About, but not limited to, Van Nuys, CA.
At the corner of 15856 Sherman Way , Van Nuys, 1926.
Wagner-Thoreson appears to be a real estate broker and they are offering one property, a 3-bedroom house at $2350 and another sign advertises 7.5% terms with $1,050 down.
This area today is west of the 405, and just east of Van Nuys Airport.
Photo: USC Digital Archives/ Dick Whittington Collection
From the USC Digital Archives come these photographs of flooding in Van Nuys at Tyrone and Sylvan Streets (a block east of the Valley Municipal Building) after heavy rains.
Caption reads: “Mrs. Agnes Snyder removes debris from car on flooded street. Wayne WIlson (bare foot) crosses St. Overall views of flooded Tyrone Ave. — cars submerged. Kids in stalled car.”
There are smiles on the faces of people, a lack of jadedness, that seems characteristic of that era. The hardship is harmless, nobody is getting hurt, the flooding is inconvenient and messy, but they are making the best of it.
Imagine the same situation in today’s Van Nuys.
A herd of fatties stuck inside their SUV, DVD player and boom boxes blaring, everyone on their mobile phones, three enormous women with tattoos, dressed in black leggings, broadcasting their “movie” on their smartphones with scowling and angry faces, never knowing how to live in the moment.
On January 31, 1956, Barbara Jean Jepsen, an 18-year-old married woman, was found stabbed to death by her husband Joe Earl Jepsen inside their unit at 15050 Victory in Van Nuys.
The murder of the young woman shocked the city.
Photos of the crime scene exteriors are kept in the USC Digital Archives and offer a glimpse of detectives, in long coats and hats, gathering evidence and questioning blond, leather jacketed Mr. Jepsen.
As the investigation proceeded, other women in Los Angeles were also mysteriously knifed to death, and the killer or killers remained at large.
One of the suspects was Liberace’s younger brother Rudolph, 24, whose strange (?) behavior in Granada Hills caused neighbors to call police. Rudolph was later released and not charged with any crime.
The cottages where Mrs. Jepsen and her husband lived, and she died, have been torn down but are remarkably similar to ones still standing near Lido Pizza on Victory.
As far as I can ascertain, the murder of Barbara Jean Jepsen is still unsolved 58 years later.
Most photographs of the Valley Municipal Building show the 1933 building after its completion, but here are some, by Dick Whittington Studio as the hole was being dug in 1932.
Statistics and specifications for the completed structure exist and have been cited many times, so I won’t do it here.
Instead, one might look at these photographs and imagine the small town of Van Nuys, self-sufficient and walkable, safe and sunny, sitting in the middle of the largely agricultural San Fernando Valley in the depths of the Great Depression.
Surrounding the t-shaped dig, is a Richfield gas station and The Erwin Hotel, criss-crossed in a vaguely Tudor style.
In contrast to today’s heavily regulated construction, the men are all in civilian clothing-no hardhats, no vast walls around the site, no safety signs. The humble trucks are pulled right up to dirt and a two strips of lumber comprise a fence surrounding the digging.
Laborers, architects, drivers, engineers, photographer; everyone was lucky to work.
With such opening modesty the end product was magnificent, distinguished and proud.
And became that symbol of Van Nuys everlasting.
86 years ago, the Dick Whittington Studio took these photos around Van Nuys.
Locations are unknown, but what one sees is prosperity and industry tethered to art.
The tiled bungalow with its vast wings, rafters, and a vented and vaulted front door entrance is an amalgamation of styles: Spanish, Adobe, Mission; wealth without ostentation, a type of house that might exist in Pasadena. Architects back then, trained in classical styles, could superimpose styles governed by correct proportion.
In 1926, people lived and worked here next to a neat row of trees, a farmhouse, fruit trees and a clean concrete roadway with one lone automobile.
Workman construct a cottage, surrounded by agriculture, as a suited man, probably the owner or architect, watches.
And making it all possible, the Bureau of Power and Light, housed in a neat little brick building, business conducted behind venetian blinds, rooms cooled by operable vents above sheets of glass.
Los Angeles has changed a lot since then.
(USC Digital Archives)
Here are two astonishing photos, startling to our eyes, showing how open the San Fernando Valley was 82 years ago.
Today this area is completely urbanized, home to Notre Dame High School and Fashion Square.
Here in Van Nuys 
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