While looking through the USC Digital Archives, I came across this aerial photograph of Van Nuys in 1945. I have attempted to look at it and hypothesize about what I see.
It is looking North, with the Valley Municipal Building clearly evident in the middle left.
Two wide streets cut a vertical path through the photo. I am guessing that one on the far right is Hazeltine. To the east (right) of Hazeltine, the land is mostly agricultural. To the west, it is dotted with houses that were built around the center of downtown Van Nuys.
There is a large horizontal strip of land that I believe belongs to the Southern Pacific freight railroad that once ran through here. Fruit packing buildings and ice plants were alongside this area.
To the south of the rail, is the still rural Oxnard Street which seems to stop at Tyrone in the second to the last horizontal road at the very bottom left of the photo.
Just north of the Valley Municipal Building, Victory Boulevard is planted with rows of trees. It was not a wide road as it is today, but narrower and more residential.
Today’s Panorama City is undeveloped at the top of the photo. There is still a separation between various towns in the San Fernando Valley in 1945.
Does anyone prefer today’s Van Nuys to the one that existed 62 years ago?
Here in Van Nuys 
Brian-
I think you’re right about the flooding. I wonder if this photo was taken after the disastrous 1938 flood?
A
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Looks like the streets are flooded after a rain. Behind the street trees on Victory you can see my lovely Lutheran church on the corner of Tyrone, and perhaps you can make out the Sons of Norway hall on Friar and Tyrone. It’s bazaar to think the neighborhood was once populated by so many upper-midwestern norwegians and swedes.
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According to the 1927 USGS topo map, Oxnard was paved from Fulton to Saugus (today’s Sepulveda). At either end of the pavement, it petered out into short dead-end dirt roads. So I don’t think it could have stopped at Tyrone in ’45 – that’s probably just a dense tree canopy hiding it.
Aside from that, though, yeah, you pretty much nailed all the other streets & stuff, as far as I can tell. 🙂
If you follow Van Nuys Blvd. north from its business disrict, you can see where the Pacific Electric tracks once turned the corner in a sweeping curve (today’s “Sherman Circle”) to connect with tree-lined North Sherman Way.
(Though by the time this pic was taken in ’45, that corner was the terminus of the line – through service to Canoga Park and San Fernando was discontinued in ’38.)
Even the line to Van Nuys was gone seven years later, in ’52. That was the last rail service to the Valley until the Red Line subway opened to North Hollywood in 2000.
So at least today’s transit is better. 🙂
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My computer wouldnt show me this picture but I looked it up on the USC archive. It shows a nice view of the 20 acres my grandfather bought on both sides of the RR tracks (now busway), west of Hazeltine, in 1937. He sold all but one acre in 1939 for six thousand dollars and thought he was making a killing. He used the profit to fund his construction company, that used to be on the NW corner of Hazeltine and Bessemer. I have a few pictures of Van Nuys in the 1938 during the flood that I’ll send you.
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makes me wanna cry! jeez, stop right there guys. i’ll take northridge for $5k while yer at it.
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