John G. Downey was the first foreign-born governor ever elected in California - and the only one until the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003. Downey was born in Ireland, and assumed the governorship after the previous governor left after just five days in office. (Milton Latham appointed himself to a vacant Senate seat, after the previous senator was killed in a duel!)
He became very popular after vetoing a bill that would've given San Francisco's waterfront to private companies. Unfortunately, he lost the 1862 election to Leland Stanford, according to Wikipedia, so his term lasted only two years. But he owned a company which owned the land which was subdivided to create the town of Downey in the 1870s, and could remember that he presided over several important moments in California history
"During Downey's governorship, construction began on the California State Capitol in Sacramento. Also during his governorship, the Pony Express began service to San Francisco, and the Central Pacific Railroad was formed."
8:17 PM
Sunday, March 22, 2009
What if the ghost of Karen Carpenter frolicked through a 2008 music video?
The Great Race is a spectacular 1965 comedy where Jack Lemmon plays a black-hatted villain, chasing "The Great Leslie" during an inter-continental road race in 1908. Lemmon's car, the Hannibal 8, actually had a cannon pre-installed, but he was never able to stop "The Leslie Special."
If I had the chance, I'd love to visit the Peterson Automotive Museum. According to Wikipedia, "Both the Hannibal 8 and The Leslie Special are currently on display!"
I no longer live in Downey, but tonight I was looking through pictures from when I'd first moved there.
I remember eating out a lot -- at the Chinese restaurant by the library, or the Thai restaurant at that strip mall on Bellflower. (Or sometimes, the Jack in the Box on Imperial Highway.) My first day in town I discovered Frisco's Car Hop, and that night I ended up driving past the McDonalds' Speedee-the-chef sign on Lakewood. I always got a thrill when I passed the Johnnie's Broiler sign on Firestone, and it was the Firestone mall that got me all stocked up for my new apartment. (Even if I couldn't find any science fiction books by William Gibson at its tiny B. Dalton's...)
Eating out became an ongoing theme. On Sunday nights I'd treat myself to dinner at a nice Marie Callendars, though my favorite restaurant was probably Johnny Reb's in Bellflower. (And I have fond memories of that time I met a friend at Bahooka's in Rosemead.) I was a bit of a geek, making a pilgrimage afterwards to the Fry's Electronics in City of Industry.
I never did make it to the Medieval Times dinner show, and I never did shop at The Citadel in Commerce. But I did make several visits to the Museum of Television and Radio. (Maybe that says something about my priorities.)
After the office Christmas party, I went with some of the guys from work to Tommy's hot dogs at 1 in the morning. It was decorated for Christmas. Christmas comes to L.A.
Wishing you the best for the coming new year!
6:47 PM
Friday, July 20, 2007
Meanwhile, back at Dana's Point...
It's six months since his last visit in 1835, and Richard Henry Dana describes again tossing cow hides over the cliff to the shipmen below in Two Years Before the Mast.
Some of the hides get stuck on the cliff, but the Captain gets a percentage of every hide, so someone's got to repel down and dislodge them. Ultimately Dana himself dangles his way down the cliff using the halyard rope from the main mast.
I got down in safety, pretty well covered with dirt; and for my pains was told, "What a d---d fool you were to risk your life for half a dozen hides!"
171 years later -- it's called Dana's Point.
4:49 PM
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Author Richard Henry Dana described visiting San Pedro in 1835 in his memoir about life as a shipman -- Two Years Before The Mast.
The land was of a clayey quality, and as far as the eye could reach, entirely bare of trees and even shrubs; and there was no sign of a town -- not even a house to be seen.
What brought us into such a place, we could not conceive...we lay exposed to every wind that could blow, except the northerly winds...
We all agreed that it was the worst place we had seen yet.
Living there are three Englishmen whose ship ran aground. They'd ended up being employed to watch a small building where hides were stored for trading.
I also learned, to my surprise, that the desolate-looking place we were in furnished more hides than any port on the coast. It was the only port for a distance of eighty miles, and about thirty miles in the interior was a fine plane country, filled with herds of cattle, in the center of which was the Pueblo de los Angeles -- the largest town in California -- and several of the wealthiest missions; to all of which San Pedro was the seaport.
Remember, California didn't become part of the United States for another 14 years!
The captain orders them to lug their goods up the low, steep hill -- including heavy barrels and casks. Then they toss the bartered hides over the hill, and carry stacks of them on their heads, walking barefoot over the stones and into the water to protect their shoes.
While anchored in San Pedro bay, two men are flogged. The author spends a night alone on the beach, listening to owls and coyotes as he looks out to an island where a single Englishman was buried, "the commander of a small merchant brig, who died while lying in this port."
