South Bay History

Attendees gather for the Gardner Building dedication on Sept. 13, 1925 at Malaga Cove Plaza in Palos Verdes Estates. (Photo: Palos Verdes Library District, Local History Collection.)

 

The Gardner Building may not be Malaga Cove Plaza’s most famous landmark – the Neptune statue and fountain probably wins that honor – but it was the first commercial building on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Commissioned by landowner W.W. Gardner and designed by the architectural firm of Webber, Staunton and Spaulding, the Spanish colonial revival-style structure cost approximately $57,500 to build.

Construction began in December 1924, and the completed building was dedicated on Sunday, Sept. 13, 1925. Dignitaries at the ceremony included Congressmen John D. Fredericks, Supervisor R.F. McLellan, and just about every mayor and chamber of commerce president within a 20-mile radius.

As the first commercial building in Palos Verdes, the Gardner hosted a variety of enterprises, including the first post office in Palos Verdes. The story goes that the area served by that post office became known as Palos Verdes Estates rather than just Palos Verdes because postal authorities wanted to distinguish it from Palo Verde, Calif., a town already in existence near the Colorado River in Imperial County.

Other early tenants included the area’s first public library, the Palos Verdes Homes Assn, the Palos Verdes Art Jury and Building Commission and Bruce Drug Store.

Wallace E. Bruce opened the Bruce Drug Store in the Gardner Building in November 1926. Walter Reese bought the drug store in 1939 and renamed it Palos Verdes Drugs, and it remained a Malaga Cove fixture for decades. Longtime residents still remember its old-fashioned soda fountain.

 

The soda fountain is seen at right in this interior view of the Bruce Drug Store located in the Gardner Building. Bruce Drug Store opened on Nov. 13, 1926. (Photo: Palos Verdes Library District, Local History Collection.) 

 

Reese also owned the adjacent Palos Verdes Liquor, which he opened in 1953. He announced the sale of both properties to a group headed by Paul Kelamekiarian in November 1971. Neither store still exists.

Starting on Sept. 8, 1925 and continuing until April 5, 1926, the Gardner Building also was home to the Peninsula’s first school. Classes were held there during those months while Malaga Cove School was under construction.

The building’s grocery store originally was known as Palos Verdes Market, then Schaeffer’s, Murphy’s, Leonard’s and, finally, Moore’s Market. Moore’s moved from the Gardner Building eventually, but remains in business on the Hill to this day. The original grocery store site later became home for the Palos Verdes Water Company, and then Palos Verdes Liquor.

On Oct. 13, 1981, the building was dedicated as a historical site by the Rancho de los Palos Verdes Historical Society.

Current tenants of the Gardner Building include several real estate and escrow offices, a florist, the offices of Castle Rock Winery and an architectural firm.

 

The Gardner Building at Malaga Cove Plaza. Daily Breeze photo, July 2011. 

 

Sources:

Daily Breeze files.

A Driving Tour of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, by Barbara Dye, Blickidy Press, 1992.

“Gardner building goes down in history,” By Richard Bozanich, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 30, 1981, Page SB5.

Images of America: Palos Verdes Estates, by John Phillips, Arcadia Publishing, 2010.

Palos Verdes Library District, Local History Collection: http://www.pvld.org/localhistory.

The Palos Verdes Story, by Delane Morgan, Palos Verdes Review Publications Inc., 1982.

 

 

 

San Pedro’s bascule bridge is shown shortly after its completion on this undated postcard.

 

In the early part of the 20th century, Southern Pacific and Pacific Electric trains made their way to San Pedro using trestles to traverse the tidal waters that surrounded it. These railroad bridges made it impossible for ships to use the waterways, so in 1907 the U.S. War Department ordered that the trestles be replaced by drawbridges of the bascule type.
A bascule bridge is a type of drawbridge that employs a counterweight to lift its center section so that ships can pass underneath. The first one was built in Russia in 1850, and they grew in favor among civil engineers because they could be opened quickly – San Pedro’s span took 50 seconds to raise – without using much energy.
After some delays during which the Southern Pacific was denied permission to build additional tracks around the bay, plans to build what was then one of the larger bridges of its type in the world were announced in 1911. Southern Pacific’s engineering department designed the Strauss bascule bridge, named after the type of bascule designed by Chicago engineer Joseph Strauss, who would later design the Golden Gate Bridge.
The 187-foot-long West Basin bascule bridge opened in 1912, spanning the West Basin channel between present-day Berths 150 and 100.

