The Paving of Paradise | LA Foodways | KCET

[@j2tharomeone5]

I went on Google Maps to see if Roy's house was still there, and it indeed is! A beautiful Craftsman home nestled in a commercial boulevard. Such a contrast. I hope that home is preserved by the city of Gardena.

[@13_13k]

I grew up in Westchester, home of Los Angeles International Airport , about a mile from the beach. What is now called Playa Vista, used to be the Howard Hughes Helicopter facilities with a runway and hangars and across the street on Jefferson Blvd where the Home Depot and other office buildings used to be Lopez Ranch. Lopez Ranch was a farm with a fresh produce stand that sold what the family had farmed and that farm slowly got smaller and finally sold to developers after refusing to sell to Hughes for crazy amount of money being offered. There was an open bean field with wild pinto beans a pond, foxes, coyote, cotton tails, jacks, owls, Kestrels, frogs and.tadpoles in the pond and we would ride our dirtbikes and shoot bb guns and bow and arrows in that field. It's now the Howard Hughes Center off the 405 fwy at Sepulveda and Centinela. There was a strawberry farm in El Segundo, east of Sepulveda, south of Imperial, only a couple blocks from the airport. It was the last farm I can remember in the neighborhood and it disappeared around 1978 maybe. I think Hughes bought that property. I remember the Fox Hills Mall being built (now Westfield Culver City) before it was a mall it was a golf course and stables and across the street on Sepulveda against the 405, was a go kart track. The Centinala Adobe ranch house, the birthplace of the City of Inglewood, still remains two streets from the house I grew up in. When I was a kid it was privately owned and a little run down, but not bad for being built of mud and grass in the mid 1800s, now it's a Historical landmark and the main house and barn and a smaller ranch building are restored and a place of history and a museum of the old Spanish Rancheros that owned all the land on the Westside.

[@graceenstine1486]

That’s wild, I live where the strawberry fields in El Segundo used to be. I’ve lived in the west side since the early 2000s and it’s change a bunch since then.

[@13_13k]

@@graceenstine1486 --- small world. When I was a kid between the age of about 8 and 13, our next door neighbor was a licensed falconer and had a Red Tailed Hawk, a Great Horned Owl, and for about two or three years he had a Golden Eagle that had been shot in the shoulder, that the state game warden or some state wildlife someone gave to him to help it in its recovery. These incredible birds were just over my fence in the backyard of the house next door. Well, Jim, the neighbor would have to take the birds out to hunt every couple of weeks to make sure they didn't lose their natural instincts to feed themselves. And one of the places he would go, I got to go with him a few times, was the strawberry farm in El Segundo. Those birds or raptors, would catch rabbits, snakes gophers etc... mind you this was 1972 -1977 or 78 There were some places he would go in the valley also, there were still a pretty good amount of farms and just open space in those days near Encino and Woodland Hills, Chatsworth. Lots of ranches also.

[@graceenstine1486]

Kenneth Kaiser it’s nice hearing what the city was like before I lived here. Sometimes I feel like Los Angeles has a time line that only moves forward, never looking back. I wish there were better archives of some of these local cities, so you could really get there vibe

[@13_13k]

@@graceenstine1486 ---- surprisingly, most of the smaller incorporated cities do have their own historical societies and archives with the history of the city and hoe and why it came to be. You can look up a lot of stuff online or contact or visit the chamber of commerce or the library for that particular city. Even Westchester and Playa Del Rey have a huge rich history . I made a video slide show years ago that is here on KZbin under my name about having the World's best and most famous Automotive race track that was in 1909. I'll post the link here you. Did you know that El Segundo, which in Spanish translates to The Second, in English, is named that because it was the second Chevron refinery on the California coast and Standard Oil built the town for the employees to live? It was your stereotypical "company town" that had the company store, the company bank, etc... because there wasn't anything around in less than a half day horseback or a few hours by buggy or wagon. But Standard Oil basically owned you as an employee. You were dependant on and at the mercy of the company for your rent or mortgage, the food and clothing, everything. You can find out a lot of historical information for just about every city or neighborhood if you spend some time online or visiting the local libraries. Even the Universities and city colleges have their archives, and libraries.

[@LOGICAL1]

@@graceenstine1486 Start with the Tartarian Empire we are on top of.

[@latinsizer]

It is so sad that we are slowly getting rid of our agricultural sector, especially for a state that wants to be greener than everyone else.

[@mikewhitcomb6558]

I grew up in the SFV, it was a wonderful place in the 60's. Lot's of open fields in the west valley where I grew up, wild wheat would grow every spring after the rain. I suspect it was just the left overs from when they harvested wheat all over the valley around the turn of the century. We used to have wars with the kernel things, they were like darts and it's a wonder none of us ever lost an eye. I finally moved out of the valley in 2012 and out of California last year. I don't even like going back to visit.

[@smallfootprint2961]

Same here. I lived on the other side of the hill, but loved the old valley and all it's agriculture. I moved away too. It's just going to keep changing as long as the big boys and their money are running the world.

[@johnnyjames7139]

My uncle Andy sold dairy cows to the farms in Artesia, Bellflower, Dairy Valley, La Palma, Buena Park, now all gone. He didn't own the land his farm was situated upon

[@damiancentanni2773]

I grew up in the Compton bellflower area from 1955 to 1970, then Buena Park from 1970 on...

[@mickeybitsko1676]

The LA river goes right thru the heart of downtown San Antonio

[@WAJK2030]

Thx great documentary series about the topic. Greats from Germany

[@BurritoMassacre]

RIP Eagle Tree. I grew up along the L.A. River and I always wished it were more natural, hated to see in incased like that.

