"I grew up in a place that has vanished, in a world that can be recalled by only a very few..."
Catherine Mulholland
Blog archive: San Fernando Valley
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The mailbox in front of 10612 Baird Avenue in Northridge is embedded in what looks to be authentic arm from a Bob's Big Boy statue, of which there used to be several around the Valley. Hat tip to the blog...
Posted January 21, 2007 06:59 AM
Oh crumb. Dennis McCarthy's column in the Daily News brings word that the 11-acre Jack Oakie estate — maybe the last intact vestige of the old Northridge horse culture — is being developed into 29 homes. The estate at 18650...
Posted January 13, 2007 07:55 PM
This small item ran in the Los Angeles Times on Feb. 6, 1885 and told of a supposed gold strike in the hills of what might be today's Pacoima. Sen. Charles Maclay was the founder of the town of San...
Posted December 28, 2006 02:01 AM
She wants to know: I found your blog by searching for a horseback riding ranch that I went to as a kid in the 1950-1960s - I think it was in Chatsworth and I believe it was called The B...
Posted December 28, 2006 12:19 AM
Jim Hier has been gathering historical information about Granada Hills. Here's his latest update: Friends of Granada Hills - A quick note to update you on the progress of the Granada Hills History Project. Over the past few months we...
Posted December 27, 2006 11:59 PM
Martin Prager Jr. writes seeking information about the Riverside Rancho: Has anyone heard of this place? From what I've read, this was a "western swing" music venue in the 40's and perhaps the 50's. Spade Cooley performed there. It's decline...
Posted December 27, 2006 11:07 PM
Everybody Knows is a new Valley-based blog to me, by a woman who recently moved to Calabasas and commutes to Beverly Hills. In a recent post called Take the Long Way Home, she describes her alternate route home through the...
Posted December 5, 2006 12:38 PM
Michele Miles Gardiner blogs regularly about her love for the Valley at Aprilbaby's California Life. She says there that she's a first cousin (once removed) of historian Kevin Starr, which makes her kind of a kindred spirit of The Valley...
Posted November 19, 2006 05:01 PM
Secession only received 50% of the vote in the Valley, not the overwhleming support that a Republican candidate now claims.
Posted October 27, 2006 11:45 AM
The new novel It's About Your Husband centers on Iris Hedge, a woman who leaves her San Fernando Valley home and husband to take a new job in New York at a top-flight marketing research firm. After only a few...
Posted October 27, 2006 11:40 AM
Director Tim Burton lives most of the time in London but grew up in Burbank and attended CalArts. Even though he says the Valley gives him "the creeps," he agreed to drive around his old haunts with Los Angeles Times...
Posted October 26, 2006 02:20 PM
The last used hardcover bookstore west of the 405 (say the owners) is closing soon. Jerry and Rose Blaz opened The BOOKie Joint in 1975 in the heart of Reseda at 7248 Reseda Boulevard. He talks about the store at...
Posted October 24, 2006 08:52 AM
The good news is an innovative program to catch stormwater near Sun Valley Park and store it in aquifers for later use. The bad news is a quote that confirms how late it all is.
Posted October 21, 2006 04:46 PM
Do you love the modern-era homes in the San Fernando Valley? Want to see inside some of the most notable examples of mid-century architecture? The Los Angeles Conservancy's modernism committee has arranged to have six homes open, with docents on...
Posted October 19, 2006 11:24 PM
There is a Museum of the San Fernando Valley, located on the Burbank Boulevard side of Valley College. It's small, but at least it's something. The museum is not usually open on weekends, but there is an open house this...
Posted October 19, 2006 07:25 PM
Within days of the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941, a detainment center for Japanese nationals opened in the brushy hills of the Verdugo Mountains. The site is now the Verdugo Hills Golf Course.
Posted September 17, 2006 11:32 PM
The former site of Valley Receiving Hospital will become a college and seminary.
Posted September 16, 2006 11:49 AM
The 6th annual Valley Film Festival runs starting tonight at the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood.
