History Cruise Places - Man Those Were The Days.....

Fresno CA 1960s Belmont Avenue between Bob’s Big Boy on Blackstone and the flying saucer-styled Mars Drivein on Palm, duck under the SPRR over crossing and around the Loop at Roeding Park for another pass - lots of racing on the street along the tracks behind the Park with spectators seated on the hill - cops left the area alone


Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.

 

That^^^^^looks like good eats!
Someone pass the catsup please....

 

Someone should write songs about these old cruise spots..... Probably make millions...

 

There was a local chain Frisch’s Big Boy . It was cruise from spot to spot and see what was happening . Once the Harley Bug hit me it was the prison runs to visit the Bros on the farm .

 

I grew up by 1st Ave and Lake St. So I knew Skips well. Unfortunately I’m too young to remember it even being open. I remember seeing it sit empty all those years as I drove by, until it was torn down. My older sisters on the other hand were old enough to hang out there on occasion.

 

In Dallas we had our share of the drive in car hop spots that were hot before my time but I caught the last of a few. One was the Clover restaurant with car hops and inside booths which was just a stone's through of Downtown. No pictures of it but I have a menu somewhere. We did start making the trip of to the northern side - for me - to Forrest Lane which had a long street of drive through's and parking lots to set up a race - or heck most were just going light to light as well. We had a new establishment - Fenders - that basically brought back a car hop atmosphere and man that place was packed. It came to end at a year's end - we went up after Christmas to see a closed until further notice - some how the owner got under his nose in dept. On the bulletined board we listed our for sale items - one was my - at the time fresh out of storage - 1939 Chevy Coupe. There is still our Keller's drive in that gets busy with hot rods coming and going. local to my high school we had the Polar Bear ice cream and a great big parking lot to park just behind the Jack N the Box.

 

A&W on 13th St. Was at the end of the loop. Cruise thru, try to look cool, lay a little rubber, and set up a race for later. Even managed to date one of the carhops. That gal put new meaning to "You want fries with that?" There were times we didn't get out of that dark corner, waaayyy in the back of the lot, till Sunday morning...

 

We "cruised Queen", on Friday and Saturday nights. Queen St was the main drag, 2 lanes one way only, for 6 to 7 blocks. You could go any other night of the week, and meet up with your friends, but the best was the weekend.
In the late 70's my best friend and I traveled west, and all along that coast, and managed to catch cruising on Van Nuys Blvd, on the first Wednesday of July. Now, that was something for us, coming from a small town in Canada.

 

Some of us get it!.....

 

I don't have any pictures (a fact I really regret), my buddies and I spent the late 60's to early 70's at the place to be on Friday and Sat. nights on the west side of Columbus, Ohio. It was called Green Gables, on the point of Mound & Central. Weekends saw lots of hot cars, hot girls and some serious street racing. My grand parents lived near Logan, Ohio so anytime I went down to Logan the hot spot was the Shake shop where we would make a loop from there down Main Street to the Knotty Pine on the other side of town and do it over again for hours. We went through a bunch of Sunoco 260, more rear tires than I like to admit and done more stupid stuff than I like to remember. We didn't know it at the time but that was the some of the best times of our life. I never got in too much trouble, won and lost some races , fixed what I tore up and went back the next weekend for more

 

You know it really wasn’t were you were from, or where your were going, it had to do with what you were doing! Well we liked to race cars and romance local women . And I think that was the country boys downfall! The city girls kinda liked us country boys! He he! If you know what I’m talking about! Life was good back in the day! Lol






Bones

 

