What street/City did you cruise in High School?

The City of Hopkins put a stop to cruising Main Street pretty quickly. I was there last weekend for theaforementioned cl*** reunion and you can still see how they changed the streets to put major obstacles at every corner.

 

1st and 2nd streets then to Kings drive-in. San Jose.

 

They sure did. It was fun while it lasted, and I really don’t recall any harm from it either. Our folks never raced in town, we always went out to what is now part of highway 169 (old county 18).

John

 

Hello,

We had a ton of streets that ran North to South to the ocean in Long Beach. So, hot rod guys/girls from far inland near South Gate/Downey/Paramount/Bellflower could drive straight through Long Beach/Bixby Knolls area on their way to the beach and long shoreline.

One of the most used streets was Long Beach Boulevard. It was packed with all sorts of car dealers, for several miles from the ocean to Bixby Knolls. (About 8 miles inland) Driving by our old high school grounds (2 miles from the ocean) on the next big street over, was part of the fun in cruising to downtown, the Pike, the beaches, Rainbow Pier and of course, Belmont Shore.

As we continued from the ocean back into the Bixby Knolls area, that is where we saw the places where most of our new cars and old used cars were purchased back then. Each new car dealer had a large used car lot, with some specialty smaller dealers handling non factory models. But the cruise down this street was a lot of fun.

The street was originally called American Avenue. Our dad used to take us on a drive from our Westside house to go look for new cars every fall, on American Avenue. But, in 1958, the local city councilmen made the change to Long Beach Boulevard to better suit the main street ***ociated to the City of Long Beach.

It was a cruising street with plenty of huge gl*** store fronts to check out your cruiser/hot rod’s reflections. There were plenty of restaurants, paint stores and even a modern furniture store that had the longest huge gl*** window row for the best reflection of us cruising down the street. It was almost a block long building with huge gl*** panes from one end to the other. The furniture, décor, and products were outstanding.
Frank Bros.

Jnaki

As part of the cruising in Bixby Knolls, this Long Beach Boulevard was one of the main streets that led into the western portion of the area. The other was Atlantic Avenue which was one big street to the East running parallel to Long Beach Boulevard from the ocean to far inland, beyond Bixby Knolls.

Atlantic Avenue had Grissinger’s Drive-In Restaurant and Long Beach Boulevard had Ken’s Burgers and a family dining restaurant. Both places were packed on Fridays and Saturdays. Cruising scene took in both places, as each place had a large parking lot for all of the hot rods/cruisers and families to come for the food and atmosphere.

The parking lots were where the “action” took place in both places. So, both major streets running from the ocean back to Bixby Knolls were the two main streets that had most of the teenage traffic. It was the same on our daily drives to high school. Those two were the feeders to the high school parking area and campus.

Those streets were the cruising streets. But, if any performance action was to happen, there was always Cherry Avenue located between two dark, quiet cemeteries. Cherry Avenue was also a street that went from the ocean to the city of Artesia.

It was a street for straight through driving, but, not a daily cruising road. Cherry Avenue continued inland as Garfield Avenue and several name changes until the city at the base of the local mountains popped up, Altadena. That was one way to get to Pasadena and the local mountains for us.

 

Hello,

It was a big circuit on Bixby Knolls, to Ken’s Restaurant Drive In, to Hof’s Hut, on San Antonio Drive to Grissinger’s, then South on Cherry Avenue drags area.

We drove east on Carson St. to Oscar’s then back to Lakewood Boulevard near the airport. The late night street in front of the Douglas Aircraft buildings were virtually empty late at night. But, then we traveled South to Hody’s around the Traffic Circle. Hody’s was a multi school spot, it was closest to our rival, Long Beach Wilson HS, but it was such a great place as part of the whole southern, cruising scene.

We had some friends from the Southern area on Pacific Coast Highway (101) in Belmont Shore. The famed 2nd St. was our cruising area for that small downtown shops for pizza, cook your own steak house and others.. But, if one went East from PCH, the darkest street for about 2 miles long and straight awaited us for our second midnight drags location. It went right through the U.S. Navy Base. The base was set up as a neighborhood with streets, blocks and lights. Just like a normal area from the sky. It was camouflage at its best to hide the ammunition and bombs in underground bunkers. Above the ground, they looked like flattened houses.

Hody’s Drive In Restaruant on the corner of Anaheim St. and PCH in East Long Beach.

Hody’s was a chain of restaurants with approximately 10 locations around Southern California; the most well-known of them was on the northeast corner Hollywood and Vine. This one stood on a large triangular site where PCH meets Anaheim St. and Clark Ave, so there was plenty of parking for all those 1950s cl***ic American cars.

During Easter break (Spring Break back then) the trip down 101 Coast Highway to Newport Beach/Balboa and Laguna Beach was the key drive. The trip was going past Hody's on PCH on the southerly drive.

And the food was pretty good for us, too. A little bit different from our normal Bixby Knolls restaurants we like to hang out and eat. Ha! Plus, no one had the best item: homemade thick gravy generously poured over real potatoes cut large into fries. Grissinger’s was famous for that particular item. So, everywhere we drove, we always looked at the menu to see if someplace also offered the real "gravy and fries" order. If not, then the cheeseburger was the go to option for us.

Jnaki

But, over time, the Hody’s Drive-In Restaurant was in a valuable commercial spot on busy PCH. So, it got torn down and in its spot was a tall gl*** walled building for many years.

Then the times moved, the pandemic hit and business was failing, so the gl*** building stood empty. Now, a large en***y is purchasing the whole complex and is going to convert the business offices to apartments for college kids in the Long Beach area.

There are three small to large colleges within our old driving area. 2 LBCC campus grounds within 10 miles (the technology campus on PCH and regular campus near the LB Airport) and close by a mile or two is the huge Long Beach State College or university as it is now called. The area is in drastic need for all of the college age kids to have secure housing to start their futures.

Recycling in the best way and/or repurposing is another good description… YRMV

 

Our town had a fairly long federal dock that they let you drive on and a relatively new phenomenon- a fast food restaurant that had served millions. So you would cruise from the dock to the four corners, make a left cruise up about a mile, around the Mcdonalds and back to the dock. After hours and on Sundays you could park along the route at the Beer Store, and there was also parking at the dock where our friends generally hung out. Those were the days. I made the circuit once this summer, and young people are holding up the tradition.

 

In Porterville Calif. it was Main St. north to Gang Sue's, then back south on Main to Olive Drive, west to Porterville Hi, stop at Coleman's for a marshmallow, vanilla, cherry 7UP then back east on Olive. American Graffiti should have been filmed there, guys came from Tulare, Visalia, Delano, Bakersfield, etc., to drag Main in Porterville.

 

In my hometown of Lawrenceville, Il., in the late '50s, we cruised the streets (known as the square) surrounding the county court house.

 

Villard ST in ****inson North Dakota Friday Saturday nights and Sunday afternoon all about picking up girls finding a party and street racing.

 

118 Ave in the Beverly neighborhood in Edmonton. Paired off at the old A&W drive-in to race out on Hwy 216...this was in the mid 80s...

 

We didn't really cruise the streets. Too many cops and we were all teens drinking beer. We would all park in the middle of the woods and have a party out there. Pop the hoods on the cool cars and talk **** all night.