Van Nuys was established in 1911, and soon after people settled here to work and live.
The Southern Pacific freight trains ran along tracks which are now the location of the Metro Orange Line.
An agricultural economy supported citrus packing plants, animal feed for horses, cows, chickens; and the burgeoning development of the San Fernando Valley brought lumber suppliers to Van Nuys.
These 1924 images of Van Nuys come from the Los Angeles Public Library Archives.
In the first photo below, we are standing near Oxnard and Van Nuys Blvd. looking north with the train tracks and crossing signals visible in the middle left side. The town has the air of a farming village with rows of fruit trees planted and open space between structures. In the very top of the photo one can make out Van Nuys High School which was badly damaged in the 1933 Long Beach earthquake and rebuilt in an Art Deco style afterwards.
In the second photo, below, we are flying over the area near Oxnard and Van Nuys Bl. looking NE towards the site of our present day government buildings. Small, humble houses dot the landscape immediately adjacent to the industrial area along the rail tracks. Van Nuys Lumber Co. was probably located on Aetna St. one block north of Oxnard. One can also make out small rows of pitched roof dense houses in the middle right area. Perhaps these were “worker” housing for the people who loaded the trains, and did the manual labor which was required to move goods from Van Nuys to the freight trains.
2018: Aerial View of Oxnard at VNB looking NE.
In the third image, below, from 1925, we have an overview of Adohr Dairy Farms (18000 Ventura Bl) and Runnymeade Poultry Farm. This is in Encino west of White Oak.
CSUN has a large collection of Adohr Farms Images. On their website they have a brief bio of the Adohr story:
“The Adohr Farms milk dairy was located in Tarzana, California at Ventura Boulevard and Lindley Avenue. The dairy was established by Merritt Adamson 1916, and named for his wife, Rhoda (spelled backwards). During the Depression, the Adamson’s sold off most of their land. In the late 1940s, Adohr Farms moved to Camarillo, and was eventually sold to Southland Corporation in the mid-1960s.”
Los Angeles, it seems, is often in a housing crisis.
UCLA has a collection of historic photos of our city, and from their extensive archives, I pulled out a few to show that poverty, sub-standard housing, and homelessness, are life conditions that ebb and flow in both good times and bad.
In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, some 25% of American workers had no work at all. No income, no livelihood.
Many picked up their lives and their families, escaping the Dust Bowl farms in Oklahoma and Kansas, and came to Los Angeles which promised, then, as now, some deliverance from suffering near Hollywood, under the warm sun, to get cleansed of sin and pain in salty ocean water.
But Los Angeles was not Eden. It had slums galore. Within sight of City Hall, wooden shacks housed poor people. There were many neighborhoods that still had unpaved streets, mostly inhabited by Mexicans and blacks.
wartime-housing-in-little-tokyos-bronzeville-los-angeles-calif.jpglos-angeles-slums-in-the-great-depression-copy.jpg1934, unpaved streets, Los Angeles, CA. “Las Olas Altas” (High Waves)slum-sought-out-during-sera-housing-study-los-angeles-1934
In 1933, the average American earned $29 a week ($4.25 a day or $1,500 a year). A family of five, say mother and father and three children, had to live on that paltry income.
Under the leadership of FDR, the New Deal attempted to ameliorate poverty by sponsoring government work building roads, parks, planting trees, and constructing public works such as dams, bridges and post offices.
When FDR ran for his second term, in 1936, the aristocrat who worked tirelessly for the common poor man spoke these words about the oppressive forces who ruled the land:
“We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace–business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.
“They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
“Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred.”
What would Trump say to that?
It took World War II, and the enormous engine of wartime defense spending to inject money into Los Angeles. Factories, aircraft plants, steel mills, weapons manufacturers, all of them set up shop in this arsenal on the Pacific Ocean.
After the war ended, the government created housing, highway and school spending programs to provide work and prosperity for the State of California. So much of what we think of as individual initiative was created by the Federal Government so that Americans would have work and income.
Hansen Dam: basilone-homes-veterans-housing-project-in-san-fernando-valley-calif-194731 Years Ago: maureen-kindel-inspecting-homeless-sidewalk-encampment-on-skid-row-in-los-angeles-calif-1987
Now, once again, we are in a new type of housing crisis with people living on the streets. Our new cruelty is compounded by an opulent prosperity that has dropped great real estate riches on many who bought cheap, or inherited property, or by sheer luck ended up in the right favored neighborhood.
