These are a selection of violent news stories from just a few months in 1956, mostly related to people in Van Nuys, but also in Canoga Park and Burbank.
It is common to look back at the 1950s, especially in Los Angeles, as a less violent and less chaotic era. Old-time residents of the San Fernando Valley remember it as a verdant, peaceful, fun, and safe place.
But there was actually a 62% increase in crime in the SFV from 1954-55.[1]
More Police Asked for West Part of Valley
True one could buy a house for $14,000. But the average US household income in 1956 was $5,000 a year or about $96 (before tax) dollars a week. And nobody drove their children to school in Los Angeles. The kids walked or biked. Affordable houses and children on foot: two extinct attributes of life in Southern California.
Then, as now, the horrors of sudden death were attributable to two beloved things profuse in our city: cars and guns.
1/9/56: Burbank motorcycle officer, William Catlin, 44, said he owes his life to citizens who helped him subdue youth he said threatened to kill him during questioning. Reginald Lemon, 18 was booked on suspicion of assault with intent to commit murder.
5/14/56: Three persons were shot to death, a fourth critically wounded, at 19859 Saticoy St., Canoga Park. Regis Johnston, 35 went berserk and killed his wife Jean, 30 and Bessie Mungall, 35 and wounded Bessie’s husband John, 40. Regis Johnston then took his own life by shotgun.
6/18/56: Rudolph Liberace, 24, of Van Nuys, brother of pianist Lee Liberace, is shown in jail after his arrest as a burglary suspect.
9/30/56: Protecting the mid 1950s’ 600,000 residents of the San Fernando Valley (2018: 1.75 million) were 418 LAPD officers who were crammed into the 1933 Van Nuys City Hall which was designed to only house 45 cops. The new regional police buildings that were later built around the San Fernando Valley in the late 1950s and early 1960s helped alleviate the primitive conditions of the old headquarters.
10/18/56: In the midst of a strike by laborers at Hydro-Aire, Inc. in Burbank, a striker’s wife in Van Nuys, Mrs. Patricia Laszlo, 21, of 9920 Saticoy St. was cooking dinner when a masked, leather jacketed thug entered the house and beat her and knocked her out. He struck her in the abdomen and threatened to burn her fingers on a stove if her husband, James Laszlo, 22, a machinist, did not return to work. The International Association of Machinists, Lodge 727 is the union picketing the plant at 3000 Winona St. Burbank.
10/23/56: Twenty-one juveniles were arrested for vandalism including Robert E. Farmer, 18 of 15001 Paddock St., Van Nuys who was apprehended by custodians as he and a friend attempted to crack a safe in the student store at San Fernando High School, 11133 O’Melveny St. Both were booked on suspicion of burglary.
11/23/56: A 31-year old mother of a 10-year-old boy took a 22-caliber rifle, shot her son to death and then killed herself. Julia McIrvin of 7240 Woodman Ave., Van Nuys, died in the Valley Emergency Hospital along with her son. Twice divorced, she suffered from mental issues.
11/30/56: A Youth Dies, 4 Hurt in 3-Car Smashup on Sepulveda. The youth was a native of Germany, Karl Schmidl, 21, who was driving southbound in his lightweight, imported car when he plowed into a northbound car with four people driven by Leonard W. Kraska, 30, of 14259 Vanowen St. Van Nuys; James Robert Parker, 48 of 9261 Wakefield Ave, Van Nuys; and Earl Schapps, 53, of 8850 Tyrone Ave. Van Nuys.
[1]10/4/1956 LA Times: “More Police Asked For West Part of Valley”
Last night, I attended a small neighborhood safety meeting with a group of perhaps seven neighbors and our LAPD Senior Lead Officer.
It was held at a home of the new liason between the cops and the community, a woman who speaks up and speaks often on issues affecting her street such as lighting, crime and people who don’t retrieve their trash cans after pickup.