 The two tracks, one electrified and one not, were shared by the Southern Pacific and the Pacific Electric Railway. The Pacific Electric had become the primary operator of the Red Cars in 1911, when Southern Pacific bought out the rail systems owned by Henry Huntington and consolidated them. The Red Cars could only use the electrified set of tracks.

This July 14, 1953 photo shows a Pacific Electric Red Car near the San Pedro bascule bridge. Photo credit: Metro Transportation Library and Archive. Photographer: Alan Weeks.

 

The San Pedro line used the bascule bridge for decades to bring passengers to and from the Harbor Area. The alternate West Basin Line had to be used during World War II, when the Coast Guard ordered that the bridge remain in the open position as a security measure.
As ridership on the Red Cars began to decrease due to the growing use of buses and personal automobiles following the war, an unfortunate accident occurred that led to the demise of the bascule bridge. On Sept. 28, 1955, a passing ship rammed into the bridge’s counterweight hinge mechanism, damaging it beyond repair. Passengers had to use the West Basin Line, which took about 10 minutes longer. The bridge could not be saved. It was deconstructed shortly thereafter, its iron sold for scrap.

This undated file photo from the early 1940s shows both sets of tracks on the bascule bridge. Source: Metro Transportation Library and Archive.

 

The San Pedro Red Car line was converted to bus service in 1958. 

 

Sources:

“Long-Spanning Steel Bridge,” Los Angeles Times, May 7, 1911,  Page V21.

Metro Transportation Library and Archive, http://www.flickr.com/photos/metrolibraryarchive/5093570299/“.

“Strauss Bascule Bridge,” Electric Railway Historical Association of Southern California, http://www.erha.org/pesspd.htm#bascule.

 

Correction:

I am sorry to have to correct Sam Gnerre’s South Bay History of July 15 on the long-gone San Pedro bascule bridge, but the bridge was not “eventually replaced by the Vincent Thomas Bridge, which opened on Nov. 15, 1963.”

The Vincent Thomas Bridge replaced the ferry running between San Pedro and Terminal Island.  The SP bascule bridge never went to Terminal Island, but rather spanned across the entrance to the West Basin of Los Angeles Harbor, between present-day berths 150 and 100.  Its removal allowed the widening of the channel which led to the dredging and development of the West Basin as it is today.

Very truly yours –

Captain E. Norman George

220 S. Guadalupe Avenue, #5

Redondo Beach, CA   90277

 

Dear Capt. George:

No need to apologize! Thanks for correcting my mistake, and for your detailed explanation. I’ve incorporated your changes into the entry.

Sam Gnerre 

Bert M. Lynn was born in Mount Vernon, NY on April 6, 1917. After attending Mount Vernon High School and graduating with a degree in ceramics engineering from Alfred University in western New York state, Lynn served in the Pacific as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy.

 

Lynn, shown at left in a 1961 Daily Breeze photo, moved west to Torrance after the war in 1946. He owned and operated the Lynn Brick Works on Normandie Avenue in Harbor City, which he opened in 1953.

Even before his first election to the Torrance Unified School District in 1961, Lynn was actively involved in civic affairs, serving on and heading the Torrance Planning Commission.

Over the years, he also was a member of the Little Company of Mary Hospital advisory board (now Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center), was a charter member and president of the board of the Southern California Regional Occupation Center (SCROC, now known as SoCalROC) and was a member of the YMCA, JewishWelfare League, Catholic Maritime Board, Little League and the Elks Club.

 

Prior to his election to the school board, Lynn already had been a vocal critic of the Torrance school district. In October 1960, Lynn led a successful movement that defeated a school district tax override. The measure passed the following March, after changes Lynn suggested were made to it.

