Yesterday’s post of a vintage 1968 photo of Los Angeles’s traffic-clogged Hollywood Freeway reminded me of one of my favorite vintage travel ads… this one from 1957 sponsored by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
The ad’s star attraction wasn’t Hollywood, or beaches, or shopping… but rather the spectacle of Southern California’s freeway system. Featuring a tourist couple and their bored-looking daughter gazing at the wonders of a complicated highway interchange, this ad touts Los Angeles County’s “ultramodern highway system” as one of the wonders of visiting Southern California.
Of course, neither this ad’s image nor yesterday’s traffic jam shot may be representative day-to-day life in each respective era, but it sure seems that people’s impression of Southern California’s highway system went from being a modern marvel to a congested headache in about a decade. California isn’t alone in that regard – in my native city of Philadelphia, older folks talk about having picnics at spots overlooking the Pennsylvania Turnpike or the City’s 12-lane Roosevelt Boulevard. That phenomenon probably hasn’t happened since the 1950s – which is likely about when the last instance of tourists pulling over to gawk at a Los Angeles interchange occurred as well.
I have no idea what this particular LA interchange looks like today, but my guess is that it’s not nearly as verdant or quaint.
That sky…! So blue…!
All the colors look too bright to be a truly accurate representation. Perhaps it’s Kodachrome?
Probably so. They must have waited for a sunny day after a rainstorm so there was no smog.
My dad grew up in Southern Cal in the 50s. He says the sky was very rarely that color.
I think this is it today. City Hall is obscured by trees. Still reasonably verdant!
https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0639577,-118.2491182,3a,30y,161.3h,89.03t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sGAO1j7bJtN4NiCeoiIx9_w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
Beat me too it, though if you look back through the older shots you can see how it went from mostly grass on the right to dirt and now a mix of grass and plants.
Thanks! I had tried to figure out where the scene too place, but couldn’t nail it down. I’m surprised how little the overall configuration of the freeway system has changed in over half a century.
Environmental and planning groups brought the overall freeway system plan to a grinding halt, for a variety of reasons, many good ones. Unfortunately population growth continued at a rapid pace. Selfishly I wish more of the freeway system, had been completed so that areas such as West Hollywood, Century City, and Beverly Hills were not landlocked, in normal times creating massive Westside traffic jams. And now with the virus I’m no longer keen on using the continuously expanding light rail system that will eventually serve some those areas. It’s eerie today watching trains go by with largely empty cars. Skies are getting bluer above reduced traffic.
The area of that interchange, and just north of it on the 101, is still very old school. Few lanes, inconsistent lane widths, odd turning radii and the occasional needless swale, a mix of old and new signage, exits and entrances in odd spots, and the lack of distance on the entrances and exits, meaning that you are expected to go from 70 to 20, or 20 to 70, in the blink of an eye. Part of it is that there is very little room for expansion, without serious property condemnations at current L.A. prices, which are out of all proportion to the beauty or utility of the properties.
Where everyone has a Cadillac!
It’s the four level interchange for the 101 and harbor freeway, just a few miles away from the location shown yesterday. This spot is the eastbound ramp from the harbor to the 101, actually doesn’t look all that different in streetview, just duller cars, and I imagine a tent or twenty by the sounds of things lately.
As for the absurdity of going there to picnic, I’m sure the Roman aqueduct was boring and mundane to residents in the heyday of Rome too, but it’s nonetheless an engineering feat to be admired, there are a lot of these kinds of interchanges in the country now but I believe this one was the first, or at least most prolific, and there did seem to be an effort to make it aesthetically pleasing compared to others. I mean for a myriad of reasons, I wouldn’t be standing there, even then, but I don’t think it’s that strange to showcase a city with, its no different than going to see a skyscraper – amazing buildings, but inside they’re just dull offices.
But this was of course before the counterculture twisted the highway system and the automobile as an entity into evil incarnate, I’m sure this ingrate daughter was being wooed by some beatnik extolling “the man” destroying the world in their metal boxes. Fun fact, this photo was taken just minutes after the father pulled her out of the bar telling him to “get away from my daughter, commie!”
Maybe it wasn’t a picnic, but the aftermath of a car theft after they stopped to snap some pictures. “But everyone leaves the keys in the ignition back home in Danville.”
For real! Like wouldn’t the whole point be to drive over and under it? Too funny…
To me, it appears the people have been airbrushed into the photo; I can’t imagine anyone even back then getting out of their (unseen) car to admire the engineering.
On the other hand, I do recall the picnic tables and trash cans set up at strategic places on the PA Turnpike as late as the 1970s — these had wide pull-offs for parking, but they were not part of the regular service areas that had gas stations, restrooms, and usually HoJo restaurants.
They’re airbrushed alright, either that or it’s a visiting family of giants. They’re, what, 20 feet or so from the Caddy, and the girl sitting down is taller than it!