I usually avoid these meetings out of trepidation. The ones I’ve gone to at the local school or hospital are full of anger and irrationality.
Not last night, but on other nights, I heard:
“Someone put a stoplight on my street at Vanowen and Columbus and now we have more traffic!”
“They planted these oak trees along the curb to provide shade and now they have cars parked there with people smoking and drinking. I say cut down the trees!”
“I’m completely against providing transitional housing for homeless veterans in our neighborhood. They get enough free stuff!” says the 65-year-old woman who inherited a 4-bedroom house from her WWII veteran father and pays $1,300 a year in 1967 rated property taxes.
“These developers are putting up apartments everywhere. I didn’t move to Los Angeles to be surrounded by crowds!”
Yet, last night, the mood was polite. A well-fed group of rouged and perfumed women from the Eisenhower Era gathered in an early American style den where dainty finger sandwiches with the crusts cut off were served.
Period references, for example, to Mrs. Kravitz from “Bewitched” (1964-72) were understood and appreciated.
Our petite and pomaded Sr. Lead Officer, wore a dark navy uniform and a very big silver badge, holster, gun and unobtrusive body camera. She spoke intelligently and sometimes ironically about the insoluble issues plaguing our community.
She broke the news that we seven folks in the den were probably not going to solve 100,000 homeless on the streets of Los Angeles or 10 million illegal aliens inhabiting our state of 40 million. Our system is so broken, so wrecked, our state so adrift in chaos and bad governance, that India, Nigeria and Pakistan seem models of order and stability.
She admitted that even her own husband often speeds down side streets, even as she enforces the laws against speeding while on duty.
She told us that 80% of major crimes such as assaults, murders, rapes and burglaries now come from the homeless community. She said that because Van Nuys has the only jail in the San Fernando Valley, when convicts are released they stay local.
She talked about Proposition 47, a voter passed initiative from 2014, to reduce penalties for certain non-violent crimes that now makes it nearly impossible to lock up the heroin user who shoots up in front of the grammar school. It’s now a misdemeanor to inject narcotics.
She said the homeless issue, which has now supplanted the prostitution issue, is a bigger problem than just our community. She advised electing officials above Councilwoman Nury Martinez, who would be devoted to law and order.
Whether her inference spells Democrat or Republican she did not say, but she seems to have a distaste for taggers, gang bangers, felons, and mentally ill murderers roaming the streets.
Mayor Garbageciti are you listening?
The host who invited us then passed out sheets of paper on which were shown our individual streets and the addresses that every block captain is assigned.
“Mona Castor Doyle[1], you have Columbus. Serena Pimpel you have Kittridge. Becky Shlockhaus you have Noble from Lemay to Kittridge. Miranda Beagle-Pinscher you have Lemona. Maria Copay you have Norwich. Sarah Choakhold you have Lemay!”
The methods advised were to go door to door and introduce oneself and say to each resident: “I am Zoe Bluddhound, your block captain and here is my LAPD letter and my contact information.”
Other methods of crime prevention were to send out group texts, say if you were home and heard an alarm, thus alerting your neighbors to a nearby illegality.
Living in Van Nuys requires a full time commitment to staying home and guarding your property 24/7.
Looking around the room I realized that everyone is trapped in their lives. These are women, now middle-aged or older, many of whom came here 30, 40 or 50 years ago and chose, for whatever reason, to stay here in Van Nuys. Some bought cheap, some inherited, nobody could afford to buy here now.
For some living here is an economical proposition when you bought your home for $35,000 or $126,000 and your yearly taxes are less than someone pays for the average ($2800 a month) two-bedroom rental in Los Angeles.
Yes, the environment beyond the little pockets of ranch houses is demoralizing, dirty, unsafe, ugly, violent, hideous, un-walkable and un-breathable. There are dumped couches, mattresses, fast food wrappers, cars and trucks speeding by, running red lights; there are grotesque billboards, car washes, parking lots, dog dumpings, discarded condoms and donut shops.
