History The History Of Los Angeles

Thanks for the videos, BrerHair! Those three clips are some real jewels, ain't they? Looks like something one of the movie studios may have shot for filler footage.

 

Amazing to see Hollywood Blvd. again in its pre sleaze days.

 

Love how the driver barges through the active crosswalk on his right turn, making the people stop for him. Then the green '50 Chevy work truck and the blue '56 T-bird jump the left turn the second their light turns green. The days before turn arrows.

 

Great memories, thanks for posting. How many of you from the Hollywood area remember the great magazine stand on Las Palmas Ave. and Hollywood Blvd.? Also, on Hollywood Blvd. near Cherokee Ave. a wonderful used book and magazine store, I think it was called "Cherokee Books".

 

Edit: Well, crud... Just noticed the thumbnail already shows what I was so excited about! haha. Thanks for posting that!

 

As we get ready for the INDY 500 I think it is important to remember just how influential Los Angeles has been on the brickyard. Starting with Harry Miller engines that won 12 times from 1922 - 38. Then his head engineer continued with something like 20+ wins over the next 30 years.

Then think of people who played other HUGE roles - like Gilmore, Edelbrock, Aggie.

Think of the some of the other names (aka legends) that drove locally like Louis Meyer, Troy Ruttman, Bill Vukovich, Parnelli... Considering that we are famous for movie stars, sunshine and traffic it really is amazing how much we contribute to the that race... let alone motorsports in general.

For all you Angelino's (and fans of L.A. / motorsports history) check out Where They Raced for all kinds of automotive history... including this 1911 INDY car (seen at the INDY Centennial & on the Start Finish of the Santa Monica Road Race almost 100 years after it ran there.

 

My first Indy 500 was a Closed Circuit Broadcast at a theater in (I believe) Panorama City. All the local open wheel hot shots who weren't in Indy were at the showing.

 

Interesting map showing growth and development of LA Streets... seems like by 1980's we have 99% of what we have today.


Full story here from Nathan Master's SOUTHLAND blog:
http://southland.gizmodo.com/animated-map-shows-how-paved-roads-spread-across-l-a-c-1587178626

 

Driving from Burbank to North Hollywood in 1958.
Lots of good exteriors including Bob's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=3Rk1r6M0G8I#t=1

 

I don't know how to get the thumbnail of the video, but here's a little early 70's Van Nuys Bl, and a little drag strip footage from the movie "Aloha Bobby & Rose (1975)


...and this time the thumbnail comes up...

 

Encino Velodrome 1965:


Jack Kemp's Valley Village Cycles circa 1955:



Long before Lance, but these guys would fit in fine today:

 

Some LA photos from the LA Public Library:




This and a couple of others are about the "clearance" of the Bunker Hill area in the '50s

 

Dad, drove us to L.A. in our straight 8 39' Pontiac business coupe in June of '44, all the way from Chicago, on route 66. Thats where I saw my first HOT RODS! In many of these pics I saw places I had either seen to or actually been to, yeah as far as rodding went L.A. was HOT ROD, heaven, and I was infected.

 

Dad, drove us to L.A. in our straight 8 39' Pontiac business coupe in June of '44, all the way from Chicago, on route 66. Thats where I saw my first HOT RODS! In many of these pics I saw places I had either seen to or actually been to, yeah as far as rodding went L.A. was HOT ROD, heaven, and I was infected.

 

Quite a fabulous photo history here, especially to those of us not from SoCal.

The old garage shots are really interesting.


I recently drew re-model plans for a larger old garage quite like this in Fresno. We had to rip out the old hoists, fill in the alignment pit, and basically turn it into a big auction house. I believe at one time it was the Rambler dealer here. I don't know what happened to the antique lifts and racks & such. Probably all sent for scrap iron. ;(

 

Came across this while browsing elsewhere.
Magic Muffler North Hollywood was located off of Victory and Lankershim-

 

Sherman Way- Canoga Park

 

Sherman Way again.

 

Dig the 80's Pro Street gas station photo. Check the billboard sign I remember KMET, it was a great rock station.

 

A little bit of heaven ninety four point seven, whoya

 

Yep, The Last Radio Show. Here's a poster from 1973 hanging in my garage. The morning show started with a paper clip and on the air started trading it for stuff and ended up with a beater car. Crazy bastards drove it out onto Wilshire on the air blazing a fat one.

 

Great poster Sting Ray!

I grew up in L.A., and moved from there to Santa Cruz in '73 at the age of 17. My family continued to live there for another 20 year,s so I went back from time to time to visit, but most of my memories are from '73 or before.

 

Amongst the real D.J.’s of the 50’s and 60’s my favorites were Dick “Huggy Boy” Hugg, Hunter Hancock (Hunting With Hunter), Art Lebeau, Bill Balance and one from the early 50’s I am trying to remember his name. Sure played music then, you could even understand the words.

 

Remember

 

R & B Garage, not only do I remember KHJ, I was listening when the feds came in at 3 am and seized the station. Around 1971 I was a corpsman at the Camp Pendleton hospital and was on the night shift and had them on. The dj kept saying stuff about not being sure how long they would be on. Next thing you hear some pounding on a door and all this commotion and the dj yelling "this is it, they're shutting us down".

 

In this 40`s film there`s youngsters driving a fenderless hot rod roadster at 1:48 and behind it at side of the road there is another one with fenders. The one with the fenders can be seen another time at 3:21.

 

Wow I didn't know that story...

 

Johnny Otis?

 

Good one, but no, the one I was trying to remember was Willie B. in about 1955-6.