Posted September 13, 2006 11:46 PM
Lakeside Country Club, the famed Toluca Lake hangout of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in their day, only allows men to become members, according to a lawsuit filed by disgruntled member Reginald Lee and his wife, Jennifer Merkel. Lee has...
Posted September 12, 2006 12:32 AM
Blogger Zach Behrens is posting on the wonders and sights of Moorpark Street. Why, you might ask?
Posted September 7, 2006 10:56 PM
Shana Ting Lipton likes coming over the hill to take care of business, though perhaps for all the wrong reasons. Lately, out of convenience and a sense of adventure, I have opted for running some of my errands in the...
Posted September 7, 2006 09:29 PM
Saturday's New York Times covers the Valley restaurant robbery spree and adds some details I hadn't picked up on before. There's a rumor on the street that the "ski mask bandits" are ex-cops, says Valley Inn owner Sophia Brodetsky: “They...
Posted August 27, 2006 07:45 PM
I just noticed today that Daniel van Meter's tower of wooden pallets — aka City of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #184 — has been razed and cleared, along with the rest of the overgrown lot at 15357 Magnolia Boulevard in Sherman Oaks.
Posted August 24, 2006 07:25 PM
Catch a rare glimpse of the stunning steel-and-glass home Richard Neutra built for director Josef von Sternberg. Ayn Rand later lived at 10000 Tampa Avenue, which then in horse country between Northridge and Chatsworth.
Posted August 20, 2006 02:41 PM
On Monday the Daily News will launch a new strategy to invite readers onto the paper's website through blogs and local news reports organized by community. Some of the reports posted at ValleyNews.com will make it into printed editions of...
Posted August 17, 2006 10:43 AM
The U.S. post office at 7320 Reseda Boulevard is being named the Coach John Wooden Post Office, under a bill sponsored by Rep. Brad Sherman and signed today by President Bush. Wooden, the former UCLA basketball coach, lives in Encino...
Posted August 17, 2006 10:26 AM
For his contribution to this year's Real Best L.A. issue of CityBeat and ValleyBeat, film editor Andy Klein decides to highlight his list of the best films to take place in the Valley. It's a subject I enjoy playing with,...
Posted August 8, 2006 10:22 PM
"Heather" is a 38-year-old undercover LAPD officer and mother of two whose blond hair helps her catch johns looking for prostitutes on Sepulveda Boulevard. That strip in Van Nuys has been a street-walker zone seemingly forever, despite occasional crackdowns and...
Posted August 6, 2006 10:22 AM
I enjoyed Saturday's cloudy skies and twenty-plus degree dip on the thermometer sitting in the backyard of the Northridge home where I grew up. Conversation was difficult, though, due to the continual roar of war planes overhead. These weren't the...
Posted July 30, 2006 09:55 PM
In the August issue of In Style magazine, New York actress Mary-Louise Parker talks about one of her beauty rituals: "When I'm in L.A., I get facials from a woman out in the Valley. Her name is Myrna Kaufman."...
Posted July 18, 2006 07:53 PM
Writing in the New York Times Travel section, author Marc Weingarten (of Studio City) spreads a little love on the new bars and restaurants along the Ventura Boulevard corridor. It's New York so he has to fall back on the...
Posted July 16, 2006 10:53 PM
We've had a spate of posts here lately that feature observations of San Fernando Valley boyhoods. Now Jerry England, founder of the Chatsworth Equine Cultural Heritage Organization (ECHO) , has put together a great web page about growing up with...
Posted July 2, 2006 11:24 AM
Must admit I had not known of the old, now-dry Girard reservoir until the L.A. City Nerd blog mentioned it recently. Now the Daily News and the Los Angeles Times both have stories today about residents in Woodland Hills trying...
Posted June 27, 2006 12:59 PM
Author Josh Deutchman contributes a piece of short fiction to West magazine in the Los Angeles Times that evokes the freedom to roam of boyhood in the Valley. There's a message in there too about appreciating what you have. Here's...