But tens of thousands are living in cars, sleeping on trains, camping out under bridges and along rivers.
And how we meet this challenge, which sickens, disgraces and saddens us all, will be the next great test of character in the city of Los Angeles.
Easy answers about arresting people, deporting them, rounding them up and shipping them to desert camps tempt us. We think every dirty, distressed man and woman on the sidewalk is a lazy alcoholic, a lost drug addict, a violent, crazed criminal.
Yes, character counts, that announcer on KNX 1070 intones.
And it is hard not to hate the debasement of our parks, the volume of garbage, of shopping carts, of debris, stacked up like mountains along the freeways, under the overpasses, along skid row, and in every single alley in Los Angeles. Needles, feces, and beer cans are not compatible with little children playing on the swings in Woodley Park.
It is all becoming monstrous. Our city is slipping into a kind of hell.
But where is the humanity and where is the law and where does reason meet mercy so that we come to some guiding policies to end the barbarism of allowing encampments of lost souls to wander and fall down under the blue skies in the City of Angels?
Perhaps we un-officials need to start doing work, to prepare ourselves to heal, to care, to mend, to bring together this grieving metropolis of want, while waiting for deliverance from the Mayor and the Almighty.
But what, dear God, is the way forward?
“For a brief moment I forsook you, But with great compassion I will gather you.”- Isaiah 54:7
Los Angeles sometimes wakes up to discover that not enforcing the law somehow becomes self-fulfilling.
If you allow anyone to sleep anywhere, if you permit trailers to park on the street and become permanent housing, if you think it’s OK, tolerant, liberal, open-minded, sympathetic, empathetic to turn parks, bus benches, 7Eleven, parking lots, cars, river banks, every square inch of public space, into a homeless encampment, then you will turn every square inch of public space into a homeless encampment.
You get on a Red Line train to ride it downtown, and you see five or six people and their belongings sleeping on board. Nobody does anything to stop it. Some kids get on the train, turn up a radio, start dancing and go around asking for donations. Nobody stops it. You are living in a loony bin. But it’s all cool….
If you think its Ok to see women defecate on Hollywood Boulevard, if you have to walk to the other side of LaBrea because a man is urinating on the sidewalk in front of you, it’s just the way it is. At least you are not homeless! So have some regard for everyone who is!
Those ten people with shopping baskets who moved in next door. Just ignore it. Let it be. Those twenty people living in tents on Bessemer and Cedros? Just use the 311 App. The city will clean it up. Mayor Garrett and the LAPD and Ms. Nury Martinez know about the situation. There is nothing law enforcement, city government, or the military can do.
Sometimes the city becomes alarmed. The LA Times writes profound editorials that nobody reads. It is March 2, 2018. The problem, the crisis, the war on affordable housing, all of it must be a priority!
An emergency is called. The government asks citizens to pay a tax to solve a problem which the government created by not enforcing the law.
And suddenly it becomes normal to live in a filthy garbage dump of a city, Los Angeles, and nothing can be done about it.
In neighborhoods all over the city: break-ins, thefts, assaults, burglaries, stolen bikes, panhandling, illegal drugs, drinking in public, all of it is cool man, it’s OK dude. No worries…..
Photograph caption dated November 12, 1948 reads, “Exterior view of the new $125,000 gymnasium, given McKinley Home for Boys by the Kiwanis Clubs of Greater Los Angeles, as youngsters pour out after practice. Some of them go to study, others to definite work chores and some to the football field. Jake Kehrer, one of the playground supervisors, is their friend and counsellor [sic] and also a firm coach in the sporting events. If two boys get into an argument that needs settling, they put on gloves and work it out under Marquis of Queensberry rules.”
The Reverend and Mrs. Uriah Gregory established the Industrial Home Society in 1900. Their mission: to look after orphaned, abused and homeless children at their 33-acre estate in Artesia, CA.
Later renamed The McKinley Home For Boys (after President William McKinley who was assassinated in 1901), the institution acquired, around 1920, some 200 acres of land in “Van Nuys” which is now covered by the expanse of the Fashion Square Mall in Sherman Oaks. (see photos above/below credit: LAPL)
From 1920 to 1960, the home operated out of its eclectic architectural barracks and main building, a mixture of Mission and Spanish architecture which housed 150-250 boys at any one time.