Downtown was the place to cruise in Freeport back in the 60s and early 70s. Stephenson St was the main drag through town. Just west of the Pecatonica River bridge, Stephenson turned into a one way westbound street through the main downtown shopping district and was well lit all night long for about a 14 block long run where it turned back into a two way street. If you were in the left lane where it returned to a two way street, you had to turn left. In one block, you had the option to go straight (and out of the business district) or make another left turn on to Main Street. Main Street was a one way eastbound street. It was also well lit. Main street dead ended at the river, but a block before the dead end, you had the option of turning right (out of the business district) or turning left for a block, where you turned either right onto the Bridge, went straight (out of the district) or turned left onto Stephenson street, completing the business district loop. The 14 block long loop was cut about in 1/2 by a State Highway (US 20) so there was a traffic light on both streets at that point. There were 3 more cross streets (in a row) that cut through the loop east of US 20 that also had traffic lights. The traffic lights were well synchronized, once US 20 light turned green, 30 mph eastbound on Main Street would get you all green lights. On Stephenson Street, all 4 lights turned green at the same time. The west end of the loop was traffic light free.
Pretty much all the businesses closed down at 9 pm every night, so after about 9:30, the streets belonged to the cruisers. The police laid pretty low, but the cop shop wasn't too far off the loop, so their presence was far off. If you didn't get too stupid, you were OK, but if you were raising a little hell, when you left downtown, you better be following the traffic rules.
By the early 70s The city was getting tired of the nightly cruising. They erected a shopping plaza right on Stephenson Street and closed down two blocks of the street between the 1st traffic light and the 3rd traffic light and diverted all Stephenson street traffic on Stephenson one block north onto Exchange Street (also a westbound one way) and put a stop sign at the middle block. The cruisers adapted, but between the gas crunch of the mid 70s, and stricter law enforcement, the cruising was reduced to mostly Friday and Sat evenings and eventually ended by the early 80s. I was fortunate enough to be part of the cruising in the very early 70s for a limited amount.
There were no food joints open downtown after about 8 pm, so if you wanted food, you left down town to get it.
Sometime about the time the night cruising stopped, a local car club managed to get the city to allow a restricted one night a year "Cruise Night". The event had a lot of Police involvement. The first year we closed off the loop to normal traffic, but had to have State at both traffic lights on US 20. We opened up one of the city parking lots and sold parking spaces for $10 each, and that gave you the right to cruise the loop from 7PM until 10PM. We had club members, police officers, and volunteers manning every intersection along the loop. We drew a huge crowd of both participants and spectators. The club sold Tee shirts. Over all it was a huge success.

The cruise night has alternated the dates (by city demand) and has shortened the route, but it has continued as an annual event every year except two, one year we were shut down because of severe weather late in the afternoon, and this year Covid altered the event. The car club the started the Cruise Night and lead the event slowly met its demise because of dwindling membership, but a local car dealer stepped in to keep it going. 2018 was its 25th year.
The event has grown in both car numbers and spectator numbers. 2019 was a very nice evening, reports say there were 1200 cars registered in the event, and the crowd was estimated at 10,000 people. The event includes a tire burnout contest, a muffler wrapping contest, a live band, food vendeos, a kids area with bounce houses, a small craft area, lots of cars and trucks of every flavor, and of course cruising whatever the current loop looks like. its generally held the 1st weekend in Aug, but I don't believe this years date has been determined yet.
Last year because of Covid, they did a city wide cruise, and there was talk of doing something like that again. Gene

 

Yes and cruising downtown was the ultimate! Three lanes wide down the hill to the bottom, turn left at the gas station, go over a block and it was 3 lanes back up the hill...about a mile each way and all 3 lanes were packed. Had a street light every block or 2 for short races. I so wish I'd thought to take a few photos. Late 60s, early 70s with lots and lots of muscle cars, hot rods, VWs, vans and those Honda motorcycles...I was driving a 57 Pontiac at the time with a 389/4 speed. Mine was tutone blue and there was a yellow and white one just like mine.
55-57 chevys and fords were everywhere! GTOs, Camaros, roadrunners, GTXs, corvettes. Holy crap! It was insane! All 3 lanes packed and cars parked at the curb full of guys and girls. I met my first wife there. It was amazing.

 

I must be the only Milwaukee Wi. car guy on here, (grew up in city then in suburbs) I was cruising the Ave. 64-70, In the 60's Summertime Downtown Wisconsin Ave on Saturday night was BIG, hundreds of cars, large crowds of young people walking the ave, a beat cop on every block for crowd control. it was a Happening, So Kool. We had BigBoys on Capital drive, BigBoys on Hwy 100, A&W on Villard ave, Leons on 27 St and Oklahoma ave. lots of Fun, Lots of street racing. In the 90's through 2010 the Milwaukee and surrounding suburb towns had cruise in type deals Spring through Fall 5/6 nights a week with choices of several different venues. I retired to the NorthWoods 2010 not as much car activity but still pretty good it had been dropping off, 2020 dead, hoping 2021 will be better, we'll see how it all shakes out. I still cruised to neighboring towns for lunch last summer so my cars were driven about the same miles, enjoyed them, that's why I have them.

 

Surprised no Omaha, Nebraska guys have chimed in .. .. for cruising Dodge Street. High school USAF brat with a driver's license in awe.

