Manchester and Vermont in 1968, Los Angeles, California


Let's time-travel to 1968, and go to the intersection of Manchester and Vermont in Los Angeles, California. This photo is from the Duke University website, and while their interest is in historic advertising, mine is mostly classic cars, and architecture, especially in LA.

These buildings, by the way, are still there, although they've been repurposed. The sixties wasn't really all that long ago (I was even alive at the time!) but times, like buildings, and cars, have changed.


My first thought was that maybe I'd be the old guy walking across Manchester with his hands in his pockets, but instead I'm gonna be the stylin' dude with the white shoes. You could be anyone you want to be, but if it's appropriate I'm going to recommend that you be the lady in the miniskirt.


You really don't see this nowadays, but there was a time when places like the Penney's there had entrances on both streets of a corner, with another business squeezed right into the corner, like this Sureway Rexall Drug Store.


And check out these classic cars! The photo on the Duke site is dated 1968, which looks about right to me, but if you see a car that's from the '70s, let me know, and I'll correct it. That looks like a '69 Camaro to me, and if it was brand new it could still be 1968.


Anyway, let's get back to our little group. Times were changing in America, and the passage of many laws were giving Black people a chance that they'd never had. My memories of this timeframe were watching TV shows like the "Mod Squad".


Since we're time-traveling, and I'm the young guy there, I think that I'm going to move up to Hollywood and see if I can be in the pictures. I'm told that the 1970s will have a lot of starring roles for someone like me. I hear that they're casting for a hero called "Shaft". That could be me! Shut your mouth!
If you like pictures of old-time Phoenix, please become a member of History Adventuring on Patreon. I share a LOT of cool old photos there, copyright-free, with no advertising. Your support makes it happen! Thank you!

Click here to become a Patron!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is ...
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the...
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me...
Read more