Lynn swept into office along with opposition candidates William Hanson and Albert Charles in a landslide victory on April 18, 1961. He and Hanson both received twice as many votes as the nearest non-winning candidate. Among the defeated incumbents was Grace Wright, who had been on the board since the district first came into being in 1947.

 

Bert Lynn used volunteer labor and donated materials to build snack stands at West High and at Torrance High’s Zamperini Stadium, above. July 2011 Daily Breeze photo.

 

Among the quirkier achievements of Lynn’s tenure was the construction of two concessions stands at Torrance high schools. In 1963-64, he spearheaded an unusual campaign that succceeded in getting a snack stand built at West High purely with volunteer labor and free materials, and he did the same at Torrance High’s Zamperini Stadium 6 years later.

 

Lynn’s three terms on the Torrance school board were contentious ones. He clashed often with Superintendent J.H. Hull. Members of the Torrance City Council were insulted by a comment he made when the school board was wrangling with the council over federal funds in September 1971. Rather than go to the council to plead the school board’s case, which Lynn considered fruitless, he said he would “rather go home and watch ‘Laugh-In’ on television. The seats at home are more comfortable.”

 

Lynn underwent major surgery on Nov. 4, 1971. Doctors removed a gall bladder and a small tumor. Few in the district knew about his illness, intestinal cancer, before the operation.

Lynn died of complications following the surgery on Jan. 13, 1972 at 54.

 

On April 3, 1972, the Torrance school board voted unanimously to convert Flavian Elementary School at 5038 Halison Avenue into the district’s fifth middle school, and to rename the school Bert Lynn Middle School in Lynn’s honor.

That ceremony was held before more than 200 guests on Oct. 3, 1972, and included speeches from then-superintendent Lloyd Jones and Torrance Mayor Ken Miller.

Bert Lynn Middle School has earned many honors, including California Distinguished School awards in 2001, 2005 and 2009. In September 2006, the school won a Blue Ribbon Award for excellence from the U.S. Department of Education.

Bert Lynn Middle School won the national Blue Ribbon Award for excellence in 2006. Daily Breeze file photo.

 

Sources:

Daily Breeze files.

The first Der Wienerschnitzel fast-food restaurant opened in Wilmington in 1961.

John Galardi was a student at Pasadena City College when he encountered Glen Bell Jr. in a chance meeting across the street from campus.

Bell hired him at 50 cents an hour for part-time work making hot sauce in a commissary he owned. Galardi worked his way up to manager, and, at the age of 20, Galardi took over one of Bell’s restaurants in a partnership agreement.

The restaurant was a Taco Bell, an early location of the mammoth chain that Bell had founded. Eventually Galardi ended up owning his own Taco Bell location.

When investors came to him with the opportunity to start his own restaurant, Galardi jumped at the chance. It turned out that the site they had acquired to build on in Wilmington was right next to one of Bell’s taco restaurants. Galardi checked it out with Bell, who was fine with the idea so long as Galardi promised not to sell tacos.

After looking around at the then-nascent fast-food market, it occurred to Galardi that none of his competitors – Taco Bell, McDonald’s and others – were selling hot dogs. He decided to give selling grilled dogs at 15 cents a pop a try at his new location.

 

A young boy enjoys a Der Wienerschnitzel hot dog outside of the original restaurant in Wilmington. Photo: Wienerschnitzel.

Glen Bell’s wife suggested naming the restaurant Der Wienerschnitzel. Galardi hated the name first, but then came to see it as an attention-getting device. German language speakers were quick to point out that the grammar was incorrect – the name should have been Das Wienerschnitzel. Some also have pointed out that the chain actually never has sold the German breaded veal dish – wienerschnitzel – from which it takes its name.

In any case, Galardi opened the first Der Weinerschnitzel 50 years ago at 900 Pacific Coast Highway in Wilmington, just east of Figueroa Avenue, in 1961. It was an eye-catching A-frame building painted in red and white, with a striking yellow roof.

