VALLEY PLAZA in the way back machine

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MY MOM
LET US DO
helicopters
and Coca Cola
... IN NOHO !
By Louis Elovitz
Digital Journalist

With all this talk
of the future for Valley Plaza
I am going way way back
to my childhood events
in the Victory Van Owen Park
area of North Hollywood































up up and away...

I PERSONALLY KNOW
OF ONE AIRPORT IN
NORTH HOLLYWOOD,
and I grew up hearing
of another, both near
each other,
at different times. 

When I grew up an older friend
David Kennedy, said his Dad had
flown his airplanes landing in the
WASH that is now the 170 where
his house was approximately in
the area of Laurel Cyn and Burbank
NE near the WASH.


Movie Theater former
Alexander's Market



My Mom would always take us to shop. One area was
VALLEY PLAZA, or as she would jokingly call it,
"Valley Pleasure" the part SW of Sears by the Theater
which was an ALEXANDER'S MARKET.
Oh, the COKE MACHINE in this market on those hot
Valley days would dispense a bottle of COKE, 8oz,
that was so cold the first drinks were COKE SLUSH.


Victory Van Owen park
In Valley Plaza



The large parking lot is the same today leading to that
part of Victory Van Owen Park which WAS/IS on both
sides of the WASH/170FWY. The WASH was great
all that sand, and on the other side there was a slanting
concrete wall that we would get a piece of corrugated box
throw some sand and sliiiide!


Basically Victory Blvd
and Laurel Cyn


In 1957 (I looked it up on the web) L.A. Airways
paved a landing circle and road from Victory Blvd
to have a helicopter mail stop, which a man in a
station wagon would come and pick up US Mail.
My best friend Richard and I once took a passenger
trip on the noisy Korean Era helicopter leaving
VALLEY PLAZA going to Van Nuys, LAX,
Down Town L.A. and Burbank Airport
(BOB HOPE AIRPORT
originally LOCKHEED AIRCRAFT)
a very noisy but exciting flight.

SO, there you are
frozen Coke before Slurpees
and 2 (TWO) airports in NOHO,
a 'private' landing field once in the wash,
and the scheduled helicopter runs to/from
a small landing in the wash.
TOLD YA!.
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