Category Archives: Uncategorized

The idea for the Ports O’ Call shopping and restaurant complex on the waterfront in San Pedro originally sprang from the imaginative business mind of restaurateur David Tallichet. We’ve met Tallichet here before, as the the man behind the venerable Proud Bird restaurant near Los Angeles International Airport. Tallichet, through his Specialty Restaurants Corp., wasContinue reading “Ports O’ Call in San Pedro has seen its ups and downs”

The U.S. Armed forces wasted no time in preparing for the movement of men and materials in support of World War II. In March 1941, months before the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor, the War Department already had taken control of the Panama Pacific Terminal, Berths 232-A and B, on Terminal Island with the purposeContinue reading “Wilmington during wartime: The Los Angeles Port of Embarkation and Camp Ross”

The block-long stretch of Pier Avenue in Hermosa Beach between Hermosa Avenue and the city’s pier always has been a natural communal gathering place. But Its conversion into a European-style pedestrian plaza occurred only recently. Pier Avenue, originally known as Santa Fe Avenue, had long been the small beach city’s main commercial corridor, wending itsContinue reading “Hermosa Beach’s Pier Plaza a recent addition to cityscape”

Glenn Wallichs opened the first Wallichs Music City store on the corner of Sunset and Vine in Hollywood in 1940. The transplanted Nebraskan envisioned a full-service music store stocking records, phonograph equipment, sheet music and musical instruments. Among his innovations: Self-service record racks, wrapping products in plastic and installing listening booths where customers could sampleContinue reading “Wallichs Music City opens for business in Torrance”

Quick now, the name of the mall in Rolling Hills Estates is, uh, The Courtyard mall? Shops at Palos Verdes? Avenue of the Peninsula? Promenade on the Peninsula? The last one, Promenade on the Peninsula, is correct, but all of the others were right for the name-changingest mall in the South Bay at one timeContinue reading “Rebranding becomes a way of life at Rolling Hills Estates mall”

These days, you have to go to the dioramas at the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles to see the saber-toothed cats, mammoths and other amazing beasts that once roamed the plains of the greater Los Angeles Basin, including the South Bay. 15,000 years ago, you could have seen themContinue reading “When saber-toothed cats, mammoths and dire wolves roamed the South Bay”

M.V. Grifith and C.E. Ranzenberger began Pet Haven Cemetery in 1948. The pair were frustrated by watering restrictions at the Los Angeles Pet Cemetery in Calabasas that kept the grave of one of their beloved family dogs from being covered with green grass.  Griffith and Ranzenberger decided to start their own facility where the grassContinue reading “Beloved animals get a final resting place at Pet Haven Cemetery”

The Santa Fe Railroad started working on a branch line through the cities of Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach in the 1880s. When trains began rolling down the rails in 1888, the railroad had its  link to the three wharves then serving Redondo Beach. The line went through Manhattan and Hermosa before terminating in Redondo.Continue reading “The beach cities greenbelt: Joggers take over from railroad trains”

In part two of our look at Hollywood Park, we pick up the story after the racetrack’s first very successful racing season in the summer of 1938. The park’s popularity grew over the next two seasons, and it became the place to go for entertainment industry figures. Hollywood Park, like many other large operations notContinue reading “Hollywood Park’s glory years, and its gradual decline”

With all the hubbub over the proposed new NFL stadium and the demolition of the main grandstand in spectacular fashion on Sunday, May 31, 2015, the time seems right to take a look back at the earliest days of the racetrack itself, before it fell to the wrecking ball. The story of big-time thoroughbred horseContinue reading “The early days of Hollywood Park”