Galardi soon added one of the industry’s first drive-through pickup windows, which became a popular innovation. His small buildings had no interior seating, so the drive-through window encouraged customers to eat the food somewhere else. It also cut down on problems the chain had with teens loitering in the restaurant’s small parking lot. Drive-through sales eventually would account for 70% of the chain’s business.

Der Wienerschnitzel took off in the mid-1960s, mushrooming from its sole Wilmington location to a high of 450 outlets in 1975, the majority of them franchisees. Currently, there are about 350 locations, mostly in the Southwestern states.

The “Der” was dropped from the restaurant’s name in 1977, and it has been known as just “Wienerschnitzel” ever since. The original gothic-lettered logo also was replaced with the simpler “W” logo the chain currently uses (left).

In 1986, Galardi  renamed his Irvine-based parent company Der Wienerschnitzel International Inc. as Galardi Group, Inc. The Galardi Group also owns Tastee-Freeze and the Original Hamburger Stand.

Wienerschnitzel founder John Galardi, right, and president and CEO Dennis Tase chomp on their product in this 2001 photo. Credit: The Associated Press. 

Glen Bell Jr. died on Jan. 17, 2010 at 86. John Galardi died at 75 from pancreatic cancer on Saturday, April 13, 2013.

Though he had kept the title of chairman, he had handed over day-to-day operations to Dennis Tase in 1993. “John Galardi built a brand representative of a time when life was simpler, a brand that holds a special place in the hearts of so many families in America,” Tase said in a statement after Galardi’s death. “He will be deeply missed.”

And the Wilmington location where it all started? It’s still a thriving restaurant, selling its share of the 120 million hot dogs that Wienerschnitzel sells annually as the world’s largest hot dog chain.

On Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2013, the Los Angeles City Council added the original Wilmington Wienerschnitzel building to its registry of historic and cultural landmarks.

 

 

Though it has been remodeled, the original Wienerschnitzel restaurant still does business at its Pacific Coast Highway site in Wilmington. Daily Breeze photo, June 2011.

Sources:

“Galardi Group Inc.,” Funding Universe website, www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Galardi-Group-Inc.

“History of the Hot Dog,” Wienerschnitzel website, http://www.wienerschnitzel.com/about_our_history.php.

“Hot Dog King Tries Rice Bowls,” by The Associated Press, Honolulu Advertiser, July 16, 2001.

“The Wiener King: How John Galardi Built a Fast-Food Empire,” by Darren Dahl, American Express OPEN Forum, http://www.openforum.com/articles/the-wiener-king-how-john-galardi-built-der-wienerschnitzel.

 

A driver walks away from his car after floodwaters swamped it on Sepulveda Boulevard just east of Vermont Avenue in the unincorporated area just east of Torrance. Daily Breeze staff photo, Jan. 4, 1995.

 

How hard did it rain on Wednesday, Jan. 4, 1995?

The powerful Pacific storm system that rolled through the South Bay on that day dumped 5.35 inches of rain on Torrance in just 11 hours.

National Weather Service meteorologist Clay Morgan said at the time that the series of tightly bunched storm cells that hit the area like “a train of boxcars” might have been the worst storm in the region in 40 years.

Flooding was widespread, as were power outages. The Sepulveda Tunnel under LAX had to be closed, as did parts of Lincoln and Sepulveda boulevards in Westchester.

 

An employee walks past leaks due to a collapsed roof at the Goldenwest Convalescent Home in Hawthorne. Daily Breeze photo, Jan. 4, 1995.

 

A San Pedro woman nearly drowned while trying to leave her swamped car with her 7-year-old daughter. About 100 elderly residents of a Hawthorne convalescent hospital had to evacuate when a roof collapsed, flooding the facility.

County firefighters asked 100 residents of Carson near Carson and Main streets to evacuate their homes when water began to back up into their houses. Residents on Dominguez Street and Jamison Avenue in Carson had the same problem, with rainwater flowing into their houses due to a malfunctioning storm drain.

