A particular feature of LA and SoCal is that it was well settled and the car culture was in full swing before the freeways really arrived. An artifact of that is the freeways were, mostly, essentially laid on top of all the existing transportation and transit infrastructure.
So much of the original roads, and the communities served by them, still exist. Most of what we’re considered highways in the past are now major boulevards with stop lights at every intersection, while the nearby freeway is laid on top of the original traffic grid and neighborhoods.
This is part of LAs notoriety for its “shortcuts”. As folks jump off the congestion of the freeways onto the local streets. An ability now obsoleted by modern navigation apps.
Lived here most of my life. LA is not kind to its past. We tear down the old to make way for the new all the time. But they can’t flatten all of it, several active history and preservation societies doing their work. Some wins, some losses.
But a lot of TV show’s were filmed here, and act as an ad hoc window to the past. I like watching shows like Colombo, and looking up the locations they used. (Colombo’s suspects lived in some VERY expensive homes.)
Similarly, in my neighborhood are brand new homes behind a 40 year old church that sold their backlot to a developer. But the church is across the street from a 100 year old farmhouse. Barn and all. And there’s a mix of others nearby.
Outside of the Master Planned communities of Southern OC, there’s still a lot of this interface of old and new all around SoCal.
Hacker Cinema
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A particular feature of LA and SoCal is that it was well settled and the car culture was in full swing before the freeways really arrived. An artifact of that is the freeways were, mostly, essentially laid on top of all the existing transportation and transit infrastructure.
So much of the original roads, and the communities served by them, still exist. Most of what we’re considered highways in the past are now major boulevards with stop lights at every intersection, while the nearby freeway is laid on top of the original traffic grid and neighborhoods.
This is part of LAs notoriety for its “shortcuts”. As folks jump off the congestion of the freeways onto the local streets. An ability now obsoleted by modern navigation apps.
Lived here most of my life. LA is not kind to its past. We tear down the old to make way for the new all the time. But they can’t flatten all of it, several active history and preservation societies doing their work. Some wins, some losses.
But a lot of TV show’s were filmed here, and act as an ad hoc window to the past. I like watching shows like Colombo, and looking up the locations they used. (Colombo’s suspects lived in some VERY expensive homes.)
Similarly, in my neighborhood are brand new homes behind a 40 year old church that sold their backlot to a developer. But the church is across the street from a 100 year old farmhouse. Barn and all. And there’s a mix of others nearby.
Outside of the Master Planned communities of Southern OC, there’s still a lot of this interface of old and new all around SoCal.