Tag: toluca

“This is the club where Bing Crosby belongs….”

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Picking Olives Front

Some of the enormous, picturesque, and historic postcard collection amassed by Tommy Gelinas and his Valley Relics has passed through my hands.

The San Fernando Valley, only 100 years ago a largely agricultural area, dotted with newly established towns, became the fastest growing part of the United States in the 15 years after WWII.

Postcards from visitors who passed through here; visited olive groves, rode streetcars through vast planted lands, absorbed all the sunshine, boosterism and hucksterism of that time; radiate in words and pictures.

Lankershim VN Front Lankershim VN Back

Around 1910, Pacific Electric advertised a 101-mile-long, one-day trolley trip for one dollar. “The Scenic Trolley Trip” visited 10 beaches and 8 cities.

“Paralleling the mountains from Los Angeles to the ocean, then 36 miles along the Seashore. Parlor Car; Reserved Seats, Competent Guides. FREE ATTRACTION-Admission to largest Aquarium on Pacific Coast; Ride on the LA Thomspon Scenic Railway at Venice; Admission to Camera Obscura, Santa Monica.”

It sounds thrilling.

And imagine, men in suits and women in long dresses riding all day in wool coats, felt and feather hats, with many layers of undergarments, not even an ankle exposed.

Tower Motor Front

Thirty or so years later, the Tower Motor Hotel at 10980 Ventura Blvd in Studio City was smartly streamlined with gas pumps in front, steam heat and air-cooled rooms.

Lakeside Front Lakeside Back

Bing Crosby, who lived in Toluca Lake, was the most successful singer of the 1930s. A postcard sent from a fan who visited Lakeside Golf Club near Mr. Crosby’s home wrote: “I’ve seen him playing two mornings this week.”

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A 1930s view of Van Nuys, along Sylvan Street, towards the Valley Municipal Building, shows diagonally parked cars and a “Safeway” store.

On another postcard, showing the Encino Country Club, a Model T is parked under a shady oak in a verdant landscape of hills and orange trees.

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It may be too much to extrapolate truth and fact from these postcards. They were advertisements for businesses, meant to promote and sell.

But my heart tells me that Encino, Van Nuys and the rest of the Southland were magical back then.

 

 

 

Where the Workers Are.

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On blissfully sunny drive around the San Fernando Valley today, I went on a couple of errands. As usual, there were stopovers at places that make me feel like I am connecting to the larger world, that bigger universe of ideas and thought: Borders and Starbucks.

At Borders, there are just so many magazines. It is hard to look at these glossy promotions of a better life, especially when you know the truth is so much less than those covers promise. There are dozens of publications telling you how to make money; many others show impossibly lovely homes and landscaping; others have gourmet eating, sophisticated international travel, weight loss, weight gain, muscle gain, celebrity child rearing tips. There is not an average looking person on any cover, unless they are working for the Obama Administration.

Books, like magazines, are just as eager to sell titles promoting any point of view that might sell. One book that I recently bought, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future by Daniel H. Pink, postulates the idea that all those “experts” and people like engineers, doctors and financiers, will lose out to generalists of the imagination, like Andy Hurvitz. I will treasure this book as I collect my unemployment check and fondly remember earning my BA in English from Boston University.

At Starbucks, in Toluca Lake, one can plug their laptop into an outlet and conduct online activities. This will be done while the accompanying Hollywood schmoozers pour in and out the door with fantastic tales of meetings they just had over at NBC, Warner Brothers and Disney. Somehow, their great projects and plans always end up in a coffee store at 2:30 on a weekday afternoon.

The whole world, of course, is not unemployed. There are still many productive people who work within those padded cubicles, and collect paychecks every week. They spend hours on Facebook and Yelp, but unlike those of us at Starbucks who do the same, these employed people have a fabulous sense of purpose and accomplishment, a feeling that they are working and earning something tangible.

Excuse me while I go and order a tall latte.