Photos: Mitch Glaser
It’s likely that North Hollywood will become a more desirable place to live with the ongoing urbanization around the Red Line. There will be more restaurants, apartments, urban amenities, high schools….. and walking.
But let’s not forget that the destructive policies of the last 50 years have ruined much of what once made this a pleasant area.
The construction of the 170 Freeway tore through parklands and destroyed the beauty and peacefulness with an ever-present roar of traffic and the accompanying air pollution.
Local businesses left after giant malls were constructed in other areas of the Valley, draining customers away from mom and pop stores. Some of these malls, such as Valley Plaza at Victory and Laurel Canyon, are now themselves decayed and obsolete.
Small homes and bungalows were turned into rooming houses or torn down to put up dingbat apartments. The destruction of viable historic neighborhoods continues to this day. Crime is ever present with daily auto theft and vandalism. Domestic violence, illegal immigration, failing schools, poor health care, environmental degradation, murder…these are regular items on the menu of life here.
There is a clear contrast between the well-run city of Burbank and the poorly maintained sections of Los Angeles that can be seen along Magnolia Blvd. as one drives east of Cahuenga. The pavement in North Hollywood is full of potholes. These are only surface differences.
On Oxnard (“The Ugliest Street in America”) east of Lankershim, is a hideous collection of auto repair shops, a cacophonous collection of billboards, signs, and poisonous paint fumes. Yet behind these auto shops, are old neighborhoods, some with quaint homes and gardens, where middle class families are struggling to make a new life in a very inhospitable place.
Here in Van Nuys 