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:
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.
Chicken Ranch SFV (LAPL)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. (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) 5/22/55 LA Times
Valley Market Town (SFV Blog) Valley Market Town (SFV Blog)
“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 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.
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.
1959 Cluster
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.
1958Third 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 12/1957 Neighborhood children
Tom Cluster School Days
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.”
A few weeks ago I received a lovely email, and some photos from Tom Cluster, a reader of this blog.
Here is one excerpt:
Dear Andy,
I just discovered your blog about Van Nuys. I’m entranced by it. I’m almost 70. Our family moved to 6944 Columbus Avenue in the summer of 1955. It was a small tract of new homes. We moved from Westchester (near LAX). A lot of people moved from Westchester to the Valley because the airport was expanding and streets were being eaten up. Our new neighborhood was between Kester, Vose, Sepulveda, and Vanowen.
Andy Devine (1905-77)
The local celebrity was Andy Devine, who still lived in his big house on 6947 Kester, down near Basset. At Halloween he’d hand out small boxes of Sugar Pops. There was an old swimming pool across the street that he had built years before – the Crystal Plunge – and we’d swim there in the summer. We had smog alerts in those days and if there was a big rain we wouldn’t go to school because Kester St. would flood.
There was a family on Vose who sold eggs from their chickens – the mother and father had survived the Holocaust and had the tattooed numbers on their forearms.
[Then as now] It would get hot and there was no air conditioning, not at Valerio School (which in 1955-1956 was at the corner of Kester and Valerio, consisting entirely of temporary buildings with a dirt playground) and not in our homes. Still, I have fond memories of Van Nuys.
Valerio St. School June 1956
The area where the Presbyterian Hospital is now was a big empty field full of tumbleweeds – we’d make forts and paths there. When the hospital was built it was small compared to what it is today. It was just two circular wings designed by William Leonard Pereira. (1909-1985) of Pereira and Luckman.
March 18, 1957 reads “Discussing modern innovations of Valley Presbyterian Hospital, nearing completion at 15107 Vanowen St., are Mrs. Barbara Holt, member of hospital’s board of directors, and from left, J. H. Wray, Jim Cross and Walter Rueff, members of San Fernando Automobile Dealers Association committee for hospital’s fund drive.” (LAPL)Valley Presbyterian Hospital, 15107 Vanowen Street, Van Nuys, designed by Pereira & Luckman. Photograph dated January 15, 1964 Ph: Geo. BrichPhotograph caption dated February 20, 1961 reads “Larry Peskin, 17, left, 10038 Noble St., Sepulveda, completes hospital course. Fellow graduate examining syringe is Warren Wilkinson, 17, 9439 Louise Ave., Northridge.” The young men completed a 20-hour training course to become volunteers at Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys. Ph: Jon WoodsJanuary 5, 1959 reads “Janet Kellenberger, 15, and Jackie Suess, 17, members of Candy Stripers, from left, aid Sea Scouts Bob Wheeler, 17; Steve Bidwell, 16, and Mike Strange, 15, in volunteer cleanup program of Valley Presbyterian Hospital. Sea Scouts, auxiliary of Explorer Scouts of America, and other organizations volunteer work hours for Van Nuys medical center.”
(Valley Presbyterian Hospital images courtesy of LAPL)
If you look at a map, you’ll see that Noble, Burnett, and Columbus extend from Basset to Marlin Place – the 6900 block. The houses from 6900 up to 6932 were built in 1951, the houses beginning at 6932 were built in 1955. Our houses (6932 and up) were in an old walnut grove, so there was plenty of shade.
I’ve attached a picture out front of our house. The older end of the street didn’t have walnut trees and it always seemed hot. What we didn’t understand was that the walnut trees would all soon die because sidewalks and asphalt and lawns aren’t good for them. At that point our end of the street got hot and the trees that had been planted at the other end of the street grew up and gave it shade. We moved out in 1962. The people who bought our house are still there – probably the longest residing family in that block of Columbus.
My beautiful picture
If you look at Street View for 6944 Columbus you’ll see that it’s perfectly manicured. The builder of our little tract was named Arthur Guyer – he built tracts throughout the Valley. He built 15153 Marlin Place for himself in about 1957.
There was another local celebrity on that street, although he wasn’t famous then. The Cerf family lived at 6932 Columbus, and Vinton Cerf, the oldest son, was attending Robert Fulton Jr. High. Vinton is famous as the “father of the Internet”. He and a buddy invented TCP/IP while at UCLA. The Cerfs left Van Nuys about the same time we did.
I won’t bore you with my memories of all the commercial establishments, but I will mention that Kenny’s Automotive at 14852 Vanowen, near Kester, was there in the 1950’s, just as it is today. Another hold out from the old days is Lloyd’s Market, at 7219 Kester. It was called Lloyd’s even back then, and we’d stop there every day when we walked home from Valerio.
I’m posting a few more images here, of buildings and businesses at the corner of Valerio and Van Nuys Boulevard.
I caught them at dusk, which was close to 8pm on August 4th.