Overburdened storm drains also were blamed for the most spectacular flooding of the storm, which occurred near the intersection of Sepulveda Boulevard and Vermont Avenue in unincorporated county territory beginning at about 3:15 p.m.

 

12-year-old Christopher Treffery of Torrance wades through floodwaters near Sepulveda Boulevard and Vermont Avenue. Daily Breeze file photo.

 

Dozens of cars were stranded when the entire area around the intersection turned into a
four-foot-deep lake during the downpour. Motorists who had just come off the nearby Harbor (110) Freeway or had been navigating the growing floodwaters on Sepulveda suddenly found themselves engulfed by water.

 

Stranded motorists wait to use pay phones near the Sepulveda Boulevard and Vermont Avenue flooding. Daily Breeze file photo.

 

Most were able to wade from their cars to higher ground. A nearby ambulance plucked several stranded motorists from their cars. Two men volunteered to tow several cars out of the water, and other passersby helped push cars to safety. By 6 p.m., most of the cars had been cleared from the flooded intersection.

The natural flooding that occurs in the low-lying area, which is posted with permanent signs warning of flooding in wet weather, was exacerbated by power failures that put a nearby pumping station out of service. Temporary pumps couldn’t keep up with the torrential rains.

Storm drains also were clogged by tree limbs, leaves, silt and other debris which were difficult to clear out due to the intensity and rapidity of the downpour.

Fortunately, no one was injured seriously as a result of the flooding at Sepulveda and Vermont, though a county rescue helicopter did perform a risky landing on the Harbor Freeway on-ramp to transport a woman in labor and her child to County-Harbor UCLA Center during the driving rains.

 

In this later photo, a tow truck arrives to help pull cars out of the floodwaters at Sepulveda Boulevard and Vermont Avenue. Daily Breeze file photo.

 

Sources:

Daily Breeze files.

Urho Saari (left, 1973 Daily Breeze file photo) was born on Nov. 17, 1912, and was raised as the son of Finnish immigrants in Buffalo, New York.  He majored in English at Buffalo State Teachers College (now known as the State University of New York College at Buffalo)  before he and his wife Wanda came to Los Angeles in 1939 so he could do graduate work at UCLA.

While at UCLA, the aspiring English teacher heard about a swim coach job in “someplace called El Segundo,” as he put it in a 1973 Daily Breeze interview. He had to check a map to figure out where the town was.

He got the job as swimming and water polo coach in 1941, and quickly set about to   organize the city’s youth swimming program, which still is in operation today.

Shortly before Saari took the job, the Works Progress Administration finished building an indoor swim stadium at El Segundo High School. It had two pools, an unusual feature at the time. It was completed in 1940.

 

Bas reliefs of swimmers adorn the entrance of the WPA-built Urho Saari Swim Stadium in El Segundo. Photo: Steve McCrank, Daily Breeze, 2011.

 

Over the next three decades, Saari would lead his water polo teams to 12 CIF championships and his swim teams to 6. Saari coached the U.S. Olympic water polo team twice, in 1952 and 1964, and served as manager of the 1960 squad.

He saw his son, Roy, win a gold medal at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo as a member of the 800-meter relay swim team.

After finishing third at the first Pan American Games in 1951, Saari’s national water polo team stunned observers by finishing fourth in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, despite being made up mostly of high school seniors, many from El Segundo.

After more than three decades as an athletic legend in a city with no shortage of them, Saari retired as full-time swim coach in June 1973. The swimming facility immediately was renamed the Urho Saari Swim Stadium in his honor.

 

El Segundo High School water polo and swimming coach Urho Saari inside the swim stadium named for him. Daily Breeze file photo, 1973.

 

Saari signed on as a part-time consultant to the program after his official retirement, so he was still a part of the water polo and swimming community at  El Segundo High until 1977.
He and Wanda moved to Camarillo in 1977. He died on Dec. 29, 1990 at 78, after a seven-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

The much-beloved Saari was a member of the international water polo and swimming halls of fame. He received many other honors, including being named the National Water Polo Coach of the Year.

