Very nice. Moved there when it was still brand new in the 50s. I grew up on Martha St in the Village. we watched the adjacent field change from alfalfa into Balboa Park. Played little league just 'behind' the housing tract. Very glad to see the neighborhood thrive. On occasion we would dig up a movie artifact when planting the garden etc. I remember seeing Van Johnson, Roy Rogers, and Clark Gable around town. (ran across Roy again when we moved to Apple Valley and got to meet him personally here). Had friends across Louise in Encino Park also. Great memories.
Awwwh. I have lived here for 19 years in what is now Encino Village. I sure would have loved to have seen the filming of "It's a Wonderful Life" or "Hunchback of Notre Dame." I agree the streets should have been named after the characters, movies or sets.
I'm an original Valley Guy from the 80s and have worked in the entertainment industry for many years but I never new about this RKO location.. Thanks!!
A lot of my friends lived here in the 60s and I was there all the time. So many thinks happened to me there, good and bad. One of my friends still lives in The Village in the house he grew up in. Never knew is was a movie lot. I've seen all those movies.
This is a cute nostalgic video. I grew up in Encino Village. It was a wonderful neighborhood and I've got very fond memories of it. I still have a couple of friends parents that live there and I visit them each time I'm in the area.
Thank you! What a loss to film history. A subdivision that could have been put anywhere, versus irreplaceable Hollywood history that could have made a lucrative tourist attraction! I sure would have gone!
I think if I lived in that neighborhood I'd petition to get the street names changed to characters related to the films shot there. The area where MGM's Lot 2 used to be (bordering Overland/Washington/Culver/Elenda - in Culver City) has Garland Drive, Hepburn Circle, Astaire, Skelton, Coogan, etc. Nice but meager tribute:(
Great video-- it was just what I was looking for! I grew up less than a mile from here, and now I know why Jimmy Stewart was perspiring during some scenes in "It's a Wonderful Life." Not only was there a heat wave in Los Angeles in the Spring and Summer of 1946, when they were shooting, but there was also one in the Valley, so it was probably 90 to over 100 degrees in snowy "Bedford Falls!" Thanks for your work.
What a wonderful job that you did with putting it all together-I lived down the street at one time and always enjoyed the Balboa Rec. area, but, I had NO idea about the very early history of the area-the RKO lot looked fantastic! It's a shame that none of it was preserved or that a small monument couldn't have been put there to educate those of us who lived there later on. Great Job and thank you so much for a real trip down memory lane-I love it!!
barbi pudwill I was 2! I remember vividly driving with my family in 1956 from our home in Phoenix to visit relatives near San Francisco, we went home via LA and were supposed to go to the then pretty new Disneyland (I was a Mickey Mouse Club fan and wanted at 4 to be a Mouseketeer!) but I had a sore throat and my mom wouldn't let me go. I've never forgiven her and she's been dead for 32 years ;).
Sure the land was valuable but a housing development could have been put anywhere. That said, what was done was done. I think there are quite a many things that would have been done differently if given another chance. Still those sets may be long gone but they will continue to live on in some of the most amazing films ever to come out of Hollywood. You want to continue to pass on the work that those sets were a part of? Get some of those old films and sit down with the younger generations and watch them. You may be very surprised to find many, if not most, will come to appreciate them and the history that goes along with it.
Damn watching this hurts. So many historic film sets that could’ve been preserved and used as a museum so we film people could pay our respects to Hollywood’s past.
Not only were the sets razed on the spot, but the pieces were then bulldozed into big pits and simply covered over with dirt. Yes, those houses now sit on top of the sets shown in the video...
With all the ground water and chemical composition of the soil, most of the buried set is surely ruined by now. Though I am not an expert on how wood decays in earth. It would sure be nice if someone bought all that land, excavated the area and reassembled the entire set piece by piece. As unrealistic as this may sound, Hollywood actually has more than enough money to do something like this. They really should.
Would have made a great amusement park, but Disneyland was about to open, so at the time might not have been a profitable solution. The fact remains that the studios did not realize what a gem they had and developers are king. A sad reality in many of our cities and towns around this country.
