About, but not limited to, Van Nuys, CA.
“Photograph caption dated April 2, 1958 reads “George Fenneman, new honorary mayor of Sherman Oaks, center, places ‘Montmarte’ sign at Van Nuys and Ventura boulevards to create Paris atmosphere for community’s April in Paris Festival. Assisting him are, from left, Allen Rabinoff, Wilma Posen, Lylis Mason and Ted Levey.”
Cruel joke still unfunny 64 years later.
On September 2, 1958, Miss Elsie Davis, Principal, Kittridge St. Elementary School in Van Nuys, CA registers children at her school.
Linda Huntling and Bob Moore, 5 years old, stand glumly as their mothers oversee the process.
59 years ago, there were children with names like Linda and Bob, as old fashioned sounding now as Bertha, Alvira, Sylvester and Abraham were to 1959 ears.
Source: USC Digital Archives and Los Angeles Herald Examiner
It is hard to imagine that there were once posture contests and posture winners in Van Nuys.
Leaders, like President/General Eisenhower, stood straight.
On May 5, 1958, The L.A. Examiner wrote: “Loretta Fountain, 17, of Van Nuys High School, brushes away tears of joy as she holds trophy for best posture in senior girls division of posture contest.” Ms. Fountain was joined by Barbara Hinze, 14, Van Nuys Junior High, junior girl winner; Harold Lindsey, 18, Banning High, senior boy winner; Paul MacGregor, 14, Sutter Junior High, junior boy winner.
Today youthful good posture has been replaced by the slouching, texting teen.
(Photos: USC Digital Library)
Over 54 years ago, Chandler Blvd. had no sidewalks, endangering children who used their leg power to go to and from school. Public service minded officials did then what they might do today: earnestly and urgently reported it, worried about it…. and did nothing about it.
The children who walked home from school back then have turned into the grandparents of today, some of whom jog in the night without illumination, such as an old man I saw running last night around 7pm, in darkness, along Chandler, a few feet from death by texting.
Since 1958, Chandler has become much more observantly Jewish, but the Orthodox community (who walk to the Shul) is more populated east of Coldwater where there are sidewalks, with the exception of the new Chabad synagogue at Ethel and Chandler, where there are no sidewalks.
As another side note, Chandler was referred to as “Van Nuys” in 1958.
Photo taken from the USC Digital Library.
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.
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.
From the USC Digital Archives:
“Photographer: Glickman. Date: 1958-03-26. Assignment: Saticoy School evacuation plan, 7850 Ethel Avenue, Van Nuys. G119-20: Children evacuate class rooms in predetermined plan for disaster”.
Here in Van Nuys 
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