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*These buildings, in the photos above, are still here as of August 22, 2007. But for how long?
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The old Studio City writer’s and production company bungalows that once lined Radford across from CBS Studios have been demolished. Just like Hoffman and Guerin Streets behind them, the new behemoths are rising fast.
The neighborhood around CBS had a quiet, informal and pre-war loveliness about it. It was a place of modest rents, open doors, and people sitting outside on lawn chairs. Some of the architecture was from the late 1930s and 40s with streamlined corners and horizontally paned windows.
There is still a car service station on the corner of Hoffman and Radford that must be at least 60 years old. A hydraulic lift sits behind plate glass windows that have been painted blue. But the original intention was to allow the pedestrian to look inside and see what the mechanics were working on.
I worked for a production company in the fall of 2001 that had rented a bungalow near Valley Heart Drive and Radford. Wooden stairs led up to a little apartment with a bathroom, old kitchen and operable windows. After 9/11, the FAA suspended all civil aviation, and for weeks I would step outside of the offices and marvel at the absolute midday stillness of the blue skies, absent the usual jets that normally deafen Studio City.
The new “luxury” condos are architectural atrocities, full of nervous details and excessive gingerbread. They are all painted various shades of khaki with gracelessly pregnant columned balconies. The builders are piling on stone, tiles, marble, arched windows and a nauseating profusion of roses, palms, and bright lights. “The Cheesecake Factory” a la mode…..
Young people (like Tom McNulty) once came here and played volleyball in the front yards, paying $400 a month in rent, while they wrote screenplays or tried to get a job on a film. Now middle-aged families will struggle to pay a $4,000 a month mortgage, and $10,000 a year in taxes, so that they can sit inside marble countered kitchens, behind air-conditioned doors.
But they will be no more secure, even behind the gates and burglar alarms. The financial hour of reckoning is coming for America.
Here in Van Nuys 