As for the Urho Saari Swim Stadium, it remains heavily used by both the high school and the public. After seven decades of operation, it needs renovating. Its water filtration system is antiquated, the locker rooms need updating, and some changes could be made to make the building more wheelchair friendly.

For more than 20 years, proposals large and small have been discussed to fix up the swim stadium. A school district bond issue to raise the funds for the project was defeated at the polls in 2006.

The latest proposal calls for the use of $5 million in funds from Prop. 84, passed in 2006, to build a separate outdoor pool behind the existing swim stadium, in addition to various upgrades at the swim stadium itself.

The city will apply for the Prop. 84 grant by July 1, and should know by the end of 2011 whether it has received the funds to complete the work.

 

One of the two indoor pools at the Urho Saari Swim Stadium in El Segundo. Photo: Steve McCrank, Daily Breeze, 2011.

 

Sources:

Daily Breeze files.

 

 

 

The Old Towne Mall opened on Hawthorne Boulevard in Torrance in October 1972.

 

Developer Robert R. Brindle described his concept for Old Towne Mall in Torrance as “recreational retailing.”

The 320,000 square-foot enclosed mall located at 19800 Hawthorne Boulevard, near Del Amo Boulevard, opened on Oct. 9, 1972. It cost $30 million to build, and initially housed 142 merchants.

From the start, it was different. Stores had distinctive fronts that were designed to make each seem like an individual attraction to shoppers traversing the center’s cobblestone main walkways.

At first, the mall’s tenants were small businesses, with no major anchor stores. They included specialty shops, individual food vendors and a whole section, Artisan Way, filled with glassblowers, weavers, potters, clockmakers and jewelry craftsmen.

The mall’s attractions had themes ranging from the Old West to turn-of-the-century America. Antique streetlights that once lit Long Beach streets were brought inside. Puppet shows, costumed bands performing at an old-fashioned gazebo, a singing security guard, a refurbished cable car and a fully operational carousel for kids were all part of the mall’s ambience.

Special events included everything from dance marathons to frog jumping contests, bingo games and armwrestling tournaments. A civil war reenactment was held in the parking lot. A Turn of the Century Wax Museum opened in November 1973. At Christmastime, elves played by real little people greeted customers. Arts festivals were a constant, as were concerts featuring all different types of music. The mall even had its own theater space, the Old Towne Mall Little Theater, at the south end of the complex.

 

Other attractions at Old Towne Mall included the Old Towne Singers, above top, and a singing security guard, above.

 

By the early 1980s, the mall’s fortunes had taken a turn for the worse. In November 1982, the mall’s owners UMET Properties Corp. decided to give the mall a $3.8 million remodel. The owners brought in two new large stores, Marshalls and Dayton Hudson’s then-new Plums store, both of which opened in Sept. 1983. At the same time, the owners changed the name of the mall from Old Towne Mall to Old Town Place in an attempt to reflect its updated image.

The changes didn’t seem to help the mall to survive in an increasingly competitive marketplace that included the nearby Del Amo Fashion Center and South Bay Galleria. In February 1986, Old Town Place, which by now included a large Federated Group store and a Ross clothing store, was put up for sale.

 

A large Federated Group electronics store operated at the Old Towne Mall until its closure in 1989. Daily Breeze file photo.

 

It remained on the market for two years, finally selling in July 1988 to a group of investors for approximately $18 million.

In 1989, the electronics and appliance store Silo replaced Federated Group. Silo itself would go out of business in 1995

Another $40 million facelift was announced in early 1989. This time, the roof would be removed, and the center would be converted into an open-air shopping strip with all tenants facing Hawthorne Boulevard.

Only the carousel remained from all the earlier attractions when the remodeling was completed late in 1990, but it operated only until 1992. In late April 1994, the carousel was crated up and shipped out to the Eastwood Mall in Niles, Ohio.

The renovated center was renamed first Torrance Citiplex, then Torrance Promenade. It initially struggled with empty stores, but the arrival of tenants such as Trader Joe’s in Nov. 2002 led to increased traffic, and it began to thrive again.

 

The Torrance Promenade shopping center. May 2011 Daily Breeze photo.