Posted June 25, 2006 01:05 PM
Jazz guitarist Joe Pass apparently had prominent Valley roots, teaching out of his Northridge garage and playing memorable sets at Donte's when the defunct club was hopping on Lankershim Boulevard. Come On, Feel the Nuys says the Donte's sessions can...
Posted June 20, 2006 06:02 PM
Bob Timmermann, who writes the respected baseball blog The Griddle, attended Kennedy High in Granada Hills and commits to the Web its history as a powerhouse and producer of major league talent. The Angels' Garrett Anderson played for Kennedy, which...
Posted June 16, 2006 06:23 PM
Red-light cameras will be installed at a dozen intersections along the Orange Line. Since the Valley Busway debuted last October, most of the sixteen crashes involving Orange Line buses have been due to inattentive drivers running red lights, the MTA...
Posted June 16, 2006 09:38 AM
Come On, Feel the Nuys is by Daily News copy editor and Van Nuys resident Steve Rosenberg, who also runs 2,000 Days in the Valley. DN columnist Mariel Garza is also posting about the Valley. More at LA Observed....
Posted June 16, 2006 09:32 AM
Cupid's, the unofficial hot dog of The Valley Observed, is celebrating sixty years in the San Fernando Valley on Saturday, June 17. All hot dogs will cost sixty cents, instead of the still-reasonable two bucks, at the last remaining original...
Posted June 11, 2006 06:06 PM
Countless family restaurants that opened in the postwar rush to suburbia have vanished. See the Gone But Not Forgotten page for evidence of that. But Casa Vega, at Ventura and Fulton in Sherman Oaks, seems as popular and as hip...
Posted June 11, 2006 11:39 AM
The weekly Encino Sun debuts June 24. It's the latest from the publishers of the Studio City Sun (which began in 2002) and the Sherman Oaks Sun (2004). In Encino, says the press release, they plan to distribute 18,000 copies...
Posted June 11, 2006 11:29 AM
Author and investigative journalist Greg Palast credits his experiences in Sun Valley for developing his critical take on President Bush, the Iraq War and other issues, according to a guest column by freelancer Ed Rampell in the Daily News. His...
Posted June 11, 2006 11:17 AM
The July 26, 1959 accident at an experimental nuclear reactor above Chatsworth was only a partial meltdown. And while the full extent of radioactive releases wasn't known for many years, there were news reports about the mishap within a month....
Posted June 2, 2006 03:37 PM
Places to live were in extremely short supply immediately after World War II. Converted barracks were used to house returning GIs and their families at the Basilone Homes on Glenoaks Boulevard beneath Hansen Dam; at the Rodger Young Village at...
Posted June 2, 2006 03:23 PM
Fresh off his well-reviewed Comedy Central spoof with Stephen Colbert and mention in the recent "60 Minutes" piece on Colbert, Rep. Brad Sherman's pop culture image is about to receive yet another boost. He shows up next Tuesday as a...
Posted May 25, 2006 03:09 PM
Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002, was a son of the San Fernando Valley. So too is Gregory Orfalea, the author of this year's The Arab Americans: A History, described...
Posted May 23, 2006 10:56 PM
Anybody know if this Chatsworth rock formation survived time, construction of the Simi Valley Freeway, rocket testing at Rocketdyne (now Boeing) and development of the Iverson movie ranch into condos? The 1912 photographs (left and right) are in the Online...
Posted May 17, 2006 05:59 PM
In today's Los Angeles Times, writer Bill Shaikin catches up with Jose Canseco, the 1988 Most Valuable Player in the American League who now lives in Encino. He hit 462 home runs in the major leagues, plus three in the...
Posted May 15, 2006 06:44 PM
Wild (or at least feral) rabbits that chew up backyard lawns and gardens are riling up folks in Tarzana and Woodland Hills. Daily News garden columnist Joshua Siskin ran some letters Saturday from homeowners who consider the intruders to be...
Posted May 14, 2006 12:46 AM
A theme I intend to develop here someday is big things that were proposed for the Valley but for assorted reasons never happened. Disneyland, Los Angeles International Airport and a stadium lead the list, but freeways are close behind. The...
Posted May 12, 2006 10:21 PM
Today's Los Angeles Times notes the passing of Linda Menary, who ran the ramshackle barnyard petting zoo and pony ride called The Farm that has been at Tampa Avenue and Lanark Street in Reseda for about four decades. She died...
Posted May 10, 2006 02:15 AM
Some memories and some questions: ♦ "Just an update !! Kiddieland was located on Van Nuys Blvd. between The Moongate Chinese restaurant and the Panorama Bowling Alley." — Thanks, Doug Stephenson ♦ "I am trying to find some old photos...
Posted May 8, 2006 12:14 AM
From the Sunday papers: ♦ In a Daily News feature piece on how being a lowrider saved Abel Perez's life, some memories of Cruise Night: On Wednesday nights, they'd cruise Van Nuys Boulevard, mingling with the hot-rod guys, the surfers...
Posted May 7, 2006 11:40 PM
More than a month ago I gave Los Angeles Times editor-at-large Thomas Curwen some ideas for places that played meaningful but little appreciated roles in the history and lore of Southern California land and real estate. I'm happy to say...
Posted April 30, 2006 10:20 PM
When the porn company began to shoot on Hayvenhurst Avenue on Easter Sunday, there wasn't much the Encino neighbors could do but complain. The crew had the proper filming permits, and the city doesn't get any say on the content...
Posted April 30, 2006 10:13 PM
I'll be signing copies of The San Fernando Valley: America's Suburb at this weekend's Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at UCLA. It's usually a great chance for me to meet fans of Valley history, hear their stories and answer...
Posted April 28, 2006 05:23 PM
Half of the homes sold in the San Fernando Valley in March fetched more than the median, and half sold for less. It's the highest median for the Valley on record, a 17% increase over last March. Yet, as the...
Posted April 19, 2006 06:11 PM
This is the week in 1944, West magazine tells us, when Bing Crosby's song San Fernando Valley reached number one on the national hit parade. The magazine pairs the observation with a snippet of dialogue about the Valley from Robert...
Posted April 19, 2006 05:24 PM
Sure it was a long time ago, but I have to believe someone will remember Laurie, "Les Femme Fatales" in their red jackets and a hot pink 1957 Chevy with red interior cruising Van Nuys Boulevard. My girlfriends and I...
Posted April 14, 2006 05:42 PM
Reader Harold C. "Hap" Rogers writes in reply to a query about Dick Dale's. In answer to the question by Steve Clow about the bar & restaurant of Dick Dale's on Ventura Blvd in Woodland Hills. I remember it well....
Posted April 14, 2006 05:07 PM
The blog Hollywood Thoughts has details. Previously: Greg from the newsstand...
Posted April 14, 2006 02:57 PM
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and developer J.H. Snyder won't discuss details yet, but they are talking up plans to reinvent and expand the Valley Plaza shooping center around Victory and Laurel Canyon in North Hollywood. A new Macy's department...
Posted April 14, 2006 02:48 PM
Can't believe I mentioned this at LA Observed a while back, but neglected to link it here. "The Colbert Report" on Comedy Central devoted a segment to informing viewers about the San Fernando Valley, and especially its 27th congressional district....
Posted April 3, 2006 02:44 AM
Marci Vogel got a lot out of her first job at Dutton's Books in North Hollywood. She writes of it on the Los Angeles Times op-ed page: In those days, I lived east, way east, over by Roscoe Boulevard and...
Posted April 3, 2006 02:37 AM
The CW television network, which launches this fall, will call Burbank home. Created by a merger of CBS-owned UPN and Time-Warner's WB, the new network will be based in the Pinnacle tower under construction at Olive Avenue and the 134...
Posted April 2, 2006 01:16 PM
Updated with new information below Studio City blogger Jon Crowley writes at Hollywood Thoughts about the neighborhood regular who has sold newspapers and magazines at Van Nuys and Ventura boulevards for several years. He knew the man only as Greg....
Posted March 31, 2006 12:17 AM
Author and television writer Lee Goldberg describes the wealthy community in the southwest Valley [uh, not the northwest Lee] on his blog in the course of applauding the city's recent ban on most public smoking. I live in the small,...
