As part of a larger trip to Los Angeles last week, I ended up driving on Route 6 for a period. So it was not really a US 6 trip but, rather, a trip where US 6 was worked in. I booked a hotel in Arcadia, with the idea of being in a walkable area with several restaurants and not too far out of the city. It suited both of those well but, in the end, it was a little too far from LAX and way too far from the ocean to really work for the trip. But I had to drive there from Oxnard, so it was just a slight detour from the typical LA freeway route to see some highlights of the old US 6/US 99 route along San Fernando Road, now with hardly any sort of designation of its past.
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The original intention was to drive all the way to Figueroa in Downtown LA, where US 6 turned to follow that famous old street through its tunnels through Griffith Park and south toward San Pedro. However, as got toward Glendale, the wife was tired from driving so much, and I was even worn down by the drive through Canoga Park and Chatsworth to reach the 118 freeway. Probably should have just taken the 405, but I've spent so little time in the Valley, that I like to get out there when I can, just to see it.
The US 6 section of the drive started with Carrillo's Tortilleria, a block off of US 6 in San Fernando. We came for good tortillas, which are impossible to find in Indiana, and we found both corn and flour, with flour large enough even for burritos. Had an excellent carne asada taco and a good fish taco, and I found jamoncillo, which is my favorite Mexican candy. The unfortunate thing about jamoncillo is it lasts long, but does not taste as good when it's a little old. So, even if you get it loose and not in a package on a shelf where it's been sitting for a year, you'll likely get it from a plastic container where it's sat for a year. This is one of those items that fall into the "if you like it so much, then you should make your own" category, which is always a valid point. Personally, I find it much more convenient to criticize others' versions of these things.
San Fernando itself is an interesting concept. Everyone knows "the Valley" from various sources, such as the 80's Nick Cage movie, and a large percentage of that same everyone knows "San Fernando Valley." But say "San Fernando, California," and people will almost always assume that you're referring to the Valley, not being aware that there's actually a town of over 20,000 people called that. One of the several mission cities throughout the Los Angeles area, San Fernando is named for Mission San Fernando Rey de España. As San Fernando is an urban exclave, completely surrounded by the City of Los Angeles, it's often easy to ignore. In fact, the mission itself is not even in San Fernando, it's just west of it, within Los Angeles. There are signs as you enter into San Fernando from all sides indicating the change in cities, but they're relatively minor. Most who are familiar with the area may assume that San Fernando is yet another LA "district," and its modest Downtown area is the remnants of yet another Valley town swallowed up by the land-grabbing LA. But San Fernando was able to fight off the annexation surge in the 1920's from Mulholland and the famously corrupt Los Angeles leaders.
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| San Fernando Road (former US 6), looking south |
But US 6/US 99 came through here, right along San Fernando Road, the town's main drag, until US 6's truncation, and US 99's complete decommissioning, in 1964. Since then, the road has not carried any numbered route and was long ago bypassed by Interstate 5 just to the west, and later again by Interstate 210, just to the east. But San Fernando Road remains very healthy. On a Saturday afternoon, the street was full of pedestrian traffic. The 15mph speed limit through the commercial district was necessary to watch out both for darting pedestrians and for cars, pulling back from the angled parking spots all along the street. The shops were those that you would have likely found in San Fernando during US 6's tenure here: restaurants, barbers and beauty shops, markets, shoe stores, clothing stores, household goods stores, jewelers, a hardware store...
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| Southern end of "San Fernando Mall," former US 6 |
What's changed is the demographics. Up until the 1980's, San Fernando was solidly white and middle-class, like most of the Valley to the west. However, the city is now a striking 92% Hispanic. The store signs along San Fernando Road are, without much exception, in Spanish, and the stores that now exist cater to that Hispanic population. The money is now just starting to reach the little exclave though. Like most of the LA area, those seeking cheaper housing are giving the once declining San Fernando a shot. The MetroLink rail station just north of the Downtown area makes it even easier, with just a 40-minute straight shot to Downtown LA's Union Station along the Antelope Valley line. The promise of a new, gentrified San Fernando is likely not far away, with
the town's request for proposals for development projects near the MetroLink station for transit-oriented developments (TODs) this past year. TODs have become a popular trend in urban areas once severely affected by suburban flight, or in cities where the cost of living has pushed city dwellers into areas once thought to be too far out. Denver, Austin and the San Francisco Bay Area have had several TOD projects completed over the past several years, and the LA area is just starting to catch on and will likely see many, many more within the next ten years. San Fernando's Downtown streetscape of quaint, domestic shops could become another line of pretentious clothing boutiques, burger bars and frozen yogurt shops. The town is ripe for redevelopment, but the unfortunate nature of gentrification will likely finally price out its middle- and working-class population.