 

Partial list of Old Towne Mall tenants as of March 1975:

The Athlete’s Foot
Beauty Supply
Belgian Waffle Cafe
The Book Experience
Buckle Gallery
Buenos Aires Unique
Carousel Gift Shop
Che’s Bar Specialties
Chilbos
The Corral
Dimensions in Stereo
Ellen’s Floral Crafts
The Eyelash Place
Four J. Art
Free Wheelers
Get TogetherGiGi Fashions
Golden Lobe Jewelers
Good Guys
Hernandez Curios
Incense & Imports
Jug’s Candies
Leland’s Gift Fair
Libby Ann’s Gift Shop
The Malt Shop
Mann Theaters
Music World
Native American Trading Chest
The Nut Chest
Oh! Calcutta
Old Towne Waterbed Company
Ole Hickory Barbecue
The Orient
Petite Pretties
Professional Cleaning Clinic
Samantha’s Porch
Scorpio Shop
Service Court
Shady Lady
Statue World
Those Marvelous Young Men & Their Camera Machines
Troy’s Chess Shop
The Ultimate Dog
Vakil’s
Village Fashions
Vogue Fabrics
Whispering Flowers
Yee Olde Pharmacy
Zachariah’s Silverworks

 

Sources:

Daily Breeze files.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), left (Library of Congress photo), was one of the earliest and most powerful captains of industry to rise to prominence in the late 19th century.

From humble beginnings, he eventually built his Carnegie Steel Company in Pittsburgh, Pa. into an industrial powerhouse, becoming  enormously wealthy in the process. Some estimated that he was second in that regard only to John D. Rockefeller at the time.

Once he had made his fortune, Carnegie spent the last third of his life donating his money to education, scientific research —  and libraries. He formulated a plan to give grants to smaller, less privileged towns which would be used to build libraries.

Carnegie funded the first of his public libraries in 1883 in his home town of Dunfermline, Scotland. He funded his first such library on U.S. soil in 1889 in Braddock, Penn., the site of one of Carnegie Steel Company’s mills.

In the years between 1883 and 1921, 2,509 Carnegie libraries were built worldwide. In the 22 years between 1899 and 1921, 1,689 of those were built in the U.S. 142 Carnegie free public libraries were built in California, along with two academic libraries funded by Carnegie.

San Pedro sought funds from the Carnegie Foundation in 1905 for its own library to be built in Plaza Park on Vinegar Hill. Carnegie granted $10,000, and the distinctive domed structure at 820 S. Beacon Street was completed and opened for business on June 5, 1906.

When Los Angeles annexed San Pedro in 1909 after it became the official site of the city’s port, the library became the San Pedro branch of the Los Angeles Public Library system.

During World War I, the library was active in supplying library outreach services to military ships in the war effort and to the merchant marine. It was recognized for its efforts by the American Library Association.

By the mid-1920s, San Pedro had begun to outgrow its library, and a new one was built in 1924 at Gaffey and Tenth Streets (It would be rebuilt twice, in 1949 and in its current state in 1983.)

The Carnegie library building was used as the headquarters of the San Pedro Chamber of Commerce for many years, and then became the American Merchant Marine Library, known informally as the Seamen’s Library, whose purpose was to lend books and magazines to sailors at sea. A 1959 Los Angeles Times article predicted that 40,000 books and 32,000 magazines would be made available from the library to sailors on merchant vessels in 1960.

Unfortunately, the physical building, which had first been damaged in the Long Beach earthquake in 1933, continued to deteriorate and fall into disrepair. Finally, it was torn down in 1966.

Sources:

“Carnegie Libraries of California” website, http://www.carnegie-libraries.org/.

“Happy Birthday to San Pedro Library,” Friends of San Pedro Library bulletin, Spring 2008.

“Nautical Library Ships 40,000 Books to Sea,” by Spencer Crump, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 1, 1959, Page SC6.

Port of Los Angeles: An Illustrated History from 1850-1945, by Ernest Marquez and Veronique De Turenne, Angel City Press, 2007.

