Latinos – Here in Van Nuys

Option A: An Open Letter to Ms. Sheila Kuehl

October 25, 2017September 2, 2020Posted in Option A, Van Nuys and the ValleyTagged "MacLeod Ale", "Sheila Kuehl", Board of Supervisors, Chavez Ravine, Dodger Stadium, Eminent Domain, Etc., historic, Immigration, Industrial, jobs, Kesterville, Latinos, light rail, Links, Metro, Mustangs, Option A, Pashupatina, Showcase Cabinets, Uncle Studios, Van Nuys and the Valley, WalkableLeave a comment

“Sheila James Kuehl (born February 9, 1941) is an American politician and former child actor, currently the member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors for the 3rd District. In 1994, she became the first openly gay California legislator and in 1997, she was the first woman to be named Speaker pro Tempore in California.^[2] Kuehl most recently served as a Democratic member of the California State Senate, representing the 23rd district in Los Angeles County and parts of southern Ventura County. A former member of the California State Assembly, she was elected to the Senate in 2000 and served until December 2008. She was elected to her supervisorial post in 2014. In her capacity as Supervisor, she also sits on the Metro Board, First 5 LA, and is the County appointee to the South Coast Air Quality Management District.” – Wikipedia

Thursday, October 26, 2017

Metro Los Angeles Board

Re. Metro “Option A” Plan for Light Rail Yard in Van Nuys

Dear Board Members:

As you are aware, Metro Los Angeles is planning to erect a light rail service yard in Van Nuys. “Option A” is one of four sites proposed by the agency.

“Option A” would seize land NE of Kester and Oxnard, along four blocks, covering 33 acres, and demolish 186 buildings straddling the Orange Line Busway. For the purpose of this letter the area will be called “Kesterville.”

We are vehemently opposed to this plan. Here is why:

186 small, family run businesses, employing an estimated 1,500 workers, occupying affordable, mostly rented space would be destroyed.
It would leave a gaping hole of emptiness blocks from downtown Van Nuys, obliterating plans for a denser, walkable area.
Option A will take out yet another engine of well-paying, highly skilled jobs and products, made in America, employing many immigrants and local residents.
It needlessly destroys a successful, close-knit pocket of creativity and commerce, manufacturing, and makers of unique goods and services found nowhere else in Los Angeles.
It will reduce fair priced, rentable industrial space in a city starved for it, in an area that is already served by public transport and contains more affordable housing.
Option A will subtract from the city what it is seeking to promote region wide: affordability, mobility, economic innovation, small business, local industry, ethnic diversity, and community cohesiveness.
The Van Nuys Neighborhood Council opposes Option A.

Within this dense, vital district are found a historic music recording studio, a maker of top quality metal hardware utilizing 3-D printers and advanced machinery, several fine custom cabinet builders and their craftsmen, an expert stained glass artisan whose work embellishes homes, churches and historic buildings, a restorer of Vespa motorbikes whose facility is the only one of its kind east of Pennsylvania, and a 20,000 SF shop where vintage Mustangs are serviced and restored. There are painters, carpenters, builders, and experts repairing racing boats, and several professional recording studios for musicians.

MacLeod Ale, a craft brewer of UK style ales, opened in 2014 and has become a highly successful and respected beer maker. They are located on Calvert St. adjacent to the Option A area.

Kesterville is a place of creativity, productivity, sustainability and viability. Organically, without government coercion or corporate ownership, it is an incubator of ideas and products. It has been alive for decades, growing more prosperous and doing well in the heart of the oldest part of the San Fernando Valley.

If Kesterville is destroyed, it will recall the most heartless obliterations in Los Angeles history: the razing of Chavez Ravine for Dodger Stadium, the flattening of historic Bunker Hill for corporate behemoths, and the bulldozing of West Adams for the Santa Monica Freeway.

Dodger Stadium, 1961. On land formerly housing poor Mexican families at Chavez Ravine.

1959: Families are Forcibly Evicted from Chavez Ravine to Make Way for Dodger Stadium.

