One of the DJ'S I always liked was Dick "Huggy Boy" Hugg. Huggy Boy was on the air for almost 5 decades. I went to the Flash Record Store one night around midnight to see him broadcast. Almost like the DJ in Hollywood Knights.
50 years..still there...built right. Being "different" comes with a major degree of hassles living there everyday..."Honey, could you clean all windows today?"
We had a " Hullabaloo " dance place near me when I was a kid in the 60's. Pretty sure that they ended up all around the country. It's now a shipping warehouse place
That house is called the "chemsphere house" if anyone wants more info. It was designed by John Lautner, one of the most famous mid-century modern architects. He was also the one that designed the restaurant "googies" which is now used to describe 50's diner architecture... http://takesunset.com/2009/06/the-chemosphere-john-lautner-los-angeles/
No one has mentioned the "zoot suit riots" I think this PBS page does a pretty good job of giving the timeline etc. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/zoot/eng_sfeature/sf_lamap.html In the summer of 1943, Los Angeles erupted in violence. The city, a major training and transit point for military personnel, saw itself on the front lines of the war in the Pacific. Sailors, soldiers, and marines in the area read in the L.A. press about the war overseas, and the war against Mexican "pachuco" gangs at home. More and more, people believed Mexican American youths were predisposed to criminality. These notions were encouraged by sensationalistic news reports and an overaggressive police department. At the time, many Mexican American teens were challenging the unwritten codes of prejudice. Those who wore the zoot suit-- an outrageous, attention-grabbing fashion -- knew they were placing themselves in the public eye. What they learned from the Zoot Suit Riots, however, was that self-expression can come with a heavy price. i believe this is Cesar Chavez in the 40's, of united farm workers union fame.. here's the young pachuco zoot suiters who banded together to fight the servicemen. here are the servicemen who were roaming the streets looking for people to beat up zoot suiter paul acevedo
The flying wing flew over my house several times, it was always escorted by several other planes. We must have been on a flight path for it. Sonic booms from jet planes were common then also as no speed restrictions applied to prevent the booms.
The Northrop factory was located at Hawthorne Airport for years. Edwards AFB is named after a test pilot who died test-flying one of the wings. Just before Jack Northrop died the B-2 design team showed him a top-secret scale model of the B-2 and said, "Mr. Northrop, we're finally going to build it."
Doug, you make an excellent point. We tend to miss "the old days" and romanticize those days but they weren't always so great. We had terrible smog in the SF Bay Area as well back when I was a kid in the '60s and '70s. It wasn't ever bad enough that we couldn't go to recess but I can still remember sunny days where the sky was literally brown. SF was maybe 15 miles away across the bay and I could barely see the city on smoggy days. We may not like pollution controls or burning bans but the air sure is cleaner. I had an all-day layover in Orange County on Tuesday and it was beautifully clear. I could see well down toward San Diego from my upper-floor room at the hotel. Oh, and a neighbor burned some trash here last summer (illegally) and I caught a whiff and I was immediately rushed back to 1966 when my mom burned trash in our backyard incinerator.
"The Interchange" as we called it...the world's first four-level interchange of freeways...downtown...1953
Heard the other day that the average waist size (for women) was 27 in the 50's,,,, now it is 34!! How true.
Great stuff OLLIN. There is (at least) one undeniable fact about "back in the day" (20's-60's): folks were a lot less tolerant of ethnicity (in general). We have fortunately become a much more inclusive society, which is a good thing. Man, those amigos are stylin' !!
Yea, that's another undeniable fact: folks were (in general) much slimmer. I think a lot of that is due to people being more active in their daily routines. People walked more. What else? Must be a collection of little things: you washed dishes by hand, you hung the clothes up on a line in the backyard, hell, we even had a non-motorized lawnmower for a few years. There were still a lot of non-motorized vacuum cleaners, push & pull it across the rug; raked leaves by hand;etc. Help me out here, old timers.
take out food, instead of home prepared meals... we never had snack food like there is today. Sure, we had the occasional candy bar, but on the news last week, there are a study that shows that alot of kids eat all day long. Just a continous line of snacks.
Sheriff used light bars early on compared to L.A.P.D..Ugly units, but you could tell in your mirror who was pulling you over. Deputy uses balloon intox tester to see if he is OK to go on duty.
Here's another undeniable fact: strippers were a rode-hard lot. There simply were no young foxes stripping in the bars for cash. Here's your average stripper back in the day: Cheesecake stripper Patti White nearly nude while stripping in Los Angeles nightclub. 1959
Jayne Mansfield's pink house in Beverly Hills with a heart-shaped swimming pool! The Pink Palace was sold after Mansfield's death and its subsequent owners have included Ringo Starr, Cass Elliot, and Engelbert Humperdinck. In 2002, Humperdinck sold it to developers, and the house was demolished in November of that year. Previous owner prior to Jayne was Rudy Vallee...
Promise not to post many pics with owner's name plastered over the photo, but thought this one was cool. Local teenagers hang out in a darkened parking lot and admire a custom-pai<WBR>nted 1951 Mercury Montery car, Venice, California<WBR>, August 1959. This image was part of an article called 'Kansas Squares vs. Coast Beats,' which appeared in the September 21, 1959, issue of Life magazine.
i dont know of many jobs that do-not require sitting for 8-10hrs a day. hell, before going to bed i was watching a show about the new camaro assembly line... a lot of the guys working the line had big pot bellies. looking back on the late 60's people were skinny but looked disheveled, for the most part... it was the style i guess. is that a lack of self respect? i dont think all fatass's lack self respect... more like self control