It turns out I was and am living right next to historical Hollywood all of the time. I have biked through here. I was thinking I missed the great artistic years in LA, and away from it all when it was right next to me. I wonder what else was around it.
So. California use to be a beautiful place of orchards, groves, farms, and open fields that bloom with the yellow flowers of mustard plants after the spring rains. Now it's a place of over population and ugliness.
I just watched an old Dragnet episode (The Big Producer) where they wander around this studio not long before it was torn down. I guess Jack Webb wanted a last look.
Los Angeles and development have gone hand and hand from the very beginning. Yes, it's a shame that this movie ranch was torn down, yet the land was too valuable to sit unused for the majority of the time. Given the premium that land goes for in the desirable areas of the San Fernando Valley (101 frwy corridor), the lot would have sold for millions sooner or later and torn down. Most people in L.A. are transplants and have no real grasp of history in L.A. County. The enormous Budweiser factory in Van Nuys used to have an adjacent Busch Gardens, which was bulldozed to make way for a plant expansion and parking lot. Before the freeway era, L.A. used to have the best public transit system in the world, with street cars ("Red cars") that went everywhere from downtown L.A. to outlying areas via surface streets, including Long Beach, Santa Monica, and Orange County. Olvera Street used to be an Italian neighborhood, NOT Mexican. Pasadena used to be the winter playground of the rich and famous Midwestern and East Coast families, who would "winter" in Pasadena in their palatial estates. Catalina Island was owned by the Wrigley family (Wrigley chewing gum), who would vacation there and had their Chicago Cubs play spring training baseball on their island. Hollywood used to be a nice bedroom community "suburb" of L.A. at one time, with nicely landscaped streets and big houses. Broadway Theater District in downtown L.A. and Hollywood Blvd. in Hollywood used to be nice retail areas for shopping "back in the day". Beverly Hills had a racetrack at one time, in the area of Rodeo Drive in downtown Beverly Hills (Beverly Hills Speedway). Playa Del Rey had a "Motordrome" for car racing in the early 20th century. Before LAX expanded, there was a coastal town between El Segundo and Playa Del Rey named Surfridge, which had over 800 homes on 430 acres with over 2000 residents before being bulldozed for LAX runway expansion in the 60's & 70's. You can still see the old streets and light posts from Dockweiler Beach. Most of Riverside, Orange, and Ventura counties were used for agriculture, with thousands of acres of orchards and crops grown at one time. Burbank used to be full of bean fields and Glendale had an airport (near Griffith Park) that was often used in movie shoots. The San Fernando & Santa Clarita Valleys (Valencia Oranges) were both full of citrus orchards instead of neighborhoods of tract homes. Air quality used to be so bad in L.A. at one time that it had "smog alerts".
To bad it couldn't be saved for future generations to see how real movies were made before c g I. Real estate developers have a grand desire to erase the past and fill their pockets and step on the neck of the past with no regrets. Those houses could have been put in a different location. Sadly so few care
What a tragedy but the old has to make way for the new. A Shame they could not have integrated some of the old with the new. You never realize what your going to miss until years later sometimes...
I live here! This is so cool!
Excellent Choice of music Everytime
Very nice. Moved there when it was still brand new in the 50s. I grew up on Martha St in the Village. we watched the adjacent field change from alfalfa into Balboa Park. Played little league just 'behind' the housing tract. Very glad to see the neighborhood thrive. On occasion we would dig up a movie artifact when planting the garden etc. I remember seeing Van Johnson, Roy Rogers, and Clark Gable around town. (ran across Roy again when we moved to Apple Valley and got to meet him personally here). Had friends across Louise in Encino Park also. Great memories.
Awwwh. I have lived here for 19 years in what is now Encino Village. I sure would have loved to have seen the filming of "It's a Wonderful Life" or "Hunchback of Notre Dame." I agree the streets should have been named after the characters, movies or sets.
I'm an original Valley Guy from the 80s and have worked in the entertainment industry for many years but I never new about this RKO location.. Thanks!!
A lot of my friends lived here in the 60s and I was there all the time. So many thinks happened to me there, good and bad. One of my friends still lives in The Village in the house he grew up in. Never knew is was a movie lot. I've seen all those movies.