Van Nuys has already suffered social, economic and environmental neglect. Why compound the injury by robbing it of yet another burgeoning and blossoming area that could become a new district of small businesses, restaurants, cafes, and even urban, in-fill small housing?

We urge you to respond to this civic emergency by opposing “Option A” and the demolition and eviction of sound businesses that support many thousands of families struggling to survive in a brutal time of economic insecurity.

We are in favor of light rail, and public transportation in general, but ask that it be constructed with greater sensitivity to the community so that it is compatible within the urban landscape and causes the least amount of damage to communities within our city.

Sincerely,

The Business District of “Option A”

Van Nuys, CA

91411

Dormant Beauty

July 24, 2017July 24, 2017Posted in Van Nuys and the ValleyTagged "Nury Martinez" "City Council District #6", "Technology Auto Body", "Van Nuys Plating", Architecture, Barrio, Bessemer, California, Calvert, CD6, Cedros St., decay, Delano, Latinos, Old Van Nuys, Photography, USA, VanNuys, Vesper St., WorkersLeave a comment

On a Sunday evening in July, on foot, after a few beers, the old town of Van Nuys, carried a note of Tribeca 1985, in its summoning of potential, laid out, for dreamers and developers.

There were empty storefronts and shabby alleys, but there were also women in chairs, attending children on bicycles, who played near clothes for sale, hung on a fence. Here Andreas bought a shirt for $3.

There were menacing BVN insignias on garbage bins and apartment walls, but there was also the eternal light of California soaking the decay in cinematic color. If I were sober, if I were alone, I probably wouldn’t have walked here.

Intoxication, used wisely, is a gift. When nerves are soothed, adventures commence.

What glories the cessation of fear brings to the eye. Every corner revealed something: teal and brown homeless tarps seemingly sculpted, the wood pallets in the alley placed with artful intention, a wood gate in the back of a parking lot like the entrance to an old western town.

The best buildings were the forgotten ones: The steel walled packing house on Vesper St., the pink stucco cottages on Cedros, and 14225 Delano St. a mid-century structure with a dark green cornice and an inverted glass wall, respectable, laconic and businesslike.

It was Sunday night but some people worked.

On Bessemer St. a worker at Technology Auto Body buffed a gleaming pick-up truck, squeezing the last minutes of light to finish his job.

Last night, these fearsome streets, Calvert, Bessemer, Vesper, Delano and Cedros, were peaceful and passive. Sometime soon, this walkable, neighborly and nostalgic area will revive, and these ramshackle adventures through denigration will take their place in the history book of Los Angeles.

SaveSave

Tom Cluster’s Van Nuys (1955-62) Part 2

November 7, 2016January 17, 2017Posted in Van Nuys and the ValleyTagged "Targets", 1950s, columbus, Kester, Latinos, Peter Bogdanovich, San Fernando Valley, San Fernando Valley Blog, Sepulveda Drive In, Tom Cluster, Valerio, Valley Presbyterian Hospital, Van Nuys and the Valley, Whites3 Comments

Tom Cluster (b. 1947) lived at 6944 Columbus with his sister and brother and parents from 1955-1962. The family then moved to Pacific Palisades. He now lives in Northern California and has been sending me his recollections of life in Van Nuys in the 1950s.

Here are some excerpts from his emails to me:

lapl-12-6-54 — 12/6/1954 Star of Bethlehem Parade, Van Nuys, CA

“Everyone talks about the Bethlehem Star Parade on Van Nuys Blvd., and we’d go to see it also. It was a Big Deal in Van Nuys.