Looks like a Crown school bus on the third level. I rode those in the ’60’s.
I worked in Downtown LA for a couple of years in the early ’80s. I drove through “the four level” numerous times a day. Early pictures of the Arroyo Seco Parkway, now referred to as the Pasadena freeway are equally nostalgic.
Schuylkill Expressway, Philadelphia, 1961(?)
(From the book, Philadelphia Discovered by Joseph Nettis/Nathaniel Burt, 1964):
That’s a great shot — looks like the Schuylkill Expressway through the Fairmount Park area.
In 1989, when I was learning to drive, and on the first week I had my learners’ permit, my father had me drive him into work and back on the Schuylkill Expressway at rush hour… figuring that if I learned to drive on that kind of road, then I wouldn’t be afraid of big-city traffic. I still remember that drive vividly today.
Good Lord; talk about throwing someone in at the deep end. How did that strategy work, if you don’t mind my asking? I’m guessing you’re pretty much unrattled by anything after that introduction. Here in DC I imagine the counterpart would be “Okay, kid: just take us down 66 to the Beltway and then 95. Nothin’ to it on a nice Friday evening like this.”
Yes, Dad subscribed to the “Sink or swim” theory of instruction. Driving on the Expressway actually worked out well for me, though I’m not sure I’d have the never to do that with my own kids.
I’d had my learner’s permit for about a week at that point, and had done a lot of driving around over that week. Dad said I could only get my driver’s license if I had experience driving on the Expressway at rush hour, so he let me take off a day from school in order to drive him to work, and back.
Dad was an excellent driver, and a very good instructor. He yelled at me only once that day, when I passed a dump truck on the Expressway, and then unconsciously let of the gas as I was pulling back into the right-hand lane. The only other close call was when I stopped too close to the car in front of me on Broad St. But I survived, and like you said, urban driving doesn’t rattle me at all. Thanks, Dad!
Thanks. Your dad sounds like a cool guy and an excellent instructor. As someone teaching a new driver myself at the moment, I’m always on the lookout for successful techniques.
Good luck with your new driver training! For me, it’s about three years in the future, though I don’t think a ride on the Beltway in her first week of driving, will be on our checklist.
My dad did the trial by fire driving instruction too, twice, though neither time was as extreme as yours. Wow!
First time was I 95 coming south from Providence about halfway through Connecticut.
The second time was teaching me to drive a stick in my first vehicle (76 Courier). He picked me up at my summer job about 20 miles from my house and said, “here are the keys, drive home”. Backroads and small highways; a few uphill stop signs, and enough traffic to make it er interesting.
(Lol come to think of it maybe it’s something about learning to drive near Philly; my job was outside Kennett Square and I lived in West Chester.)
I think the first order of business for the County Board of Supervisors might be to get the pedestrians off of the highway.
Looking at the family looking on I can’t help but think of the line from Talking Head’s Once in a Lifetime “How did I get here?”.
“This is not my Hollywood Glamour! This is not my Pacific Starfish!”
Lately I thought the lyrics should be updated with “Why would anyone think *this* is a beautiful house? How did automobiles get so large again anyway”
That Hillman in the fast lane must have been running close to redline!
Or slowing down for that left exit for Trenton…the 57 Chevy behind it is getting close.
Speaking of Chevys, I see at least one of every model year from 1955-61, except 56. And all of the other GM brands except Cadillac are visible.
But are those TWO Studebaker Lark wagons moving away from the camera?
Not gonna lie: My first thought was “They’re waiting for the tow truck, and their car is just out of camera range. Why else are they so close to the roadbed?”
Had to post this.
Sublime beauty or Koyaanisqatsi horror?
Theres a beauty in Auckland called Spaghetti junction you always get plenty of time to look at it as traffic banks up around it and thru it.
Reputed to be the first 3 level interchanges constructed were at the entrances to the Willow Run bomber plant in 1941.
The road system around the plant site has since been revised and part of the former plant access roads have been combined to create a test track for self driving cars.
This monstrosity was simply called “the four-level” on the KNX-1070 traffic report that my dad always had the AM (only) radio tuned to permanently with its fake teletype clackity background sounds.
&deity; forbid there was a Sig-Alert™ on your way!
Then there was the “KFI in the sky” traffic reporter in the Cessna flying above it all. I still use AM radio in the car when traveling about to avoid trouble spots.
Long before people had TV or other modern means of entertainment, they would dress up in their best clothes and hang around next to the newly built Interstate highway hoping that people in Cadillacs would take pity on them and pull over to give them a delicious Jell-O mould. I would imagine that these snappy dressers didn’t have to wait long.
Visitors from airier climes can enjoy the novelty of a Pollution Picnic
A less blissful commuting experience from 1993’s film, “Falling Down,” where Michael Douglas’ character walks away from his Chevette, leaving it on a clogged underpass lane.