Some six weeks ago, I went to MacLeod Ale and learned about an impending “slum clearance” in Van Nuys. I was shown a sheet of paper in the owners’ office, laying out the destruction of the industrial neighborhood, just to the south of the brewery. “Option A”, by Metro, planned to demolish 33 acres,…
Over the past few weeks, this blog has been engaged in enlightening the community about a potentially lethal plan, proposed by Metro, to construct a light rail service yard over the graveyard of 33 acres of businesses radiating NE from Oxnard and Kester. “Option A” would bulldoze four blocks of small, family run companies, employing…
West of the 405, the vista opens up. The skies are big and the mountains vast. This is the land of beer and jets, trucks and steel; gasoline, fire and the burning sun. This is the Van Nuys Airport, the Flyaway, the Anheuser-Busch Plant, many warehouses, and an enormous sod farm. Here men and women…
Cloudy Morning: Van Nuys Under the cover of clouds, I walked along Kester, Sylvan, Van Nuys Blvd., Aetna, and Oxnard streets this morning. Kester is well-known as perhaps the filthiest street in Van Nuys, with trash-filled curbs, wrecked vehicles, and yards full of debris and neglect. Slumlord owners and indifferent managers create much of the…