You write about Kester a lot, and thinking of Kester reminds me of my grandmother who worked at the MGM cartoon department in the 30’s and early 40’s. One of the cartoonists had a chicken ranch on Kester somewhere down near the LA River. I know this because I have a letter he wrote to my grandmother.

pictured-are-mexican-nationals-at-the-van-nuys-jail-they-are-going-to-be-returned-to-mexico-photograph-dated-april-14-1949 — Pictured are Mexican nationals at the Van Nuys jail. They are going to be returned to Mexico. Photograph dated April 14, 1949. (LAPL)

I had mentioned that the Valley was Lily White – what I meant was that there were (few) Blacks or Asians (apologies to the Jue Joe Clan). There were, of course, Hispanics. I remember riding my bicycle to a Mexican grocery just below Kester (on the east side, in other words) near Van Nuys High School. They had big pickles that I liked. I also remember that in my one semester at Van Nuys High (September 1961) a fight broke out in the quad between the Hispanics and the Whites. I’m not sure what words we used to describe these groups. We might have said “Mexicans”.

Valley Town Market/ Sepulveda Drive In

Note: Constructed in 1955, at a cost of $3,000,000, the Valley Town Market and the Sepulveda Drive-In Theater were located near Erwin and Sepulveda in Van Nuys, CA. The market featured some amusement park rides, animals and outdoor informal “fast” food.

The entire complex was demolished in 1992, and was replaced by Wickes Furniture, which was then torn down. And is today the site of LA Fitness and the Orange Line Busway parking lot.

5-15-55-valley-town-market-and-drive-in (LA Times)

“Targets” (1968)

Random mass murder was still a novelty in 1968.

In that year, Peter Bogdanovich directed “Targets” about an assassin here in Van Nuys.

Tom Cluster remembers: “There was a drive-in theater on Sepulveda north of Oxnard, and there were some gas storage tanks adjacent to it. The tanks are still there, up against the 405, near the Orange Line Busway. This drive-in and the tanks were featured in the Peter Bogdanovich movie “Targets” (1968).”

sepulveda-super-drive-in-targets — Sepulveda Super Drive-In Theater (1955-89) Corner of Erwin and Sepulveda. Demolished 1992. Now site of LA Fitness and Orange Line Busway Parking Lot. (Still image from “Targets”)

Other old photos of the Sepulveda Drive-In:

Cluster Family Photos.

My beautiful picture — 1961/ Columbus Ave.

First picture – two kids on the sidewalk – one is my brother. This was taken in front of the bank manager’s house – the Cerf residence is just behind the closest walnut tree. This is the fall of 1961. We’re looking south down Columbus, toward the hospital’s land in the distance. Notice how the walnut trees stop after the Cerf’s house, and notice also how you don’t really see any buildings at the hospital, compared to now, where there’s a virtual wall at the edge of their property on Basset because of their expansion.

Second picture – My sister on a trampoline, Christmas, 1959. There was a craze then for trampoline centers where kids could break their necks, so eventually they faded away. This particular center was on the west side of Kester, just north of Vanowen.

Third picture – 1958 – My brother and sister, with Marlin Place in the background. You’ll see that our windows still have the fake shutters. We pulled them off when we got the house painted and never put them back – I’m not sure why. You can see Mr. Guyer’s house in the background, on Marlin Place. I looked it up and Zillow tells me it was built in 1955.

May 1956/ View south down Columbus towards Vanowen/Bassett

Tom Cluster School Days

1961-00120503 — Tom Cluster (behind woman in hat) 1961 (LAPL/LAT)

This ceremony was at the church on the southeast corner of Sherman Way and Kester. At the time I think it was a Baptist church, but if I’m not mistaken it’s now a Four Square Gospel [Church on the Way] (3.5 stars on Yelp). I was nominated for it by Mrs. Stitt, a social studies teacher at Fulton Jr. High. Poor lady, such an unfortunate name, but it fit her. I’m on the right, the first boy behind the woman with the fur, smiling and with my face partially obscured. I still have that certificate (I keep almost everything). My time in Junior High is clouded in shame that I shall never live down, which is one reason I didn’t attend the Van Nuys High School 50th reunion. As much as I would have liked to see my old classmates, too many of them would remember that I was a “Cadet” at Fulton, or, in generic terms, a “Safety”. We wore sashes that said Cadet and we were empowered to write citations for infractions such as littering and running. I even got elected to the student council, into the position of “Boy’s Safety Representative.”