Nobody dines al fresco on Sepulveda Boulevard or drinks wine at an outdoor café on Van Nuys Boulevard. The Van Nuys Neighborhood Council, alive like a corpse, ensures that no progress is ever made on any community improvement and that all members are backstabbing one another.
So the community meeting, between neighbors, low-key and humble, without ego, is seemingly a better way to self-govern.
Last night, under the spiritual leadership of the Senior Lead Officer, an attempt at normality, order, safety, reassurance and camaraderie was attempted.
This is not Paris or Zurich or even Cleveland Heights. But we are not yet Aleppo.
[1]Personal names, not streets, have been changed.
“Despite a growing population and a booming economy, the number of trips taken on Los Angeles County’s bus and rail network last year fell to the lowest level in more than a decade.
Passengers on Metropolitan Transportation Authority buses and trains took 397.5 million trips in 2017, a decline of 15% over five years. Metro’s workhorse bus system, which carries about three-quarters of the system’s passengers, has seen a drop of nearly 21%.”- Los Angeles Times, Jan. 25, 2018.
Let’s imagine a 62-year-old woman, Berta Gonzales, who lives in Van Nuys, near Victory and Sepulveda, who still works, as she has for the last 55 years, doing whatever she can to bring in cash for herself, her husband, her two adult children and six grandchildren.
She works as a housekeeper, and she takes the #164 bus, every morning, at 7am, from Victory/Sepulveda to her job near Warner Center, a commute of 33 minutes.
When she gets off the bus in Woodland Hills, the temperature these days is around 80, but when she leaves her job, after cleaning bathrooms and vacuuming floors, doing laundry and dusting, around 2pm, the thermometer might be 110.
Last year she twisted her ankle when she slipped on a freshly mopped floor. She hobbled around on a special shoe, using a crutch to walk, and she tried to stay off her feet if she could. She has no medical insurance, of course.
In the morning, when she waits for the bus, next to the bench without any sun protection, she is made to stand. Because there is a drunken, sick, filthy man sleeping on the bench, with all of his dirty clothes, his smell of urine, feces, body odor and beer, as well as half eaten and discarded food such as spaghetti, pizza, and empty alcoholic cans.
This is his spot. All the legitimate and necessary uses of the bus bench must be thrown out because his sickness and his selfishness, whether deliberate or accidental, is the most important thing catered to.
He has been here for months, if not years. Last year he fell down on the sidewalk and paramedics came to gurney him away. Then he came back for good.
This homeless person, multiplied by thousands, living on bus benches, is not an inducement for increasing bus ridership. Thousands of potential riders will see this lawless, unsanitary and unsafe barbarism all over LA and make up their minds to do anything to NOT TAKE A BUS.
Berta is like dozens, if not thousands of people who encounter this situation every single day. They are hard-workers, struggling to earn money, riding public transit as their well-meaning, liberal political servants wish them to do.
But put yourself in Berta Gonzales’s shoes and ask yourself: if you had a choice would you want to ride a Metro bus when this is the first sight you see every single morning?
Because Los Angeles does not enforce quality of life laws, there is a cascading affect impacting every other activity: traffic, air pollution, and longer commutes.
It is surprising that the plight of bus riders, many of whom are Latino, has not seized the identity politic podiums of those in city government who are always screaming loudest about injustices suffered by whatever is trending on Twitter that day.
Does grotesque, citywide neglect of sick people and working people and commuting people merit no outrage?
Who is responsible for keeping mentally ill people in dire need of treatment off bus benches and getting them into permanent hospitalization and shelter?
For almost twenty years I’ve made a home in Van Nuys, CA.
And since 2006, I have published this blog: walking, photographing and writing about a peculiarly blessed, and unjustly afflicted section of Los Angeles.
Here are some 11 ideas that I am proposing to better Van Nuys, especially Van Nuys Boulevard:
Kjellandersjoberg_salabacke_view-courtyard.