[@rcbrothers1000]

Wish they didn't develop around the tree and turned it into a park instead

[@Godfather19704]

I grew up on Euclid and Katella in the 70's. Sumac Ln.

[@markfrench8892]

Makes one kind of sick. This is happening all over California.

[@TinLeadHammer]

First redwoods, then agriculrure. Suburbs spread like a tumor.

[@captlarry-3525]

Extremely Well Done !

[@Victoria-gt6li]

Currently happening all over the Inland Empire. So sad.

[@incrediblesimilarity5858]

I'd like to skip the antidotal comments that are appearing here. California's population in 1960 was 15.8 Million California population in 1981 was 24.2 Million California population in 2015 was 38.9 million I moved to California in 1981 and left there permanently in 2015. The state's population increased by about 14.7 million over that time. From the time of purchase in 1987 until the sale of the house in 2019, myr brother's house increased by $655,000 I lived in a nice city in Orange County, and saw the city take over, by eminent domain, a small Farm property. it was developed into a motel property so the city could get the bed tax. I observed another farm consisting of a few acres was also developed into large industrial and office usages.. Huntington Beach developed one end of an old failing mall and some other strip mall properties into approximately 180 condominiums this is probably the trend of the future to build up, not out like the old urban sprawl of the 50s through the 90s.

[@MsMojoworks]

Do you have a video of the history of freeways in LA?

[@LOGICAL1]

The ones we inherited?

[@stenbak88]

Something we can strive for

[@MLife1000]

Interesting video thank you

[@veronique8748]

I remenber oranges of californie in french l was years 60 with papel very fine, maybe oranges california

[@riccarrasquilla379]

thanks for the video

[@dondressel4802]

Drive downtown in Los Angeles or San Francisco or most of the major cities for that matter and tell me if we have progressed for the better?

[@ApartmentKing66]

Depends on how one defines "progression." If drunks and junkies (or panhandlers who just want to live in other people's pockets with no rules or responsibilities or anyone to answer to) aimlessly wandering the landscape sleeping wherever they choose and relieving themselves wherever they can find the room and leaving a seemingly endless trail of hypo needles all over is your idea of "progression," there ya go. This seems to have become the norm in such leftist-run municipalities as San Francisco and LA.

[@MrCoconutcat]

I cant believe the neighborhood people didn't water the eagle tree to save it, like everyone bring a gallon of water for one summer month every other day, or maybe the tree had caught some fungus or something else happened to it , boy what a wonderful tree

[@galesal1109]

I’m pretty sure the roots extend far and you can’t really water it from the tree bark/trunk

[@MrCoconutcat]

@@galesal1109 ya that makes more sense then what i was saying

[@Underthevolcanobooks]

Plow up the lawns

[@brittanykasha4825]

Plant oak trees and bunch grasses

[@keithnichols7926]

And grow food crops instead of wasting resources on decorative stuff.

[@JOHNSMITH-dc6lr]

SHOW US THE CREATION OF THE FREEWAY

[@LOGICAL1]

They cant.

[@smallfootprint2961]

People saw this coming a long time ago... even wrote songs about it. I moved out.

[@srod8818]

I hate developers

[@road2stamfordbridge]

yet that's probably the reason why you have a home here.

[@srod8818]

@@road2stamfordbridge nah

[@peterb3842]

😧

[@bleacherz7503]

@@road2stamfordbridgereal estate wealth deserves a life in hell

[@ronniedelahoussayechauvin6717]

I don’t know anything about Los Angeles, My Grandfather was named Roy, but the gentleman in this video was NOT my Grandfather.

[@bleacherz7503]

Damm - do we fuck this up 😢

[@stenbak88]

So sad

[@Supremeslade]

The future is darker :(

[@keithnichols7926]

Covering every acre with houses and shopping centers only hastens the extinction of humanity by reducing the land needed for essential crops. At the same time, our futile effort to slow climate-change will lead to our developing more ways to pollute the air and water. The movie "Soylent Green" will seem like a newsreel.

[@marionwilson8141]

Sad

[@veerchasm1]

...put in a Parking Lot

[@dennishow1171]

... you don’t know what you got till it’s gone.

[@LAFan]

Why would old time narrators say “Los AnGeles?”

[@Aryaba]

Why do they pronounce it the way they do now?

[@blsi4037]

It was the Midwestern way of pronouncing it, considering Midwesterners weren't exposed to Spanish back home.

[@ApartmentKing66]

The old Spaniards reportedly pronounced it "Los AN-hell-ace."

[@13_13k]

@@blsi4037 --- yes, that's correct

[@13_13k]

@@ApartmentKing66 --- yes and you are correct, also. The G is almost silent but not completely. It is a difficult sound to try and write describing it. If a person knows how to pronounce guacamole correctly, the GU is an HW sound sort of the way the JU is pronounced in Juan, except the G isn't totally silent like J, G has a throaty H sound like the Spanish name German which is Herman in English and the G is an H sound but not as distinctly H sounding as in English. Los Ang he lees Like the Latin community in L.A. have had jerseys and t shirts made for the Dodgers that have Doyers spelled out across the front, because that's how they pronounce Dodgers, it's actually kinda smart and funny poking fun at themselves and their Spanish accent with English words

[@Mike_Greentea]

2023 it’s an overpriced homeless people’s paradise. What a shame that people with greed has no morals.

[@texashsad]

Everything that man touches, he ruins.

[@mr.majestic8713]

Greedy people ruined So Calif.

[@maureeng.obrien9259]

Duh