all face anywhere and being on vacation.

But, it was so nice out there, so beautiful in places that I wondered what it was like way back before the masses of humanity took over.

[majoun]

Originally Posted by fastfilm

and illegal immigration (200-300 arrive daily) overburdening the city services and creating an overtaxed citizenry

I'm willing to bet that at least half of those are passing through en route to the Bay Area!

[jmillspl]

I lived just over the ridge from Chavez Ravine in the late 50s and thru the 60s. Spent summers walking to Downey Plunge between Broadway and North Main. Walked downtown to the movies on Sundays. Remember the Paramount and the Orpheum theatres, Grand Central Market. Sold newspapers along North Main, Broadway and in Chinatown. I watched the building of Dodger Stadium, in fact we used to climb up the hill that the earth movers carved to build the stadium and had to rescure my mom when she became frozen in fear, half way up. We knew everyone in our neighborhood and got along. Little Joe's Italian Restaurant was a popular eatery. I recently celebrated my 65 the birthday at Phillipes. It was a great place to grow up.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by jmillspl

I lived just over the ridge from Chavez Ravine in the late 50s and thru the 60s. Spent summers walking to Downey Plunge between Broadway and North Main. Walked downtown to the movies on Sundays. Remember the Paramount and the Orpheum theatres, Grand Central Market. Sold newspapers along North Main, Broadway and in Chinatown. I watched the building of Dodger Stadium, in fact we used to climb up the hill that the earth movers carved to build the stadium and had to rescure my mom when she became frozen in fear, half way up. We knew everyone in our neighborhood and got along. Little Joe's Italian Restaurant was a popular eatery. I recently celebrated my 65 the birthday at Phillipes. It was a great place to grow up.

man, you are almost a decade younger than me, not quite but I too remember everything you are talking about. I guess Little Joes hasn't been gone too many years. It had to be one of the best restaurants for the money ever...

we used to go to Dodger games when I was pregnant with our first baby. We would ride the bus from Inglewood. that was when they played in the colisium. Later hubby worked for the phone company in PR so we got tickets quite often. Of course we took clients when we went to the games.

You talk about the plunge, how long has it been since anyone called a pool a plunge? We used to go to the one at the park next to Eagle Rock High school.

We were back in the general area a couple of months ago and I was surprised at how little it had changed. Oh, lots more minorities, lots of signs in more than one language but basically I could still find almost everything I remembered. Boy did it bring back a lot of memories. And yes, Phillipes is still just like always.

Not too long ago someone was on here, someone new to the area saying they hadn't found any really good places to eat and thought Phillipes was the worst french dip sandwhich they had ever eaten (well maybe she didn't say it quite that strongly) anyway, I had to wonder if she knew what Frence Dip sandwhiches were supposed to taste like.

Nita

[JohnG72]

So this come from my parents who were both born in 1942.

My dad grew up in East LA which had a large Russian and Jewish population at the time and an increasing latino population. They amazingly had a video camera at the time. Most of the Russian population had immigrated at the turn of the century from Armenia and what is now Georgia(they were known as Molokans and had fled earlier to Armenia and Georgia due to religious persecution from the tsar). In the videos I've seen, that portion of East LA looks almost exactly like the SFR areas of East Hollywood where many Armenian immigrants now live....houses built in the 1910's-1930's, almost all are painted white, very sparse landscaping..almost entirely grass with maybe a few roses. Very very blue collar. According to my dad, it was rare that anyone went to college. He said that in the late 40's and in the 50's that the big department stores and movie theatres and so forth were all on Broadway in downtown. He also talked about the Dodgers and how the O'Malleys intentionally priced the cheap seats so that anyone could easily bring their family to the game. Those low prices remained for a very long time. I think $5 or $6 top deck and bleacher seats were the rule until the late 90's. Even the reserve level was entirely $8 or $9 until that time. I know he also played on the football team at Roosevelt High School with future Dodgers star Willie Davis. He also has told me about going dove hunting in the orange groves in OC in the 50's, going fishing off the Huntington Beach Pier and the Newport Beach Pier and catching large halibut...which basically never happens anymore.

My mom grew up in Montebello and from all accounts, the place was basically like an episode of Leave It To Beaver....completely safe, nice sort of middle class neighborhood. Her idea of upscale areas at the time were uptown Whittier, downtown Downey, and Lake St in Pasadena. And generally, Downey and Whittier is where her family went on a weekend night to have dinner or see a movie and have an ice cream cone.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by nmnita

You talk about the plunge, how long has it been since anyone called a pool a plunge? We used to go to the one at the park next to Eagle Rock High school.

We used to walk to the plunge on Mission in South Pas. It was jammed...every kid from the surrounding areas showed up in the summer. It was so packed that we could barely move in the water but everyone had fun. (And no parents ever walked their kids anywhere; everyone traveled by bike or on foot and we didn't come home until it got dark.)

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by CA4Now

We used to walk to the plunge on Mission in South Pas. It was jammed...every kid from the surrounding areas showed up in the summer. It was so packed that we could barely move in the water but everyone had fun. (And no parents ever walked their kids anywhere; everyone traveled by bike or on foot and we didn't come home until it got dark.)

oh how I remember how crowded those pools were. So you lived in So Pasadena, wow, I was married in So Pasadena and we went to church there for many years. My first real serious boyfriend graduated from So Pasa high. (we thought it was serious) high school days, remember?

Nita