God Bless you for sharing this video. Loved it. Fantastic footage. Thanks again so much for sharing a big fan of the back lots of the studios. 🙏🏼 ☮️&💟
So cool. I lived nearby in Granada Hills and later Woodland Hills 1961 until mid 70's. Magic time.
Unfortunate loss. Thank you for this post.
This is a cute nostalgic video. I grew up in Encino Village. It was a wonderful neighborhood and I've got very fond memories of it. I still have a couple of friends parents that live there and I visit them each time I'm in the area.
Lovely- my mom always mentioned our house was on the old RKO property- never fully appreciated what that meant! Yea Babbitt Avenue!!!!!
Jody Onorato
Thank you for the share. I live in the Encino Park tract, just to the west of Louise. I can see my house in the stills.
Thank you! What a loss to film history. A subdivision that could have been put anywhere, versus irreplaceable Hollywood history that could have made a lucrative tourist attraction! I sure would have gone!
I think if I lived in that neighborhood I'd petition to get the street names changed to characters related to the films shot there. The area where MGM's Lot 2 used to be (bordering Overland/Washington/Culver/Elenda - in Culver City) has Garland Drive, Hepburn Circle, Astaire, Skelton, Coogan, etc. Nice but meager tribute:(
Great video-- it was just what I was looking for! I grew up less than a mile from here, and now I know why Jimmy Stewart was perspiring during some scenes in "It's a Wonderful Life." Not only was there a heat wave in Los Angeles in the Spring and Summer of 1946, when they were shooting, but there was also one in the Valley, so it was probably 90 to over 100 degrees in snowy "Bedford Falls!" Thanks for your work.
Use to drive thru here all the time..didn't even know it..bulldozed those magnificent sets..that hurts...
What a wonderful job that you did with putting it all together-I lived down the street at one time and always enjoyed the Balboa Rec. area, but, I had NO idea about the very early history of the area-the RKO lot looked fantastic! It's a shame that none of it was preserved or that a small monument couldn't have been put there to educate those of us who lived there later on. Great Job and thank you so much for a real trip down memory lane-I love it!!
Wow, yet another stunningly amazing but very sad episode. Thank you for your labors.
1954 the year I was put on this earth. Love it
barbi pudwill I was 2! I remember vividly driving with my family in 1956 from our home in Phoenix to visit relatives near San Francisco, we went home via LA and were supposed to go to the then pretty new Disneyland (I was a Mickey Mouse Club fan and wanted at 4 to be a Mouseketeer!) but I had a sore throat and my mom wouldn't let me go. I've never forgiven her and she's been dead for 32 years ;).
Never knew about Encino Ranch, I grew up in the SFV and am a film buff, just never knew !! Thanks for making these videos, they're awesome .
Sure the land was valuable but a housing development could have been put anywhere. That said, what was done was done. I think there are quite a many things that would have been done differently if given another chance. Still those sets may be long gone but they will continue to live on in some of the most amazing films ever to come out of Hollywood. You want to continue to pass on the work that those sets were a part of? Get some of those old films and sit down with the younger generations and watch them. You may be very surprised to find many, if not most, will come to appreciate them and the history that goes along with it.
Damn watching this hurts. So many historic film sets that could’ve been preserved and used as a museum so we film people could pay our respects to Hollywood’s past.
Another fantastic job, Will.
Not only were the sets razed on the spot, but the pieces were then bulldozed into big pits and simply covered over with dirt. Yes, those houses now sit on top of the sets shown in the video...
With all the ground water and chemical composition of the soil, most of the buried set is surely ruined by now. Though I am not an expert on how wood decays in earth. It would sure be nice if someone bought all that land, excavated the area and reassembled the entire set piece by piece. As unrealistic as this may sound, Hollywood actually has more than enough money to do something like this. They really should.
I grew up in the Valley and I never knew about the ranch...Your video is riveting and so stunning...Thanks for all the effort...
SAN FERNANDO VALLEY FROM 1979 AND STILL GOING STRONG TILL 2019
You should have seen 1958. Now THAT was strong!!!
Pretty Fantastic !
Beautifully compiled and edited. Clarke Gable had an estate there somewhere in the early development.
