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The San Fernando Valley
The Backyard of L.A.
The Treaty of Cahuenga, ending the Mexican–American War fighting in Alta California, was signed in 1847 by Californios and Americans at Campo de Cahuenga, the Verdugo Family adobe at the entrance to the Cahuenga Pass in the southeast San Fernando Valley (North Hollywood). – Wiki
And yet….
…there is still no treaty governing the rush hour traffic at the Barham Boulevard exit of the Hollywood Freeway. It’s still war out there. Territorial in terms of stay in your lane! Literally. One of the daily frustrations of living in Los Angeles for as long as I have lived here is that every single day you get to see history swept under the rug and overlaid with fresh concrete, new developments, and neon smoke signals. The fact is that if Angelinos knew (let alone understood) their own city’s actual history, they might feel a little more connected to it.
38 cities, towns, and villages
The term “the valley” covers vast territory. Los Angeles, Valley Village, Hidden Hills, San Fernando, Glendale, Calabasas, Burbank, Universal City, and Topanga, make up the list of incorporated cities, with unincorporated areas of Kagel, Hickson, and Garnsey are just a few. Each with their own self-identifier qualities. Read the full list of San Fernando Valley cities.
https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/George_Clooney Multi-Personalities
“The Valley” has taken a mix of insulting hits and flowery compliments throughout the last 50 years of Hollywood movies, television, and music industry. Sometimes it’s romanticized, such as in P.T. Anderson’s Magnolia and other times it’s horrified, as in Anderson’s Boogie Nights, and other times it’s “Stupidized” and, particularly in the 1982 Frank Zappa / Moon Zappa song “Valley Girl” and the 1983 film Valley Girl. Probably the best filmic depicter of Valley Life is Cameron Crowe, who in his 1982 Fast Times at Ridgemont High, truly showed the Valley as a real place. Anxious and horny teenagers living in the 70’s, an updated version of George Lucas’ 1973 American Graffiti, which was set in Northern California, but really doubled for the cool car cruising of Van Nuys Boulevard in the same way the 1970 movie M.A.S.H., which was set during the Korean War, was really about Vietnam. “Fast Times” showed the last vestiges of modern Americana, a real Main Street USA, but instead of the hardware store run by “old Joe”, it’s overrun with the culture of teenager hustle and self-discovery. Whatever the Valley really is, it seems to constantly be trying to recover from it’s “little brother” image of “L.A.” which lies (in both senses of the word) just over the hill.
For Sure Valley Economy
Chopping Mall star and “scream queen” Keli Maroney https://www.slashfilm.com/552473/hdtgm-chopping-mall-interview/ Although virtually invisible, the Valley is widely recognized as the home of the porn industry. The Valley competes with other famous industry valleys such as Silicone Valley in the north, best known for the microchip boom of the 80’s. (There’s a joke connecting the two in there somewhere, but we don’t have time.) Historically Valley centric industries have been the aerospace industry and movies and television. Lockheed and Rockettdyne are two, the second one reminding me of the fictional aerospace company in one of my favorite comedies of all time, Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension. The evil fictional company was Yoyodyne. Television studios include the major three: ABC, CBS, AND NBC. Film studios include Burbank Studios and Disney Studios. Probably the major cultural center of the Valley is the Galleria, which has been the center filming point for such classics as the much loved slasher Chopping Mall.
Famous Valley Residents
George Clooney, Samuel Jackson, Will Smith and Kim Basinger all have Valley homes. Though George spends most of his time at his Italian villa and Smith owns a slapping studio on Ventura Blvd. (NOT! Just comedy, folks!) Other Valley celebrity residents (in particularly Encino) include Selena Gomez (who paid $4.9 million for Tom Petty’s old house), Channing Tatum, Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Dorit Kemsley and Teddi Mellencamp, and NBA baller Tristan Thompson. Back in the day, cowboy couple Roy Rogers and Dale Evans had horse ranches in Encino and Chatsworth. Their 1944 film Republic Pictures San Fernando Valley romanticized all the classic stuff of those Westerns we love so much. Adventure in the Wild Wild West, fighting the bad guys and of course romance. And by romance, I mean, of course, a man and his horse.
“Head ’em off at the Victory Boulevard overpass!”
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Van Nuys Has Taken On Mythical Proportions
Photo provided by Van Nuys Neighborhood Council There’s an old joke. An old Jewish couple tell their children they’re moving back to the old country:
Oh! Is it nice?
Nice? NICE? As a matter of fact, it’s …
Van Nuys!
Since the beginning of time (Hollywood time), the City of Van Nuys has taken on mythical proportions. You must remember this. It was at the Van Nuys Airport where Rick Blaine held Elsa in his arms, while the plane propeller was winding up, compelling a conflicted Ingrid Bergman to leave Casablanca. It’s also where Stan and Ollie filmed The Flying Deuces three years earlier. Sixty years later, Paul Thomas Anderson decided to film his legendary “raining frogs” scene from his masterpiece Magnolia on Reseda Boulevard in Van Nuys.
The town was founded in 1911 and named for Isaac Newton Van Nuys, a rancher, entrepreneur and one of its developers. Not the apple dropped on his head guy; yet a man with gravity nonetheless. Van Nuys was annexed by Los Angeles on May 22, 1915, after completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, providing it with the water required for further growth. Roman Polanski’s Chinatown built its complex plot of city corruption around this idea.
Cross: That’s what I am doing. If the bond issue passes Tuesday, there’ll be eight million dollars to build an aqueduct and reservoir. I’m doing it.
Gittes: Gonna be a lot of irate citizens when they find out that they’re paying for water that they’re not gonna get.
Cross: Oh, that’s all taken care of. You see, Mr. Gits. Either you bring the water to LA or you bring LA to the water.
Gittes: How you gonna do that?
Cross: By incorporating the valley into the city. Simple as that.
Nicholson and Dunaway from Chinatown by Roman Polansky.
(image courtesy of Screen Rant and Paramount Pictures)Van Nuys was the first new stop
on the San Fernando Line of the Pacific Electric Railway red cars system, which boosted its early land sales and commercial success. From as far as Alhambra, in 1917, day trips were organized for potential buyers of five-acre farms.
The idyllic Bing Crosby song “I’ll Make the San Fernando Valley My Home” was Number 4 on the “Hit Parade” as the soldiers went ashore on D-Day. After World War II, the sleepy farming town changed, as veterans “discovered” the San Fernando Valley. After the war effort shifted to civilian commerce in the late 40’s and early 50’s, airplane manufacturing boomed as commercial aviation became the new mode of travel. In l946 General Motors built its Chevrolet assembly plant in Van Nuys. Farmland and orchards were replaced by endless tract homes that signaled a shift in Van Nuys’ commercial and agricultural base.
The great crooner himself, Bing Crosby. (image courtesy of The Spokesman Review) Remember the movie “American Graffiti”? The director, George Lucas, may claim it was Modesto—but anyone of a certain age “knows” it was Van Nuys Blvd, in the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s where a youth culture was defined by “Wednesday night cruising” to show off one’s “wheels”.
It’s still a vital town—that generates its own famous people—actors Natalie Wood and Robert Redford, Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell, athletes like NFL legend Bob Waterfield and the Dodgers’ Don Drysdale, Johnny Parsons of “Indianapolis 500” fame, and many others.
And so while Van Nuys may be a very busy side of your daily shopping, dentist, or work, there’s much more history birthed there than you can believe.
To paraphrase nightclub owner and ex-pat Rick Blaine once said to freedom fighter Elsa:
“We’ll always have Victory. Victory Boulevard, that is….“
He winks; they kiss.
Happy Ending
Sources: Wikipedia, Van Nuys Neighborhood Council
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Sherman Oaks: Let’s Go Back in Time!
The San Fernando Valley is made up of over four dozen communities.Some of them are cities, some are enclaves. And some of them are simply a hundred cars all stuck in traffic on the freeway. All of them have a unique make-up, distinguishing themselves from the rest. So, the next time someone tells you they’re from the Valley, try and get them to be more specific. It could mean the difference of literally two hours driving on the 101.
Before We Knew It
Founded in 1927, Sherman Oaks includes a portion of the Santa Monica Mountains, which gives it a lower population density than some other areas in Los Angeles. Los Angeles County, rather than Los Angeles, the city. A partner of the Los Angeles Suburban Homes Company, Gen. Moses Hazeltine Sherman, developed Sherman Oaks. The company had subdivided 1,000 acres (400 ha) of land that would become Sherman Oaks. In 1927, each acre was sold for $780, which by today’s market standards, would cost roughly 2.5 million dollars. Quite the investment. I don’t know anything comparable in reverse receding value, other than perhaps the same amount of acreage on the backside of Kim Kardashian.
History is made from Entrepreneurs
Moses Hazeltine Sherman (December 3, 1853 – September 9, 1932) was an American land developer who built the Phoenix Street Railway in Phoenix, Arizona and streetcar systems that would become the core of the Los Angeles Railway and part of the Pacific Electric Railway in Los Angeles, California, and owned and developed property in areas such as the westside of Los Angeles, the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood, California. He also served on the Los Angeles Water Board. He was also known as M. H. Sherman and General M. H. Sherman, though I’m not sure he actually owned a Way-Back Machine. In 1991, a group of homeowners living in the Chandler Estates area successfully petitioned former Los Angeles City Councilmember Zev Yaroslavsky to re-draw the boundaries of Sherman Oaks from Magnolia to Burbank Blvd to the north, and from Coldwater Canyon to Van Nuys Blvd to the west, with the goal of including their neighborhood. This request was nothing new to the San Fernando Valley; other neighborhoods had either sought to change their names, or sought to attach themselves onto more affluent neighborhoods. Residents in the area argued, however, that the area was originally part of Sherman Oaks, but was labeled Van Nuys instead through the creation of ZIP codes in 1962; a resident produced a property deed to buttress the case.
Secession within the city
Just a few weeks after the Chandler Estates area successfully seceded from Van Nuys, Magnolia Woods, a 45 block area bordered by Van Nuys Boulevard on the east and the San Diego Freeway on the west, and between Burbank and Magnolia Boulevards, also successfully petitioned Los Angeles City council member Marvin Braude to secede from Van Nuys and join Sherman Oaks. Petitioners in the area argued that their neighborhood was also part of Sherman Oaks, though they were only able to produce 22 deeds showing so. As a result of this change, Van Nuys Middle School became separated from its namesake neighborhood.
Value for Money
The rich gated hills of Bel Air has a median listing home price of $8.1M, making it the most expensive city in Los Angeles County. Reseda is the most affordable city, with a median listing home price of $799K. Sherman Oaks teeters around the median. No wonder Sherman Oaks is known as the shopping mecca of the Valley. Sherman Oaks is famous for its shopping malls, including Westfield Fashion Square and Sherman Oaks Galleria.
A living and breathing movie set, Sherman Oaks Galleria was the setting for the iconic Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. I live and breathe for the fantasy of Sean Penn’s Jeff Spicoli character calling Arnold Schwarzenegger s Terminator robot “a d*#k!”.
