1952 – Here in Van Nuys

Flooding in Van Nuys: 1/17/1952

December 20, 2016Posted in HistoryTagged "Van Nuys", 1952, floodLeave a comment

USC Digital Library continues to add extraordinary images to their online archives.

The photos below show the aftermath of rains that fell in January 1952. They caused widespread flooding throughout Los Angeles and hit the flat, newly developed streets of Van Nuys hard. People drowned, cars were swamped, trucks rescued individuals and shelters put people up with blankets and hot coffee.

Newspaper photographers captured scenes that were graphic in gruesome content, such as a detective examining victims of a drowning.

Since 1952, the construction of sewers and flood channels throughout the region made winter rains less devastating. Today we worry about the runoff of polluted rain water into the Pacific Ocean and how it might affect the sea. And we discuss how we might capture rainwater to alleviate drought.

But 65 years ago, survival from flood was the only game in town.

Rain in Van Nuys: November 14, 1952

March 29, 2014Posted in Van Nuys and the ValleyTagged "USC Digital Archives", 1952, CA, car, flooding, history, photographs, rain, Sylvan, Tyrone, Van Nuys and the Valley3 Comments

From the USC Digital Archives come these photographs of flooding in Van Nuys at Tyrone and Sylvan Streets (a block east of the Valley Municipal Building) after heavy rains.

Caption reads: “Mrs. Agnes Snyder removes debris from car on flooded street. Wayne WIlson (bare foot) crosses St. Overall views of flooded Tyrone Ave. — cars submerged. Kids in stalled car.”

There are smiles on the faces of people, a lack of jadedness, that seems characteristic of that era. The hardship is harmless, nobody is getting hurt, the flooding is inconvenient and messy, but they are making the best of it.

Imagine the same situation in today’s Van Nuys.

A herd of fatties stuck inside their SUV, DVD player and boom boxes blaring, everyone on their mobile phones, three enormous women with tattoos, dressed in black leggings, broadcasting their “movie” on their smartphones with scowling and angry faces, never knowing how to live in the moment.

South On Van Nuys Bl. Near Sylvan St. 9/27/1952

September 20, 2012September 20, 2012Posted in Van Nuys and the ValleyTagged 1952, 1958, Pacific Electric, Van Nuys Boulevard1 Comment

06 PERY 5179 South On Van Nuys Bl. Near Sylvan St. 19520927 AKW, originally uploaded by Metro Transportation Library and Archive.

Among the many changes Van Nuys has undergone in the last 60 years, two stand out in this old photograph.

Diagonal curb parking and the Pacific Electric Rail helped ground the street and divide it into manageable, smaller, more walkable and more friendly parts.

In 1954, the street was widened, and the streetcar eliminated. North Hollywood’s Valley Plaza (1951) helped hasten the decline of the small business shopping street, and thus, the decline of Van Nuys Boulevard as a clean, pleasant, prosperous destination.

00032854 — LAPL: 1958 plans for Valley Administrative Center in Van Nuys

The late 1950s saw the demolition of many blocks of old Van Nuys to make way for the civic center, a misguided urban renewal project that put the LAPD hundreds of feet behind Van Nuys Boulevard and created a dead zone behind the Valley Municipal Center. A new library in this moonscape replaced the older, more elegant one on Sylvan which still stands today.

And cobra necked anti-crime streetlights disfigure Van Nuys Boulevard and give it an air of a malingering, dated, 1960s speedway.