San Pedro: A Pictorial History, by Henry P. Silka, San Pedro Bay Historical Society, 1993.

The Goodyear blimp Spirit of America at rest at its Carson base on May 11, 2011. Daily Breeze photo.

 

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, which was founded in Akron, Ohio, in 1898, opened its Los Angeles tire factory on June 14, 1920. Blimps were part of the corporate culture even then; an April 25, 1920 Los Angeles Times article refers to an upcoming test flight of a small, two-man craft called a “pony blimp” at the company’s soon-to-be-opened West Coast plant.

Goodyear committed to the airships in a major way when it built its first large helium blimp, the Pilgrim, in 1925. The company built two major rigid frame airships for the U.S. Navy during the 1930s, the USS Akron and the USS Macon.

Its commercial blimps became a visible and popular marketing tool, touring the country and making stops at airports large and small. Blimps operated out of the company’s headquarters in Akron, and at sites in Pompano Beach, Fla. and Los Angeles. For many years, the West Coast’s blimp, The Enterprise, was moored at a field near Goodyear’s plant at Central and Florence avenues.

Beginning in the 1950s, the blimp also was based at local airports for a time, including a stint in the mid-1950s at Torrance Municipal Airport and a later stay at Orange County Airport (now known as John Wayne Airport).

With the arrival of the larger Columbia airship in 1962, the search began for a bigger base of operations. Space was carved out at the long-defunct Lions Drag Strip at 22660 Alameda Street, just south of the San Diego (405) Freeway, and the Columbia operated from this base until 1966.

Even while based at Lions, though, Goodyear continued the search for a more suitable, permanent site.

On Nov. 10, 1966, the Columbia crashed into a power line while attempting to land near the Lions base. (See story at left; click to enlarge image.) The two men aboard at the time escaped without injury, but the blimp suffered $100,000 in damages.

After repairs were completed, Goodyear decided to house the Columbia at Torrance Municipal Airport again for several months.

In the meantime, Goodyear had located its perfect site. The company bought 30 acres from the Watson Land Co. on Main Street in Carson for $1 million in August 1967. Located just north of the San Diego (405) Freeway, it was an ideal, highly visible spot for the airship’s permanent base.

The Columbia moved in to the new facility, the Goodyear Airship Operations base, at 19200 S. Main Street on Jan. 25, 1968, and blimps have operated from the site ever since. They have become familiar sights at major sporting and news events; the  blimp’s slow, steady speed makes it a natural venue for spectacular aerial photography.

In December 1983, the city of Redondo Beach adopted the blimp as the city’s official bird.

 

The Eagle followed the Columbia at the Carson from 1992-2002. The Spirit of America replaced the Eagle in 2002. One of the very few mishaps that the blimps have had over the years occurred on the night of Dec. 3, 2003, when the Spirit of America, below, crashed into a nearby nursery while attempting to land at the Carson airfield.

 

Daily Breeze file photo, Dec. 4, 2003.

 

The ship was out of commission for 10 months while being repaired, returning to Carson in October 2004.

On May 3, 2011, Goodyear announced it was entering into a partnership with German zeppelin manufacturer ZLT Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik to produce its next generation of airships. Unlike the current blimps, these will be rigid frame airships, like the zeppelins of old. They will be stlightly larger, faster and capable of carrying more passengers, and will cost $21 million each to build.

Construction will begin in 2013 in Akron, with the new airships becoming operational in 2014. The Spirit of America’s successor should arrive in Carson in 2016, as the company plans to replace its Ohio and Florida airships first.

 

 

Sources:

Daily Breeze files.

Goodyear Blimp official website, http://www.goodyearblimp.com/cfmx/web/blimp/.

“Goodyear Blimp to Be Tested Out Here,” Los Angeles Times, April 25, 1920, Page VI.

“Goodyear Plant Ready to Start,” Los Angeles Times, June 13, 1920, Page VI.

“Reporter Didn’t Want Blimp Ride; Winds Up Taking Two on Same Day,” by Ernie Halligan, Torrance Herald, Feb. 6, 1956, Page 5.