Create Walkable, Garden Court Housing
We need, desperately, little, affordable, small housing units that share common garden areas. These were built all over Los Angeles up until the 1960s when dingbats took over with their car-centric designs.
Such garden courts would be most effective within walking distance of major bus and light rail streets.
LAPD Koban (Japanese Style) booth at The Grove.
Relocate the Van Nuys LAPD to Van Nuys Boulevard
The Van Nuys LAPD is buried deep behind the Erwin Street Mall, way back from Van Nuys Boulevard. What this accomplishes is removing the police from active interaction with pedestrians, shops and the action, good and bad, on Van Nuys Boulevard. Putting the police station back on the boulevard where it belongs would send a message to the community that law enforcement is on active duty: watching and patrolling, enforcing the law.
Reduce the Size of Wide Streets and Plant Trees
When drivers see five lanes of road in front of them, but every single lane is packed with cars, or conversely, when there are wide-open lanes with few vehicles, both scenarios create frustration. The speeding, the road rage, the frustration of having so much space for cars and hardly any for bicycles or light rail, has caused the decay and decline of Van Nuys Boulevard, as well as Victory.
The heating up of our climate, the constant hot weather, is creating a meltdown of mood, with more anger, more violence and more irrationality. Trees would help cool down the street and provide shade. Narrower streets, lined with cafes, pedestrians, activity, would build a sense of community decency.
58277232 – singapore – march 18, 2016 : maxwell food center is the maxwell road hawker food centre is well known for its affordable, tasty and huge variety of local hawker food.
Hawker Centers Like Singapore
Singapore has “Hawker Centers” which are groups of different food merchants housed under one roof. A Singaporean can get off a train and within a few feet find delicious, cheap food in clean areas which are protected from the elements but still open air.
By contrast, Los Angeles has nothing like this other than Grand Central Market which is not next to a train stop. Van Nuys Boulevard would greatly benefit from one, large, enclosed, regulated building full of food sellers. This would bring the pushcart under control and provide a clean, reliable, fun, sociable place to eat and meet.
Billboard: Sepulveda at Victory
Give Commercial Buildings Without Billboards Tax Breaks
Billboards are so ubiquitous that we have wearily come to adjust our eyes to them. Yet their ugliness, their cheap, desecrating, looming presence brings down property values even while providing landlords with some income.
On every corner where there is a mini-mall with a billboard, the property owner who removes the signs should get a tax benefit because they are helping the community improve aesthetically.
A Monument When Entering Van Nuys
Why is there no marker, like an arch, an obelisk, or a gate when one enters Van Nuys Bl. at Oxnard Street?
Imagine a Washington Monument type obelisk in the center of Van Nuys Boulevard to make evident, proudly, commemoratively and architecturally, the fact that Van Nuys is a historic and proud area of Los Angeles deserving its own marker of identity and purpose.
Seen for miles, an obelisk perhaps 150 feet tall, should stand in the center of the boulevard, a booster of morale and an instigator of commerce and civic pride.
Santa Barbara, CA.
Pick a Unifying Style and Stick With it.
Paris, Santa Barbara, Charleston, Savannah: certain cities have an archetype of architecture which provides the base for how a city is constructed and designed.
In recent years, we have seen the onslaught of non-conforming, strange, computer-generated frivolities in architecture such as those which have marred and destroyed the beauty of London, England.
Yes, it is great to have one Disney Hall, but a street of melting blobs, narcissistic designs, starving-for-attention buildings, does not engender a district wide identity.
Strange Shaped Building: Vienna, Austria.
A classical Van Nuys would actually be revolutionary because it goes against so much architectural dogma these days and restores the primacy of community standards and group identity.
Tear Up the Parking Lots and Plant Orange Groves
One of the tragedies of Van Nuys since 1945, indeed of all of Southern California, has been the loss of agriculture.