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| Intersection in Pacoima | "Historic US 99" sign at the intersection of San Fernando Road and Van Nuys Boulevard in Pacoima |
San Fernando Road leaves the City of San Fernando as it goes over Pacoima Wash into the Pacoima section of Los Angeles. Pacoima is another working-class, mostly Hispanic area, but there is no business district along the old highway as there is in San Fernando. Instead, it's a line of mostly industrial buildings and auto repair businesses with a few Mexican restaurants in between. Pacoima's main business district, a slightly sadder and more run-down version in comparison to San Fernando, lies in both directions along Van Nuys Boulevard, with the San Fernando Gardens public housing project just to the east.
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| Whiteman Airport |
And San Fernando Road continues downhill - both literally and figuratively - from there. The strip becomes even more industrial as it goes by Whiteman Airport, clearly visible across the railroad tracks from the old highway, and passes several sleazy motels, likely remnants of the old highway's past that have been saved from destruction or repurposing. Still over 20 miles from Downtown Los Angeles, this would have made a good stopover point.
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| LAPWD Valley Generating Station from the bridge over the Tujunga Wash |
Crossing Tujunga Wash, which joins Pacoima Wash downstream and feeds the Los Angeles River, San Fernando Road passes LAPWD's Valley Generating Station, a coal-fired plant. In April 2004, the company completed a modernization project, putting new generators into the plant, resulting in a
reported 90% reduction in NOx emissions, while increasing energy efficiency by 35%. The power station towers loom over the valley and an adjacent rock quarry. Just to the east sits the small middle-class neighborhood of Stonehurst. Built in the mid-1920's, the
neighborhood is notable for having the highest concentration of homes built with rock from area washes compared to other neighborhoods in the city.
This takes you into the Sun Valley district, known historically as Roscoe. There is still a Roscoe Boulevard, a major street in the San Fernando Valley, and a number of businesses in the neighborhood with the name "Roscoe." What is now a Unocal 76 gas station at the corner of San Fernando Road and Sunland Boulevard was the site of the first gas pump along US 99. Where San Fernando Road meets Tuxford, there is a small park area, called Tuxford Green, pushed up against the intersection and the diagonal Interstate 5, where San Fernando Road crosses it for the first time in almost 10 miles, despite paralleling the interstate the entire time. Tuxford Green is actually a key piece of architecture, as it sits on the lowest elevation point in the area, a cistern was put in to capture storm run-off, and a park area was added for aesthetics.
For the length of San Fernando Road within Sun Valley, there is a parallel two-lane road on the opposite side of the railroad tracks, signed variably as San Fernando Road and San Fernando Boulevard.
A map from 1949 shows the street, but it is not as complete as it now is, and it is shown as a minor road, appearing to mostly serve neighborhood streets on the other side of the railroad tracks. Although the street shares its name with the old US 6 routing, it can exist with the same name since the two roads will not share addresses, as the odd side is on the main, US 6 route, while the even addresses are on the smaller, parallel road east of the railroad tracks.
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| Runway fence at Bob Hope Airport |
Just south of Sun Valley, you pass the northern edge of Runway 15 at Bob Hope Airport (BUR), the airport's longest runway. The northern half of this runway sits inside the City of Los Angeles, while the rest of the airport and its other runways sit entirely in the City of Burbank. There are several signs along San Fernando Road for Bob Hope Airport. The airport was known for years as the Lockheed Air Terminal, in reference to the aviation manufacturer, and it was only in 2003 that the airport was renamed after the comedian, who had died earlier that year. The airport today serves as a reliever airport for Los Angeles International, and is the preferred airport for many celebrities due to its proximity to the higher-end neighborhoods where many of them live, and the lower passenger volume. Many other visitors prefer it for the same reasons, as well as being the easiest airport to access via public transportation in the region, with a MetroLink station just a short walk from the terminal, providing quick access to Downtown Los Angeles' Union Station as well as Downtown Burbank. Colloquially, the airport is simply known as "Burbank Airport" and most of its many other past monikers are typically ignored.