Buddy .. Joe Feyne's dad, had a Midas that I believe is still there. We'd park and watch them drive. Then fire up & drive the lights ourselves .. turn around both ends, and park again.

For me,, an on topic, blue metallic '57 2 door hardtop Bel Air, with a tired, puffing 327, 4 speed. Later, an off topic, original paint, 28k mile .. '68 SS m/t Camaro.

So many cool cars to mention. "Bad Bird", a blown '56 Chevy hardtop, an injected, stick '34 Chevrolet delivery of some sorts, a '64 Max Wedge Mopar, and too many off topics to list .. including a 50's era VW with big inch Porsche motivations.

Literally hundreds of cars, making the Friday and Saturday night circuit. Not many "racing". Too visible. Just cantankerous idling, revving, and cruising. Where's the "Arm out window" thread ??

Wish that dumb kid took his camera, but that dumb kid was always driving !!!

Ahhh' .. the class of 1989. Papillion Lavista High School. Fun stuff .. buttttt', to Texas I went.

 

I remember cruising like it was just last year...

 

In Atlanta, the main hangout was The Varsity.

Sent from my SM-N975U using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

north main walnut creek ca. it was the place to be fri.-sat. night . 1 mi. used to take about 20 minutes . no guns not many fights . to be 16 in the 70s .they closed it down in the late 80s .gastapo ord. ,drive by 3 times , go to jail . or get a ticket or something . the biggest i ever experienced was american graffitti cruise in modesto ca . thats where many scenes cruising . were shot from the movie . i lived a mile from buchanan field . the airport at the end of the movie .didnt have my phone so no pix !!

 

I was born in 1969, too late to see real cruising around here anyway. One night in the early eighties my fathers friend comes over and says there is a cruise at A&W. We go over and I couldn’t believe it. A car show at night!

 

Grew up in a small rural town, population about 500, two stores and a post office, so nothing there. We had to go to the county seat, Fayette, they had a Sonic on one end of US43, a Coleman's BBQ on the other end. Main street, which was old US43, ran two blocks north, coming back into US43, just south of Coleman's. We'd drag between the lights on Main, go up to Coleman's, turn around at one of the car dealerships just the other side of them, come back down US43 to Hwy 18, make the right, go two blocks and right on Main again to repeat the process.

This was in 76-77, so it was mostly pony cars and mid sized cars like Chevelle's and Fairlanes. No pre 48 stuff, maybe one or two Tri Five Chevys might show up every once in a while. Nothing really flashy or fast, just normal high school hot rods, if you could even call them that. The Cops usually left us alone, since there wasn't anything open, they didn't see any reason to bother us. They might ride through a time or two, we'd just play cool until they left, then go back to red light dragging.

Sonic is still there, Coleman's is long gone, having changed hands several times, is a Mexican grill now. The streets are silent now, kids don't cruise it like we did. Somebody did get up a second Sat night cruise in on Main st a few years ago where you could go park and socialize a bit, even had a live band a few times, but I think that fizzled out due to lack of interest. I went a couple of times, they had a fair turn out, but could have been better.

Memories of good times.....

 

there were a few rich kids at our cruises ,but most of us had whatever our first second hand or our parents cars . i had a 46 ford p/u with a 325 dodge .stock 3 spd and a 10 bolt after i blew the stock rear . i could burn em till they blew but 2nd gear was a bit tricky ! im hoping to get a cruise started in my town next summer as car shows are probably a thing of the past in the future

 

pink elephant in seekonk mass 68-69 then uncle sam called it was all different when i got back

 

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/who-cruised-central-ave-phoenix-in-the-1970s.699063/

 

Not much left of the places I ran too in 1960 ,Big Wheel was hot.< about center of town
Mostly Miami Sr High hung there late 50s tell 70. More south was Hot Shoppie's was also. North was Kelly's,west way out Bird Rd. was A&W. Lots of others all gone now.
None of the car hop inns left,but a few still in bizz if ya go in side an get it. Arbertter's Hot Dogs an more down the Bird Road you can still get the best pizza in the world at Frankie's Pizza

 