Once we all lived near local fruit groves, and their soothing, healthful, beneficial trees provided not only big business for the state, but gave a mythical, blessed countenance to Los Angeles which was exported around the world.
There are hundreds of acres of unused asphalt sitting behind empty stores along Van Nuys Boulevard which could be torn up and planted with citrus trees.
Perhaps an innovative architect could design housing that is combined with citrus groves?
Kester and Aetna
Kesterville
This blog has actively supported the preservation of an area of 33 acres, containing light industries, near the corner of Kester and Oxnard.
“Option A” would have destroyed 58 buildings, 186 businesses and thousands of jobs in a walkable, affordable, diverse district and replaced it with an open air, light rail service yard.
It would have been disastrous for the revitalization of Van Nuys. If it had succeeded it might have been the final nail in Van Nuys’ coffin.
Instead, happily, the Metro Board, with the support of Councilwoman Nury Martinez and others, objected to the Option A proposal. “Option B” was chosen, near the already existing Metrolink train tracks, thus preserving the Kesterville area.
So now is the time to put Kesterville on the map and make it a harmonious, vibrant destination of little apartments, stores, restaurants, cafes, all along the public transit corridor next to the Orange Line.
Pashupatina: Ivan and Daniel Gomez in their shop which they completely renovated with their own hands and money in 2015.
Create Gateway Signs to Welcome People to an Area. Kesterville could use one of these!
9 Houses and 24 bioclimatic collective housing units by Fleury, Benjamin / Photo: Emmanuelle Blanc
Paris-Housing-by-Vous-Etes-Ici
9 Houses and 24 bioclimatic collective housing units by Fleury, Benjamin / Photo: Emmanuelle Blanc
9 Houses and 24 bioclimatic collective housing units by Fleury, Benjamin / Photo: Emmanuelle Blanc
Remove Onerous and Expensive Regulations on Housing
Builders are required, by law, to do so many expensive things that they are dissuaded from building.
One example is parking. The average building must spend 30-40% of its construction costs to provide space for vehicles.
Thus we have the paradox: not enough housing. And the housing we have becomes more expensive because there is not enough of it to bring prices down. And each rentable unit only becomes affordable if four working adults, with four vehicles, split the rent!
So now we have less housing, more cars, more cars parked on side-streets because we have, by law, made the construction of apartments so expensive.
Remove parking minimums and stop catering to the car as if it were the ONLY important thing in city planning.If a building were built with 200 apartments and only 100 parking spaces, would it really harm Van Nuys?
Is NYC harmed by scarcity of parking?
Homeless on Aetna St. Feb. 2016
Regulate Homelessness
California is often the destination for anyone living unhappily in any part of the world. Thus our state, because of its warm weather, attracts people coming here to escape.
Van Nuys, long considered the unofficial dumping ground of Los Angeles, is now under onslaught from homeless men and women sleeping everywhere, on bus benches, under boxes and tents, behind buildings and in RVs parked along the street.
We need to regulate where people can sleep by providing safe, clean, sanitary areas, to park RVs and where people can wash themselves, and get help so they do not have to sleep outside.
To talk about this is not to attack people who are in need. Rather, it is to assign us the proper legal and moral task of ending homelessness by not permitting it to exist in the first place.
“Photograph article dated July 18, 1963 partially reads, “Valley police have been issuing citations in recent months to teen-agers who hitchhike up and down Van Nuys Blvd. The department is worried because several Valley youths have been the victims of homosexuals who pick them up and refuse to let them out of the car. Capt. Hagan pointed out that hitchhiking is against the law when it is done on freeways or any roadway where the hitchhiker walks out and stands in the roadway. The hitchhiker, however, is within the law if he stays on the sidewalk.” Motor Officer J. E. Nibes is about to tell Jeff Sillifant, North Hollywood, that he’s breaking the law. ”
Here in Van Nuys 
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