Posted March 20, 2006 09:30 PM
Joe Dungan at the website The Simon drove out to Magnolia Boulevard to see if Sherman Oaks' most unusual city historic-cultural monument—make that the Valley's most unusual landmark—still stands. He found that the 22-foot tower of wooden pallets built by...
Posted March 17, 2006 01:30 PM
Valley boosters are hoping to stage a half-marathon along the Orange Line route to mark the anniversary of the busway between North Hollywood and Woodland Hills. Today's Daily News says it would be held October 29, supported by Assemblyman Lloyd...
Posted March 15, 2006 11:22 AM
The Daily News checks in on the small groves of out-of-place coast redwood trees found at Canoga Park High School and on Cedros Avenue in Van Nuys. Over the years, some of the trees between Burbank [Blvd.] and Oxnard [St.]...
Posted March 13, 2006 12:59 AM
The MTA now says it will spend $3.6 million to renovate the old Lankershim train depot in North Hollywood, possibly as a customer service center. But the agency won't say where the depot at Chandler and Lankershim boulevards will end...
Posted March 13, 2006 12:44 AM
2,000 Days in the Valley rounds up all the Daily News staffers who blog. I had most of them; now they are all here. He nominates as the coolest "Editorial assistant Ben Jauron's edgy, whacked-out, noirish, insert your own adjective...
Posted March 9, 2006 04:22 PM
The blog Here in Van Nuys turns its gaze east to North Hollywood to point out the creeping destruction of a neighborhood of older, Spanish-style homes where actresses Carol Burnett and Agnes Moorhead once lived. The photo stream at Flickr...
Posted March 7, 2006 11:38 PM
The cover of the Studio City Sun features the impending closure of longtime bookstore Dutton's. Davis Dutton, whose parents opened on Laurel Canyon Boulevard in 1960, met his wife Judy in the library at North Hollywood High. Once the final...
Posted March 7, 2006 05:33 PM
It won't do anything good tor the Valley's image, but Crash is the first Oscar winner for best picture to be set mostly in (and about) the San Fernando Valley. Ventura Boulevard, Ventura Court and Hoffman Street all get serious...
Posted March 7, 2006 05:18 PM
The blogger at Travels West lists his ten favorites: 10. Ventura BLVD (most of it, at least) 9. Better customer service, compared to almost any other business south of the Hollywood Hills or the Santa Monicas 8. Valleyites are shameless...
Posted March 7, 2006 12:54 AM
The Glendale cemetery known for its statuary and art reproductions opened in 1906. It inspired biting commentary from Evelyn Waugh in The Loved Ones and spawned a chain of six other Forest Lawn memorial parks. Figures from Valley history who...
Posted February 26, 2006 10:17 AM
Novelist and author Luis J. Rodriguez has a blog and posts this week about the fourth anniversary celebration at his Tia Chucha's Cafe Cultural in Sylmar. He started the cafe with his wife, Trini, and brother-in-law Enrique Sanchez. I want...
Posted February 22, 2006 01:13 AM
The blogger (Travels West) known only as M2 appreciates the historical context of his new digs in Studio City. After looking at a lot of typically ugly L.A. dumps, I found the ideal place quite by chance. It's in Studio...
Posted February 21, 2006 11:46 PM
Mark Vallen is interviewed by Adrienne Crew at LAist: When I was about six years old, my parents moved to the San Fernando Valley, a place I’ve called home ever since. While I’ve taken up residence in various parts of...
Posted February 20, 2006 01:25 PM
The question of whether The Valley Observed is needed was tossed around last week on some Los Angeles blogs. The topic sparked passion you wouldn't see if the question were "should there be a Silver Lake blog?" or a website...
Posted February 19, 2006 02:20 AM
Reader Carole sent along some family photos of the annual Northridge Stampede parade along Reseda Boulevard and her father's plumbing shop, John A. Sall and Sons. The shop was on the east side of Reseda Blvd. at Eddy until an...