You do not enter into the City of Burbank until just before the Hollywood Way intersection, which itself is somewhat of an interchange because of a viaduct carrying Hollywood Way over the railroad track. But, when you do enter into Burbank, there is a clear shift in both income and demographics. Gone are the run-down industrial buildings and signs in Spanish that have dotted the road since leaving San Fernando. Replacing them are well-kept commercial and industrial lots, and exquisite post-war tract home neighborhoods just off of the old highway.
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| Burbank Town Center, south entrance |
Nowhere is this demographic and income shift apparent than in Downtown Burbank, where San Fernando Road (San Fernando Boulevard inside Burbank) is broken by a two-block-long indoor shopping mall. Macy's, Ikea and a Cheesecake Factory are here, serving a wealthy population in a near-suburb. The demographic shift across the inner ring suburbs of Los Angeles mostly spared Burbank, maybe because it follows the same phenomenon that other major cities see, where a separate municipality is seen as safer than the larger city, and that reputation only feeds onto itself as more affluent people and families move to that separate municipality.
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| San Fernando Boulevard through The Village |
South of the shopping mall, San Fernando Boulevard continues through "The Village," officially the Burbank Entertainment Village, a designated pedestrian-friendly entertainment district with tree-lined streets, restaurants, shop and bars. Anchoring the area is a 16-screen, 4200-seat theater currently owned by AMC.
As San Fernando Boulevard through Downtown Burbank was closed to build Burbank Town Center, the old route of US 6 is discontinuous. By 1956, US 6 and US 99 were routed to the west of Downtown Burbank, south along what would soon become the Golden State Freeway and Interstate 5. At that time, this was known as Front Street, and used the current Victory Boulevard/San Fernando Road interchange, then, at an apparent grade intersection, turned south on new right-of-way, while San Fernando Boulevard continued into Downtown Burbank. Front Street carried US 6 and US 99 south to Providencia Avenue, where the street ended, and both routes turned back northeast to rejoin San Fernando Boulevard. The section of Front Street still exists today from Burbank Boulevard south to Verdugo. The remaining section from Verdugo to Providencia has apparently been cut off by Interstate 5, which crosses the railroad tracks there.
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| The Blue Room bar, at Alameda Ave. |
At Alameda Avenue, California State Highway 134, today a major freeway, joined US 6 and US 99 to continue southeast. Two blocks past Alameda, you leave Burbank and enter into the City of Glendale. Glendale has always been a larger city than Burbank, both in area and population and, maybe because of that, property values are lower and it's obvious as you enter the city that it is less affluent. Still though, the stretch of San Fernando Road (no longer San Fernando Boulevard) is clean and well-maintained, with typical residences and small businesses along its route. Just two blocks southwest of San Fernando Road, along Sonoran Avenue, is Walt Disney Studio's Imagineering firm, responsible for the development of Disney's entertainment venues, such as Disneyland in Anaheim, Disney cruise ships and its worldwide resort hotels. Two blocks southeast of that, along Flower Street, is the main DreamWorks studio, responsible for Disney's animation films.
It was just south of this, when we reached the 134 freeway, that I began contemplating ending the drive early. I was tired, my wife was asleep, and we were still pretty far from Downtown LA, or even reaching Figueroa Street. As we crossed the 134 though, just to the right across the railroad tracks, I noticed, in big white letters printed on a blue barn-looking structure: "BREWERY". I couldn't pass that up, so we took a little side trip. Turns out the brewery is called Golden Road, and they've been around since 2011. The tap room is on West San Fernando Road, between Doran Street and West Broadway. The place was packed, partially because of a Los Angeles Dodgers playoffs game that had just ended, filling the bar with patrons wanting to watch the game. An hour or so after the game, the place had cleared out somewhat, but was still fairly busy. I liked this place just because they were making some very interesting beers. Golden Road has a lot of LA pride, and is just inside the City of Los Angeles, as the Glendale/LA boundary is the railroad track to its east. We spent a little bit of time here, and I decided that it was time to end the drive and just head to Arcadia.
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| Golden Road Brewing tap room entrance | Golden Road Brewing tap room |