Vintage photographs show that the home was a focus point of many well-meaning, civic-minded men and women who funded athletic, work, and farming activities, as well as other character building exercises for children who were given a lousy start in life.
Photograph caption dated July 18, 1960 reads, “Approving transaction from precarious perch on monkey bar, Terry Fox, 13, resident of McKinley Home for Boys, watches as Encino Jaycee, Robert L. Levey, left, presents check to George T. Swartzott, McKinley superintendent. Jaycees raised funds through Concours D’ Elegance benefit. Donation will purchase play equipment for McKinley boys.”Photograph caption dated October 27, 1955 reads, “McKinley boys draw steady bead during intramural marbles playoff. Intramurals are part of outdoor program which includes summer mountain camping in Wrightwood area of Big Pines. Boys spend three weeks each at camp. Los Angeles Kiwanis Club, which contributes 10 percent of McKinley’s total annual budget, pays full costs of camp. In addition to sports boys receive training in religion of their choice.”Photograph caption dated October 27, 1955 reads, “James Ryan, left, and Bob Bickel tend poultry they are raising to earn spending money. As part of small animal project, McKinley boys are raising rabbits guinea pigs, calves for marketing. Boys acquire money to purchase animals by performing chores for homeowners and Valley businessmen. Another pocket money source is working at building and grounds maintenance at McKinley. Home officials feel boys learn to value money by running own enterprises.”
Mr. M.H. Whittier, the Kiwanis, and other bankers, oilmen, developers and anyone who wanted public do-gooding on their resume, heartily pitched in labor and dollars to keep the boys happy playing football, raising chickens, instructing swimming, boxing, gymnastics, football; all the activities that might steer them clear of trouble. And into a productive life of work, family, marriage, proper procreation and moral behavior.
Photograph caption dated May 30, 1961 reads, “McKinley Home for Boys honored community leaders and outstanding students at its Awards Banquet, presenting certificates for achievement. Among recipients were Harold McKee, front left, 6903 Rubio Ave., Van Nuys; Mrs. Ben F. Leach, 12156 Blix St., North Hollywood; Mrs. Gerald Hewitt, 13602 Valley Vista Blvd., Sherman Oaks; Nate Miller, 4817 Woodman Ave., Sherman Oaks, and Mrs. Robert Sweeney, 13015 Dickens St., North Hollywood. At rear are George T. Swartzott, superintendent of McKinley Home, 13840 Riverside Dr., Sherman Oaks, with some award-winning boys.”Photograph caption dated September 10, 1959 reads, “Wedding Party At McKinley — Mr. and Mrs. Roy Widener, married last weekend at McKinley Home for Boys in Sherman Oaks, cut wedding cake with their sons. Boys are, from left, Roy Jr., 11, and Ralph Widener, 13, and Bob Corey, 12. Couple met at McKinley where boys have lived for three years.Photograph caption dated April 29, 1957 reads “In shade of deodars and oaks at McKinley Home for Boys in Sherman Oaks families meet to discuss fall-out, roentgens, deterioration and other topics familiar to their calling as radiological monitors for civil defense. Meeting was attended mainly by squads from the Valley.”
Alas, the boys and their home were no match for the powerful Ventura Freeway which sliced through their grounds in 1958 and forced the home and its crew-cut youngsters to flee to San Dimas.
Photograph caption dated October 27, 1960 reads, “A scoopful of sidewalk superintendents watch as ground is broken at McKinley Home for Boys in Sherman Oaks to pave way for new 29-are shopping center at the site bounded by Woodman, Hazeltine and Riverside drive. The McKinley home moves to new quarters, now under construction in San Dimas. Digging the first hole for Bullock’s department store are Marty Becker, 8, and Tim Mitchell, 9, who are looking up to Mathew Frost, 10.”Photograph caption dated June 21, 1961 reads, “There were more important things to do Tuesday than play ball at McKinley Home for Boys in Sherman Oaks. It was moving day. After 40 years, the Valley landmark moved from 13840 Riverside Dr. to the new, sprawling McKinley Home in San Dimas in San Gabriel Valley. But Tom Pearce, 12, and Melvin Conklin, 12, had to give the ball just one more pitch before they packed up and moved on. It’s easy to pack, center photo. You have boxes and things go in boxes. Orderly, of course. But it’s hard to leave the building, last photo, and climb onto the bus. A new home may be fun, but the old home has memories.”Photograph caption dated August 8, 1960 reads, “Clay Johnson, 26, 16048 Celtic Ave., Granada Hills, alumnus of McKinley Home for Boys, 13840 Riverside Dr., Sherman Oaks, peers through chain-link fence with student Mike Chacon, 9, at Ventura Freeway, a major cause forcing move of home out of Valley early next year. Freeway rolls to within three feet of home. More than 200 alumni paid final respects to 40-year-old home Saturday.”