Ugly during the day, the strip malls and the small businesses mellow out as the sun goes down. Hard working people come home. Some stop off for grilled chicken, fried plantains, cool and delicious aguas frescos, roasted peppers and yellow rice at Ay Papa Que Rico.
Some climb to the top of a second story mall to smoke a cigarette in an open air parking lot.
And dwellers from Guatemala, Mexico, El Salvador and Honduras live at English West, 14436 Valerio, a building whose name, perhaps, sounds foreign to their ears.
Bustling, aesthetically hideous, vibrant, multi-ethnic, colorful, trashy, tacky, inhuman; filled with families, vagrants, small businesses and the newest Americans.
Van Nuys Boulevard, between Sherman Way and Saticoy, that is where the action is.
Reformers and planners might dream of trees and benches near the Valley Municipal Building, in the old downtown, but Van Nuys has moved up north, where the bus riders catch the #162 and #163, stopping to grab lunch at Boston Market, buying a cake at Mey Fung Bakery, picking up smokes at Angie’s Cigars, getting their hair cut at John’s Barber Shop, and snacking on Ceviche Peruano at Ay Papa Que Rico, a Cuban restaurant rated highly on Yelp.
Like a vision from old Tijuana, a row of brightly painted shops near 7433 Van Nuys Blvd, houses El Progresso Supermarket and Guateex “Rapido y Seguro” a place to send packages and shipments to Central America; a barber, a tattoo shop and “Tropical Fish and Pets”. Each business is enclosed in a cube, vividly colored, advertising signs.
Salvadorean food is served at La Carreta (“The Cart”) a one-story, stand alone restaurant with tables and parking at 7301 Van Nuys Boulevard. Mediocre reviews alternate with better ones on Yelp:
“This is a small Salvadorian restaurant in the middle of Van Nuys (yeah, yuk, Van Nuys I know) I work out here and it’s hard to find good places to eat. Here, I love the pupusas. I get them filled con frijoles, con loroco y con loroco y frijoles.”
And smoke pours onto the street from burning mesquite at Ay Papa Que Rico, 7344 Van Nuys Blvd, Van Nuys, CA 91405 where Yelp reviewers are ecstatic:
“I was getting my car serviced & I smelled the most delicious mesquite scent coming from this place on the corner. I walked in got a half chicken, & Wow!!!!!! It has to be some of the best tasting grilled chicken I have ever had.”
“The grilled chicken is a definitely must order! It’s Tender, juicy & well seasoned. Cooked to perfection. Also try the Cuban sandwich, it hits all the right notes.”
As night falls, the long day of men and women who work in dirt and heat, under cars, in kitchens, cutting hair, stacking boxes, looking after children, go back to their apartments, (like “English West”), collapsing on the couch, taking a long shower, resting in a bedroom where the air-conditioning blows cold.
If they ever decide to revive Van Nuys, they might come up to Valerio, Orion and Cohasset Streets, north of Sherman Way, West of Sepulveda, East of the 405, an old place on the map where big estates sit in semi-ruins next to newer neighbors carved up and gated in.
The old Valley comes and goes here like a dying patient, brittle but breathing, broken-down, evoking another time. Behind peeling picket fences, on big dried out lawns, under shingled roofs, among the orange trees, someone’s dream home still stands, tended to by an old woman with a watering hose who sweeps her driveway with a corn husk broom.
On Valerio at Orion, high hedges obscure a flat-roofed, two story high bungalow, casement windows and divided French pane doors. Silent, mysterious, dignified, it might have stood alone among many acres of groves in rural Van Nuys. Across from it stands another two-story house, probably built or related to it.
All the dreams and history of Southern California since the 1920s are packed into this pocket: the Spanish house, which gave way to the 1930s and 40s storybook sprawling ranch, which yielded to the 1950s and its bizarre angularities, culminating in the ostentatious 1980s and 90s when concrete, gates and columns joined guns and burglar alarms in defining suburban living.
All the eccentricities and domestic styles are on display.
At 7433 Orion, a 1960 (?) a two-tone blue and white Buick coupe sits on the driveway in front of a red ranch.
At 15148 Cohasset, a broken down picket fence stands guard in front of a long Spanish/Moderne ranch house, in fast decay but wearing its old metal, wood and vinyl windows in mismatched dignity.
At 15351 Cohasset, an elegant red brick gate, atop which stands a leaning lantern, guards a big white ranch with double hung windows, the kind you see in Beverly Hills or Studio City. A copper bell is daintily affixed for ringing arrivals.
At the corner of Wyandotte and Orion, dazzling horticultural brilliance of California covers a Spanish house guarded by a massive Date Palm under which a profusion of aloe, oranges, cacti, succulents, and vines climb, crawl and cover.
And finally it ends where I started walking at 15414 Valerio, an English cottage which has a cryptic sign hanging over the front entrance: SNAKES LANE.
This is Van Nuys too. And it is hidden away and forgotten, gently existing somewhere beyond false perception and demonizing stereotype.
Here in Van Nuys 
You must be logged in to post a comment.