Posted February 16, 2006 12:50 AM
Catching up with some old backlog, I added reader favorites Chris' & Pitts and Leon's Steakhouse (with photo links) to Gone But Not Forgotten. Also new to the roll are Hody's and Pucci's....
Posted February 16, 2006 12:18 AM
The Craigslist posting says that everything must go "including shelves, racks, display cases, counters. We're trying to make some money so please feel free to come in and make offers." The cover of the Studio City Sun says the store...
Posted February 15, 2006 03:48 PM
About the pungent aroma that surrounds the Anheuser-Busch brewery in Van Nuys, Ian R. Beste thinks it is not hops but comes from another ingredient in the process of cooking up Budweiser for the masses. He emails: I take my...
Posted February 14, 2006 11:49 AM
Los Encinos State Historic Park holds its Living History Day on February 19 from 1 to 3 pm. (Link from Douglas E. Welch.) As I've written several times, the spot on Ventura Boulevard just east of Balboa oozes as much...
Posted February 13, 2006 07:49 PM
Mayor Villaraigosa, City Council member Wendy Greuel and a bevy of media traipsed out to Reseda and Rinaldi this afternoon for the unveiling of a high-tech traffic control system on major streets along the 118 or Ronald Reagan Freeway. Lights...
Posted February 13, 2006 03:38 PM
C. Frederick Wehba II, vice-chairman of the Bentley-Forbes real estate investment firm, blogs that the San Fernando Valley is nearing capacity. He basically agrees with a story in the Daily News (no longer online) that says the office and industrial...
Posted February 12, 2006 02:23 PM
Carney's in Studio City is bragging about its top rating from Hot Dog Spot.com, a North Hollywood blog by Stephen Worth, in a big way along Ventura Boulevard. The billboard is out of date, though. The Hot Dog Spot has...
Posted February 12, 2006 12:39 PM
Not to pick on Van Nuys, but a new blog called Los Angeles City Nerd says the community has a distinctive smell—well two, actually. What Van Nuys smells like is, well, hops. Anheuser-Busch Brewery on Roscoe gives a strong aroma...
Posted February 10, 2006 06:41 PM
Over at 2,000 Days in the Valley. Also in the blogs: In the Oaks points to online short films about Sherman Oaks and North Hollywood. On the Valley Flickr group, a shot from behind at the original Bob's Big Boy...
Posted February 10, 2006 12:40 PM
The Hot Dog Show at Coldwater and Ventura, June Ellen Donuts, the Roger Jessup and Manfull dairies and Murmak Hardware have been added to the honor roll of Valley landmarks that are no longer around. The list at Gone but...
Posted February 10, 2006 11:55 AM
Meghan, who works behind the camera in Valleywood and blogs at Musings, is still getting used to seeing celebs in her neighborhood. Her recent run-in came at a farmers market. While at the Studio City market, I was walking around...
Posted February 10, 2006 02:02 AM
Clocks at Olive View hospital in Sylmar stopped at 6:01 am on Feb. 9, 1971. That's when the Valley was shaken awake by a 6.6-magnitude earthquake that began under the mountains behind Sylmar. When the shaking stopped sixty seconds later,...
Posted February 9, 2006 02:57 AM
As part of the website's redesign, all of the articles that used to appear on the History and Lore page of America's Suburb.com have been reposted as separate entries. This makes it easier to add new pieces on Valley history...
Posted February 6, 2006 09:48 AM
The Valley's first cemetery—other than numerous unmarked Tongva and Chumash burial grounds—was located on the north side of the chapel at Mission San Fernando Rey. In later times, wide open spaces and cheap land invited the placement of large cemeteries....
Posted November 24, 2005 01:31 PM
Use these 300+ links to discover other sources of history and lore or just to explore the Valley. Some of the sites may open in a new window on your computer. Please email to suggest a website or report a...
Posted November 24, 2005 01:26 PM
Many evidences of the old Valley have disappeared—and more vanish every year. This page lists some unofficial Valley landmarks that are no longer with us, taken from The San Fernando Valley: America's Suburb, the author's files and reader submissions....
Posted November 24, 2005 12:54 PM