The Bullocks Company soon came in with its plan for a 29-acre mall and the last photos of the McKinley Home in Van Nuys (Sherman Oaks) show it next to the concrete structure that would soon house a shopping center.
The twin monsters of modern vapidity, the freeway and the shopping mall, would triumph here as they would everywhere else.
Lost in the destruction was a unique community artfully housed in exotic and historic buildings, a verdant expanse of a place where those without loving parents or family might come together under the careful, strict, instructive guidance of teachers, coaches, and philanthropists who were determined to set the boys straight.
60 years later, 100,000 men and women sleep on the sidewalks and live next to the garbage, and defecate in public, in “prosperous” Los Angeles, but once upon a time this city and its elite had a tough-hearted way of taking care of people who nobody else would.
Photograph caption dated July 4, 1961 reads, “The McKinley Home for Boys disappears from its site of 40 years, along Ventura Freeway in Sherman Oaks. More than 80 boys from the home are now in new quarters in San Dimas, paid for by sale of the valuable Valley property to Bullock’s for the newest Valley department store.”
Tom Cluster has been a longtime reader of this blog, having a special interest in it due to his association with Van Nuys. He grew up here, partially, from 1955-62, and lived on Columbus Avenue, north of Vanowen.
He sent along this 1957 photograph of his 5th Grade baseball team, most likely posing inside a courtyard of the newly constructed Valerio St. School. It was a five minute bike ride from his house. Most of the children, as strange as it seems today, walked or rode their bikes to school. Only a kid with a broken leg would be driven to school in a car.
He wrote:
“I’ve attached a picture of a group of boys in my elementary school in 1956 or 57. You’ll notice that a couple of them have the rolled up sleeves on their tee shirts. Bottom row, third from left seems perfect. The guy second from the right in that row has let it fall out a bit. It was quite the “tough guy” look. I remember when we first moved to Van Nuys, I was riding my bike in the new neighborhood and two guys stopped me. They were older, and they had that look. They asked me what I was doing there, and I breathed a sigh of relief when my explanation that we had just moved into the neighborhood satisfied them and they let me go.
I know that what completes that look is having a pack of cigarettes as part of the rolled up sleeve, but the version we had in elementary school was definitely without tobacco.”
Many are familiar with the large, architecturally impressive Bank of America at Haynes and Van Nuys Blvd. It was designed by Paul Revere Williams, a prominent architect who was also an African-American Angeleno. The bank was built in 1967 and features murals inside and out by artist Millard Sheets. In 1968, famed photographer Julius Shulman photographed the bank. It was a high point for civic architecture in Van Nuys, and perhaps the last time this area felt proud of its main street.
Prior to the 1967 bank, there was a more humble, late Art Deco, Bank of America at this same location, 6551 Van Nuys Bl.
In this black and white photograph, one sees the crisp, scrubbed-down, finely cared for building. Around it was a thriving street with well-dressed, law abiding citizens, and perhaps the occasional criminal whose activities were the exception not the rule.
Chase Bank, Sepulveda at Victory.
Today, human beings in Van Nuys sleep, eat, and defecate alongside bank buildings. Their disgraceful conditions scarcely cause anyone to notice. Or care.
In 2017, we are so busy congratulating ourselves on our “tolerance”that we forget that things that were once intolerable, illegal and immoral were considered so for many good reasons. In our gross barbarity, in our willful blindness to the suffering of neighbors, we are co-defendents in a new type of indecent nation, one that tests our moral fiber and will present itself to history for judgment.
Human beings do not belong on the street. They should be housed safely, affordably, with sanitation and security. Call this conservative, call this liberal, call this anything you want.
1930s Map of the San Fernando Valley (DWP)
Here in Van Nuys 
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