Starting from bicycle days until today ....
The 1st. St. "Barrel'' and a little shack next door to it - you could smell the fries for blocks ... they cost a dime. That was where the gravel burnout kids hung out.
Sid's on 17 th. was where the real car guys hung. Coffee & a toasted bun for a quarter. I'm 15 by now & driving my 17 yr. old heroes around in Cousin Jake's '39 Buick hearse with no low or reverse. I learn to always park so you don't have to back up ... and the A&W. Sometimes on weekends they'd hire local R&R bands to play. Local radio station would occasionally set up a remote broadcast DJ booth on Sat., but they had to sign off at sunset ...
At around 16, a new Frostop is built on 1st.. Immediate success. Barrel is sold, moved up the road 45 miles, & is still there.
I Turn 17 ... Join Navy. As soon as possible, get wheels. Discover Oscar's in San Diego, Chula Vista & El Cajon.
1967, last 6 mo., I'm in Vallejo, at Patches' every night ...
21, just out of service, return home. Frostop is now Paxman's. Car show every night from 7 until the bars close and everybody gets off the street. The whole town has gone race car. Checker is ordering spring wedges & foot long shackles by the freight car load. There's 2 lowered cars in Idaho Falls, my coral & white '57 Coronet, & a '50 Buick Sedanette. Never forget meeting the guy. He looks at my California plates, me, my Oly quart, & sez "wanna get your head tight ?'' ... but, I don't know what he's talking about.
As for today (well, before Covid), it's just old guys going to Arby's or the Dairy Queen once a week.

 

Late 60's & early 70's it was Lake Street (West & East)in Minneapolis, Minnesota .The place to see the parked cars was at the HY-LAKE shopping center. (note; I saw some of that area on the news during all the riots last spring. Hard to imagine what a difference compared to about 50 years ago)

 

We'd go to Huntington Wva, the strip that ran through the parking lot of the civic center was actually named "Cruise Avenue". Long gone now. That parking lot is covered with hotels and restaurants. In my town was a pretty good cruise from Long's pizza to McDonald's, and the IGA was the lot to congregate on. Then we'd go to Buck's farm to run em, start on the bridge and race to Mr. Bucks mailbox

 

Like @jay t. I too was born in '69.

Missed out on some stuff but luckily, in my hometown, cruisin' around was pretty much all there was to do, even up into the late 80's, early 90's when I was out breakin' hearts and car parts. Hell, it was still the "thing to do" when my oldest graduated high school.

When my folks were out runnin' around, they had the Arkay and the Hagmart. Both were car-hop joints and on opposite ends of town from each other. Cruising from one end of town to the other was normal pretty much any night of the week.

I seem to remember dad saying something along the lines of "one had really good fries and shitty shakes, and the other had shitty fries and really good shakes, so they'd run from one to the other.

Used to piss him off too. He complained that his girlfriend always wanted to stop for the fries first and the bag would soak through and get grease on the upholstery by the time they got across town.

When I was old enough to drive, the car hop places were gone. One became a used car lot and the other was raised to make way for a McDonalds. By then, we had fast food joints everywhere so we missed the whole drive-in restaurant experience.

But, the same tried and true route that once went between those old joints, was what everybody still cruised.

It went all through town, under the overpass (it was a train bridge where the roadway had been dug out beneath the tracks), out to the shopping plaza where we'd stop and shoot the shit until the PD would cruise through. We'd scatter, then repeat the process.

The cops didn't mess with us back then unless we were being stupid.

Where I live now, and aside from the tourists clogging up the streets, looking for a place to spend too much on shitty wine, there's just enough traffic lights, and motor officers to piss you off. And that's pretty much it.

We do have a shit ton of massage parlors so... silver linings, I guess.

 

I moved to the Omaha area in 1980 and Dodge street was a happening thing! We'd cruise Dodge street, drive out to Abbot drive by the airport and drag race 'till the police came, then drive out to McKinley blvd for more racing 'till we'd get chased out and go back to Dodge st.
Some of the old Dodge street cruisers tried to bring it back but the businesses really don't want us back now with all the gang and shooting problems. Still, we make an attempt. This was a few summers ago.

 

Wow !!! I remember Abbot and McKinley. I spectated a few times .. but with my dad a Squadron Superintendent, a Chief .. .. it was always better for me to stay on Dodge.

If tempted with indiscretions .. all car privileges went "bye bye".

They actually shut Dodge down on us a few times, too. Store owners have never been friends of Dodge St cruising, seemingly.

I loved my car time in Omaha area. Highway 370, 140 mph '71 442. Car shows every weekend. A farmer tree grove on 75 .. just south of Bellevue on the west side, chock full of Studebakers, Olds, and Indians. Classics driven, or hanging tail from garage doors everywhere.

Was never a dull moment up there. One of the best cities for car enthusiasts that I've ever seen.