The Gable Estate was cut up althought parts, like the stables house, still exist. South of Ventura Blvd. up the hills
Nicely done.
Would have made a great amusement park, but Disneyland was about to open, so at the time might not have been a profitable solution. The fact remains that the studios did not realize what a gem they had and developers are king. A sad reality in many of our cities and towns around this country.
Good job!
Great Video!
It turns out I was and am living right next to historical Hollywood all of the time. I have biked through here. I was thinking I missed the great artistic years in LA, and away from it all when it was right next to me. I wonder what else was around it.
All that hollywood history plowed under in the name of progress.
Is it possible to do a Video about the Desilu Studio and all their successes?
Really interesting to see the old and new mixed. How do you put 'two and two' together and match up the locations?
Wow - this is a very cool video - a bit sad.
So. California use to be a beautiful place of orchards, groves, farms, and open fields that bloom with the yellow flowers of mustard plants after the spring rains. Now it's a place of over population and ugliness.
You said that very well, unfortunately.
I just watched an old Dragnet episode (The Big Producer) where they wander around this studio not long before it was torn down. I guess Jack Webb wanted a last look.
I will look for that episode - thanks
My mom had a house on that block of Graves Ave
I miss that America.
Los Angeles and development have gone hand and hand from the very beginning. Yes, it's a shame that this movie ranch was torn down, yet the land was too valuable to sit unused for the majority of the time. Given the premium that land goes for in the desirable areas of the San Fernando Valley (101 frwy corridor), the lot would have sold for millions sooner or later and torn down. Most people in L.A. are transplants and have no real grasp of history in L.A. County. The enormous Budweiser factory in Van Nuys used to have an adjacent Busch Gardens, which was bulldozed to make way for a plant expansion and parking lot. Before the freeway era, L.A. used to have the best public transit system in the world, with street cars ("Red cars") that went everywhere from downtown L.A. to outlying areas via surface streets, including Long Beach, Santa Monica, and Orange County. Olvera Street used to be an Italian neighborhood, NOT Mexican. Pasadena used to be the winter playground of the rich and famous Midwestern and East Coast families, who would "winter" in Pasadena in their palatial estates. Catalina Island was owned by the Wrigley family (Wrigley chewing gum), who would vacation there and had their Chicago Cubs play spring training baseball on their island. Hollywood used to be a nice bedroom community "suburb" of L.A. at one time, with nicely landscaped streets and big houses. Broadway Theater District in downtown L.A. and Hollywood Blvd. in Hollywood used to be nice retail areas for shopping "back in the day". Beverly Hills had a racetrack at one time, in the area of Rodeo Drive in downtown Beverly Hills (Beverly Hills Speedway). Playa Del Rey had a "Motordrome" for car racing in the early 20th century. Before LAX expanded, there was a coastal town between El Segundo and Playa Del Rey named Surfridge, which had over 800 homes on 430 acres with over 2000 residents before being bulldozed for LAX runway expansion in the 60's & 70's. You can still see the old streets and light posts from Dockweiler Beach. Most of Riverside, Orange, and Ventura counties were used for agriculture, with thousands of acres of orchards and crops grown at one time. Burbank used to be full of bean fields and Glendale had an airport (near Griffith Park) that was often used in movie shoots. The San Fernando & Santa Clarita Valleys (Valencia Oranges) were both full of citrus orchards instead of neighborhoods of tract homes. Air quality used to be so bad in L.A. at one time that it had "smog alerts".
My Dad Worked There In The 30s
Money talks history walks..
Are the streets matched up old and new?
To bad it couldn't be saved for future generations to see how real movies were made before c g I. Real estate developers have a grand desire to erase the past and fill their pockets and step on the neck of the past with no regrets. Those houses could have been put in a different location. Sadly so few care
What a tragedy but the old has to make way for the new. A Shame they could not have integrated some of the old with the new. You never realize what your going to miss until years later sometimes...
I look forward to being discovered at Schwab's
Triste perte d'un lieu culte de l'histoire du cinéma !
😭😩😭
All that wonderful history turned into another worthless housing track of homes. Honestly, the city should be ashamed.
You think thats bad, they turned the Culver City backlot into a commercial complex