Had it been a common burying place, it would have been nothing. The single body corresponded well with the solitary character of everything around. It was the only spot in California that impressed me with anything like poetic interest.
Within several days the small crew had dispatched over 40 tons of goods. Though miserable on the ship, they console themselves with the proverb "That is a long lane which has no turning" -- and cast off for San Diego.
"Deadman's Island" was dredged away in 1928 (according to Wikipedia), "as part of a harbor development effort."
I was walking through the Firestone Mall when I heard the voice of Karen Carpenter.
"Long ago and oh so far away..."
Just a few blocks from the "Close to You" apartments she'd owned with her brother Richard - by the high school they'd both attended - one of her song's had come up in the mall background music.
Why is it every time I hear a Carpenter's song playing on the radio in Downey, it's always the song Superstar.
10:43 PM
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Johnnie's Broiler is not just a building on Firestone Avenue. The Downey diner with the big neon sign has appeared in numerous movies.
What's Love Got to Do With It (restaurant fight scene)
Short Cuts (where Lily Tomlin works)
Reality Bites
Unstrung Heroes
What's funny is it isn't even a diner any more. It's a used car lot. They've just kept the famous "Johnnie's Broiler" neon sign.
8:57 PM
Monday, April 17, 2006
"Gangs Out of Downey" is still vigorously pursuing their mission. But I was surprised that their web page lists this accomplishment.
Purchased a computer system for the Downey Police Department, enabling the Department to 'network' gang information with cities nationwide.
Does that mean that before this charity came along, the Downey Police Department didn't have a computer system?
9:28 PM
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
High school students staged a walk-out in protest of the newly-proposed immigration bill for the second day.
Several dozen protesters lined the sidewalk of Imperial Highway. Outside the Jack in the Box, they cheered and held up signs - "Viva la raza" - before continuing their march down Bellflower avenue.
Downey students have apparently joined the hundreds of protesters throughout Southern California protesting a newly-proposed immigration bill...
2:02 PM
Monday, March 13, 2006
Here's a story I told my friends about my first day in Downey.
I actually did a U-Turn when I saw a sign that said "ANARCHY LIBRARY!"
Turns out it was just a bar - but at least it was pretty cool.
I wondered if it was legal to make a U-Turn in L.A. Then I said "Dude, you're going to the ANARCHY LIBRARY and you're worrying about U-Turns?!"
1:36 AM
Sunday, January 29, 2006
I've finally realized my ambition!
...Of dining while surrounded by 100 freshwater aquariums at Rosemead's tropical-themed, restaurant, Bahooka!
11:04 PM
Monday, December 26, 2005
In 1928, Adolph Schleicher spent $8 million to build a tire and rubber plant in Commerce. The ground-breaking ceremony was attended by 12,000 people, and it became the largest manufacturing facility west of the Mississippi.
He modelled his plant after a 7th Century B.C. ancient Assyrian palace, and eventually included an ornate 1,750-foot-long wall of concrete. In 1960 it was used as a backdrop for the movie Ben Hur, and it's listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
It became that mall of factory outlet stores on Highway 5 known as The Citadel.
11:19 PM
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
A man who lived in Downey in the 70s sends this memory about the McDonalds at Florence and Lakewood.
"I ate there many times.
"In fact, I remember when the sign said 'Over 1 million sold.'"
11:20 AM
Sunday, November 06, 2005
The Carpenters had a home on Newville Avenue, just a few blocks from Florence Avenue, Highway 5, and the San Gabriel River.
Amazingly, there's a 5-minute video tour of this home on the web. (From 1999, just a year after Richard Carpenter had sold it to a new owner.)
The house appeared on the cover of their 1973 album "Now and Then" (which included "Yesterday Once More," plus a montage of vintage of oldies.) This web page tells the story of that house, including pictures...
But everyone remember Pete Ellis's competitor, Cal Worthington. Blogger "Torrez" reminds us of Cal's ever-changing lineup of pets, linking to the "My Dog Spot" scrapbook. And both pages find a surprising number of people who'd all mis-heard Cal's theme song in exactly the same way.
"It was a commercial whose jingle was set to 'If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands', and for some reason 'go see Cal' always sounded like 'pussy cow'."
12:29 PM
"Bahooka."
My first night in Downey, I'd written that down on a piece of paper. "Bahooka." For some mysterious reason, I'd wanted to remember the word...
"Bahooka."
Five months later, I solved the mystery. Taking Lakewood Boulevard out of Downey, 17 miles north towards Pasadena, you'll see a URL from the highway.
It's a Polynesian restaurant with Tiki art, fish tanks, and Navy souveniers that's been in Rosemead for nearly 40 years.
1:15 AM
Monday, October 31, 2005
Alcaray Jr. Market and Liquor.
Two toddlers, dressed in costumes, enter the liquor store. "Say 'Trick or Treat', says their mother.
They walk up to the cashier, behind his bullet-proof glass, and say...
"Hi, Sam!"
During this surreal moment, a song plays on the radio. "Long ago, and oh so far away..."
It's a whisper-y male voice, but he's singing a song that Karen Carpenter recorded. 40 years ago she grew up here, in Downey. Two decades after her death, they're playing the song she made famous.
Happy Halloween!
Next door, a trick-or-treater visited J.J.'s Burgers #10.
And up the street at Stox, customers were waited on by a lady pirate and Zorro
The Aerospace Legacy Foundation traces the history of the famous Downey site - from its beginnings as a 1929 Emsco plant, through new owners like National Security Aircraft Corporation, Vultee Aircraft Corporation, and North American Aviation. It grew from 11,000 workers in the 1950s to 25,000 in 1964.
Switching from Air Force contracts to NASA contracts, they laid the keel of the Apollo space vehicle, and constructed its command and service modules. "The Apollo program is recognized as one of man's highest engineering and industrial accomplishments," the site's newsletter notes. "As such, it is nationally significant and much of the recognition belongs to the Downey Industrial Plant..."
The site also received frequent visits from Wernher Von Braun, and by 1969, when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Mike Collins visited the plant, they could honestly say that "the trip to the moon started right here." Five of the space shuttles were later constructed there in the decades to come - the Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavor - and the plant was also involved in building Skylab and the Apollo-Soyuz mission.
And here's a bit of trivia I learned from the site. 70,000 cars a day drove past the intersection at Lakewood and Firestone in 1954. That's an average of 48 cars per minute, every minute, 24 hours a day!
11:18 PM
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Long-distance phone service was out - as well as some 911 calls - for Downey, as well as Long Beach, Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach, Westminster, Artesia, and Bellflower.
Verizon blamed "an equipment problem" for the outage, which began at 2:20 Tuesday and continued intermittently throughout the day.
This is the first time I've seen Downey mentioned in a national wire service story by the Associated Press...
UPDATE: The L.A. Times blames a hard-drive crash in Long Beach, and a backup system that didn't come on. They tell interesting stories about people coping with the outage...
A team of volunteer ham radio operators fanned out to 17 nursing homes to restore communication with medical personnel.
Police departments in several cities placed more patrol cars on the streets.
"The outage was so complete that Long Beach officials had to drive to KJZZ-FM, the city's designated emergency broadcast station, to let the radio station know what to tell listeners."
6:58 PM
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
"Future unlimited."
That's the slogan of the city of Downey. The city was founded in 1873, but not incorporated until 1956.
And to think I learned all that just by studying the city seal today on the chain-link fence at Independence Park...
Interestingly, that McDonalds sign on Lakewood pre-dates the city's incorporation. This means that when the neon "Speedee" sign rose up over Lakewood Boulevard, it was under the jurisdiction of Los Angeles County, and Downey was just an unincorporated town.
Armed with a new pride in Downey - and my cellphone camera - I took photos celebrating historic restaurant sites.
The oldest McDonalds, the first Taco Bell, and last remaining Sambo's...
10:04 PM
Thursday, July 28, 2005
By the time we got to Downey We were...300 strong.
Okay, it wasn't Woodstock - but 300 people showed up in Fuhrman park Wednesday night to watch the Wondrelles.
The four female vocalists sang classic "girl group" oldies like "Da Doo Ron Ron," "He's a Rebel," and "Mr. Sandman."
Thanks to the Downey Patriot for tipping us off! (Not to mention this groovy picture of the Wondrelle's in costume!)
Here's one more photo.
A summer night in Downey...
12:28 AM
Saturday, July 23, 2005
DOWNEY, CALIFORNIA. - A "Severe Weather Warning" issued by the National Weather Service warned that Hurricane Emily's final fury was barrelling towards Southern and Eastern Los Angeles.
Flash floods could quickly swamp the flatlands after sudden thunderstorms...
Whoops - all clear. Apparently thunderstorms need the daytime heat. The Flood Watch has been cancelled. Thank you for not panicking....
P.S. "CONDITIONS REMAIN FAVORABLE FOR THUNDERSTORMS WITH HEAVY RAIN TO DEVELOP AGAIN SUNDAY AFTERNOON!!!!!"
9:15 PM
Saturday, July 16, 2005
Hey kids - you wanna see a gold record?
This #1 gold record sold nearly two million copies, and spent four weeks at #1. In 1971, it was donated to the Downey Public Library, where 34 years later, it's now sitting in a glass display case up by the checkout desk.
The Carpenters' "Close to You."