5thgrade — Tom Cluster (Top Row, 1st boy on left)

Photo Credits:

“Targets” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DnVkK-6sPg

Drive in Photos / http://www.garbell.com/drive-ins/drive-in.htm

Valley Market Town, Postcard of Van Nuys http://sanfernandovalleyblog.blogspot.com

Cluster Family photos courtesy of Tom Cluster

Trade For Print-a new short story

November 6, 2016November 6, 2016Posted in Short StoriesTagged "North Hollywood High School", "SGI Buddhist Center" and "North Hollywood Post Office", "Short Story", "The Federal Bar", Bakman, Chandler, Colfax, Farmer's Market, Fiction, Lankershim, Latinos, Lemp, Models, Noir, north hollywood, photographer, Postal Fraud, San Fernando Valley, Studio CityLeave a comment

“Trade For Print” is a new short story I wrote concerning an unscrupulous photographer who lures a postal worker into fraud by offering young love for sale.

The piece, entirely fictional, of course, takes place in North Hollywood and moves around on local boulevards and avenues: Chandler, Colfax, Bakman, Lemp and Lankershim. And includes such storied places as The Federal Bar, SGI Buddhist Center and the North Hollywood Post Office.

LAPD: Sherman Oaks/Van Nuys Residential Burglaries

January 29, 2013Posted in CrimeTagged burglary, Crime, Hispanics, LAPD, Latinos, Sherman Oaks, Suspects, Toyota Camry, Van Nuys and the Valley2 Comments

Van Nuys Burglary Detectives are reporting serveral residential burgalries took place over the weekend in the area of RD991 (Mullholland Drive to Beverly Glen to Valley Vista Blvd. to the 405 Freeway.) All of these took place during daytime hours.

Several other burgalaries also occured in RD966 (Woodwan Ave to the 101 Freeway to Fulton Ave to Chandler Blvd.) Suspects are described at four male Hispanics, 20-25 years old driving a 2004-2007 Totota Camry or Nissan Altima metalic gold in color. Suspects were also discribed as wearing LA Dodger apparel.

In many of these burglaries the suspected enetered through open attached garages which gave them access to the residence.

If you have any additional information please call Van Nuys Burglary Detective Robert Kraus at 25895@lapd.lacity.org or 818-374-0031.

Conversation at the Dentist’s Office

March 9, 2010March 10, 2010Posted in LinksTagged California, cost, debate, Immigration, Latinos, LosAngeles5 Comments

I got to the dentist’s office today, and was greeted at the front desk, not by the usual person, but by a visitor, a friend of the doctor.

He was a friendly, chatty man; a Filipino born immigrant.

He said he was disgusted with the state of California and how much taxes were going to people who used up the state’s resources.

He had come here legally, he told me. In daylight.

He said that illegal immigrants were crowding up classrooms and costing all taxpayers money. “Of course”, he said, “education is important.” But it shouldn’t come at the expense of legitimate citizens who were paying for the services used by illegals.

: Mr. Pancho: Kester and Delano, Van Nuys, CA.

“Some people don’t want to work. I say if you don’t work, you don’t eat,” he said.

He was angry about people who come to America to work illegally, but also disgusted with those, presumably same individuals, who do NOT want to work.

Like those braceros who stand on Kester and Oxnard every morning? Or those bussed-in cleaning ladies walking along Sunset, on their way to clean the mansions of Brentwood?

Trillions of dollars have been wasted in the meaningless military pursuit of government change in foreign nations. Billions were showered on Wall Street and the banks so that America’s economy could be saved. Health insurance is for the rich and any attempt to modify its dispersal is called “socialism.”

Every state and every city in America is fighting to stay solvent. Los Angeles is firing government workers by the thousands, and the schools are cutting teachers and classes.

And still the great wisdom of the street, one that captivates and controls our minds, is that Carlos and Maria pushing the shopping cart down Victory Boulevard is our greatest enemy.

Why do the barely powerful beat up on the less powerful instead of going after the real thieves in this nation?

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: