About, but not limited to, Van Nuys, CA.
“W.P. Whitsett recounts the tale of the founding of Van Nuys at the city’s 23rd birthday party. February 22nd, 1934.”
UCLA Library, Digital Collections.
If he could only see it now, the great progress Van Nuys has made, culturally, aesthetically, economically……
One of the more egregious and self-centered driving behaviors in LA involves the abuse of the handicapped parking placard. It is especially prevalent in the richer sections of the city, such as Beverly Hills, Encino and Studio City. It is almost predictable that if a brand new BMW or Mercedes with a blue sign is parked in a disabled zone, it will be a con.
Such was the case today in front of Lululemon, a sports clothing store selling $98 spandex clam diggers and the $58 Yoga Halter top. A 40-year-old woman, athletically bounced out from the store, hopped into her Center BMW SUV and sped off down Ventura.
It’s a strange place, down there, along the Pacific, in Laguna, Newport Beach and Irvine.
On Saturday I went there, escaping Van Nuys, escaping anomie and suffocating heat, breezing down the 405, past LAX and Long Beach. And then into the clean, protected, and planned campus development at UC Irvine where my friend lives on a new spaghetti tangled street, a stucco housing project locatable only on GPS.
He is a professor and his tan house sits on a breezy Eucalyptus hill, alongside hundreds of other tan and brown houses and glass walled gardens that overlook a windy panorama of mega-churches, green parkways, community centers and gated communities.
Trees, windows, lampposts, paint colors, plants, every element of exterior has been plotted and chosen and codified into law so no house differs too much from any other.
My friend, gay and Vietnamese born, assured me that there was great diversity on the street, behind the vinyl windows and just blown driveways, a diversity of color, religion and gender.
We went out to lunch and drove down lushly planted Newport Coast Drive, a dizzying speedway descending to the Pacific, surrounded by gated mansionette communities of red-tiled Mediterranean styles, Reaganesque in conception, reeking of aspiration and asphyxiation, synthetic and grandiose; so many high-altitude houses packed on terraced hillsides perfumed by sprays of fog.
Two neo-classical archways stood on each side of Newport Coast Drive at Pacific Coast Highway, pretentious and plastic Arc de Triomphe models. The grandeur of the Pacific was enough for the old Newport Beach, which built modest cottages and let nature rule man. But new Newport must announce itself, as it did along this resort roadway. It must assert and announce, loudly, copious liquidity and cosmetic identity, even when it’s as false and phony as an Octogenarian’s botoxed forehead.
We parked in an outdoor mall, also landscaped with many trees and flowers, a shopping center under the arches and scented vines, where $109,000 hybrid automobiles were parked under the chandeliers, and whose lavishness was incongruously displayed next to Trader Joes and the Gap.
We came here, not to shop, but to park, illegally, and sneak down to Crystal Cove where the beach is still free and anyone in the water is equal under the eyes of God.
On the beach it was beautiful, as it always is on a day off work, with rocks and sand and gentle cliffs, waves and little tidal formations of lichen, mussels, and barnacles. It was a child’s paradise too, a natural world of salt water and aqua hues, a visual respite from video.
I was at peace on Saturday, in the present, out of my normal frame of mind darkly churning in the past or frozen in fear of the future.
I was in a good mood that day, and I was content.
I have to remember to come to the beach more often. It’s really the best part of the Golden State.
Everything bad and disturbing in California, as well as all well-meaning plans and proposals of this state, all of it is swallowed up in the tide. Nothing compares to the eternal waves and endless crash of what comes in and what goes out, around the clock. And what remains of sand, water and rock.
“Photograph of a huge pepper tree, Lankershim Boulevard and Victory Boulevard, Van Nuys, July 1928. A man in a suit stands at right looking up at the short, wide tree. The tree reaches over the dusty, weed-spotted yard at center where a pile of wood sits at left and a covered automobile sits parked at right. Several buildings stand along the street that extends down the far left into the background. Houses stand under electrical poles and trees in the right background.”- USC Digital Archives
Huge pepper tree, Lankershim Boulevard and Victory Boulevard, Van Nuys, July 1928
Source: USC Digital Archives
Here is a great old photograph of Van Nuys Blvd at Friar St. in 1950.
In 1950, there was still diagonal parking along the boulevard, an arrangement that helped to create a sense of enclosure and neighborliness. Some of the signs along the street were Whelan Drugs, Van Nuys Stationery Store and Bill Kemp Sportswear for Men. On the left side of the photo: a See’s Candies and other small retailers whose facades have been modernized behind flat slabs.
This bustling scene was already on the way out as regional shopping centers, such as Valley Plaza (1951), made their way into the San Fernando Valley and lured customers with lots of parking and giant stores.
While the massive migration of illegal immigration has certainly changed Van Nuys, the post-war decisions of Los Angeles, her government, her people and her power brokers, to widen streets and remove streetcars, to build freeways not trains, and to develop every last square inch of orange grove and meadow, these are the true killers that robbed us of our historic inheritance.
Life was more civilized back then and we can only look back in awe.
This photograph is offered for sale at DECOR ART GALLERIES 12149 Ventura Blvd. Studio City, CA 91604 (818) 755-0755
Here in Van Nuys 
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