Both Karen and Richard Carpenter grew up in Downey. They went to Downey High School on Firestone Boulevard - Richard was voted "outstanding senior" - and they always remembered their hometown. In 1971, they were grand marshalls for the Downey Christmas parade.
In fact, it was while visiting her parents in 1982 that Karen Carpenter also died in Downey. And at 8356 5th Street, you can still see the Close-to-You apartment building, which was owned by the Carpenters.
Now - you wanna see a gold album?
The Downey public library also has the album "Carpenters" in the same case.
6:03 PM
Thursday, July 14, 2005
South Los Angeles - "where the riots flared" is - now experiencing a housing boom.
12:24 AM
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Coming soon to Downey-Land: Our pictorial visit to the oldest (still-functioning) McDonald's restaurant in the world.
Since 1955, Downey has entered a float in the Tournament of Roses parade. It's one of only six floats that's classified as self-built - financed, constructed, and decorated by volunteers.
Catch Me If You Can - the old Boeing factory was used for the offices of the FBI.
Terminator III - the scene where the Terminator hangs from the swinging crane arm was filmed in Downey. They filmed it at the old Boeing factory.
Austin Powers: Goldmember - Apparently, they filmed part of it at the old Boeing factory...
The city of Downey likes to talk up their film-ic past, because they're now planning a 78-acre TV and movie production complex!
It's part of the re-use plan for "Downey Landing,", a former Boeing/NASA site that was in continuous operation from 1929 to 2002. (Including the testing and operating of California's first low-level nuclear reactor!)
Up to 30 acres will become a new Kaiser Permanente hospital, with another 13 acres earmarked for a public park. But Downey Residents are most excited about the giant "retail center" that's been proposed.
In a reverse of the usual pattern, they'll pave parking lots, and put in a paradise - replacing the current lots with "landscaping that will enhance not only the retail center but also augment the attractiveness of its surrounding." This will include a landscaped pedestrian walkway - which leads directly to the food court.
6:21 PM
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Guess what California city has the oldest continuously-operating curbside recycling program?
The 1973 energy crisis led to a pilot recycling program in 1975, with 1,600 homes recycling newspapers, glass, and aluminum cans. By 1995, it was servicing 12,000 homes - 60% of the city - when the program became mandatory.
Calsan's manager for waste diversion says "the residents are excited about it," which keeps the program strong. "[A] recycling ethic has taken root."
9:35 PM
Saturday, June 18, 2005
The oldest still-functioning McDonalds restaurant in America is in Downey, California.
It was actually the fourth McDonald's restaurant. The first was in San Bernardino, California in 1940, built by brothers Dick and Mac McDonald. That site is now the location of a combination Route 66/McDonalds museum, but the brothers followed it up with restaurants in Phoenix and North Hollywood before opening their Downey outlet at 10207 Lakewood Boulevard.
The brothers became famous for their "assembly line" approach to cooking hamburgers, and the pioneering restaurant was visited by the later founders of Burger King and Taco Bell. A man named Ray Kroc approached the brothers about creating franchises, and eventually opened his own McDonalds franchise in Illinois in 1955. (Kroc also tried - and failed! - to get a McDonalds restaurant into the Disneyland, based on his wartime friendship with Walt Disney.)
Six years later, Kroc borrowed $2.7 million to buy all the business rights from the McDonald brothers. They were allowed to keep their original restaurant in San Bernardino - but not its name. Their newly-renamed "Big M" restaurant remained open until Ray Kroc opened a competing McDonald's restaurant one block north.
Ironically, their original business agreement would now be worth $100 million a year...
You can catch a glimpse of the arches-in-the-building design in this first McDonalds TV ad from 1962. Ronald is played by a young Willard Scott, who had also played Bozo on a local TV station. Ironically, as the camera pans past the golden arches, you can catch a glimpse of the restaurant's original mascot, "Speedee." (In a white chef hat in the center of the outside arch.)
The first Taco Bell appeared in Downey, California in 1962, followed by restaurants in Paramount and Long Beach. "Seafood & Tacos Raul seems to be the latest incarnation," writes one web page, noting the restaurant's original name was Bell's Drive-In. (The maiden name of the founder's wife!) That site is at 7112 Firestone Boulevard, but the first franchise was in Torrance, California, where Carson intersects Western.
I remember eating out a lot -- at the Chinese restaurant by the library, or the Thai restaurant at that strip mall on Bellflower. (Or sometimes, the Jack in the Box on Imperial Highway.) My first day in town I discovered Frisco's Car Hop, and that night I ended up driving past the McDonalds' 
Eating out became an ongoing theme. On Sunday nights I'd treat myself to dinner at a nice Marie Callendars, though my favorite restaurant was probably Johnny Reb's in Bellflower. (And I have fond memories of that time I met a friend at 
