Ballrooms featuring live bands boomed during the 1930s and 1940s, their dancefloors filled with people swaying to the popular music of the day. The “dance music” in question varied in type, but bore little resemblance to the thumping electronic rhythms heard today. Big band music was the largest draw. The “barn dance” phenomenon drew thousandsContinue reading “Mayflower Ballroom patrons could have danced all night during club’s heyday”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Cities find Fourth of July fireworks decisions can have explosive ramifications
Things were different in 1939 than they are now, sure, but the Torrance Herald’s promotional gift used to entice newspaper delivery employees to sign up new subscribers seems more than a little irresponsible: Give them a box of free fireworks for each new annual subscription obtained! Fireworks classified as “safe and sane” then were legalContinue reading “Cities find Fourth of July fireworks decisions can have explosive ramifications”
Building tennis champions at the Jack Kramer Club in Rolling Hills Estates
The late tennis journalist and broadcaster Bud Collins once called Jack Kramer “the most important man in the history of tennis.” Kramer generally is credited with taking the sport from its restrictive, elitist past and guiding it toward the popularity it later enjoyed after he helped usher in the Open Era in 1968. Before that,Continue reading “Building tennis champions at the Jack Kramer Club in Rolling Hills Estates”
The history of Gardena High and its unusual art collection
The first high school classes in the Gardena area were conducted in 1904 in a building owned by W. E. Shellenburger. In 1905, the high school shifted to shared quarters at Gardena Grammar School (built in 1892) on Main Street between Gardena Blvd. and 161st Street, under the name Jewell Union High School. In 1906,Continue reading “The history of Gardena High and its unusual art collection”
The big bang that opened up the Palos Verdes Peninsula
Thousands of motorists and spectators lined the hillsides along the Palos Verdes Peninsula coastline in the vicinity of Bluff Cove on a sunny Sunday afternoon in the early 1920s, and what they witnessed truly was extraordinary. On that day, Oct. 21, 1923, engineers from the Hercules Powder Company set off a fuse that detonated 100,000Continue reading “The big bang that opened up the Palos Verdes Peninsula”
How Redondo Beach’s once-modest veterans memorial grew into something more
Redondo Beach can trace its veterans memorial back to a monument erected in 1932. In September of that year, the city’s American Legion Post #184 installed a plaque and monument at a small triangular park near the intersection of Torrance and Sepulveda boulevards. Post #184 had been chartered in 1920, just a year after theContinue reading “How Redondo Beach’s once-modest veterans memorial grew into something more”
San Pedro’s Cabrillo Beach Bathhouse blossoms again after hard times
Prior to the early 1920s, what we know now as Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro was little more than a stretch of rocky shoreline completely unsuited for bathing or basking. In 1923, voters passed a Los Angeles city bond measure setting aside $250,000 for the development of a beach in the area near the SanContinue reading “San Pedro’s Cabrillo Beach Bathhouse blossoms again after hard times”
Why Wilmington once had its own city hall
We know Wilmington’s recent history as its own unique community within the city limits of Los Angeles, but it wasn’t always that way. For a brief period, Wilmington was its own independent, incorporated city. Here’s how it happened. The community of Wilmington is one of the oldest in Los Angeles. The area first was calledContinue reading “Why Wilmington once had its own city hall”
Fig leaf or not, the Neptune Fountain has been a Malaga Cove icon since 1930
Neptune, the Greek god of the sea, has endured many trials during his stoic reign over Malaga Cove Plaza in Palos Verdes Estates. Vandals have broken pieces off of him, and painted him green, red and black at various times over the years. He had to be completely replaced in 1969, and has been repairedContinue reading “Fig leaf or not, the Neptune Fountain has been a Malaga Cove icon since 1930”
Lomita’s Kuska Museum housed more than 17 tons of historical artifacts
Before Joseph and Nellie Kuska moved from Kansas to their house at 24201 Walnut St. in Lomita in 1957, they also bought another large framed house and had the building moved next to their new residence. They had workmen knock a couple of walls out of the second structure and build shelves in it inContinue reading “Lomita’s Kuska Museum housed more than 17 tons of historical artifacts”
