Today we will be looking into the history behind the famous Nike Missile sites around Los Angeles. We will be focusing on two sites, site LA-88 and site LA-96.
Thanks for making this video. I'm from L.A., born in Inglewood, raised in Westchester /Playa Del Rey. There were two Nike bases in my neighborhood. One in Playa Del Rey at the Southwest Property adjacent to North runway of LAX Airport about ¼ mile from the beach and used to be surrounded by houses. It remains but has been a "secret" facility disguised as an exotic animal transportation and quarantine facility for animals being shipped around the world out of LAX. It's a couple of acres of open space with a few buildings fenced in by chainlink fence with razor wire wrapped around the top. Only a painted sign reading Jet Pets at the gated entrance tells what the place is. Anyone who has lived in the neighborhood from back in the day prior to 1990s knows what that place is and local military personell from LA AFB which is the missile and rocket radar tracking base knows what the Jet Pets facility is in reality. I don't believe there are NIKE rockets there but I think the military has something else there in operation as some defense for the coastline and the city of LA. About a mile South, down the beach if you follow the sand dunes to the South side of LAX property you'll find LA Hyperion Plant that sits on the low bluffs above Dockweiler State Beach, which also was a NIKE missile sight. That property is in El Segundo and the Hyperion plant is the waste water treatment plant for Los Angeles processing raw sewage (poop, etc...) and pumps it out a large pipe that extends a couple miles, supposedly, into the Pacific Ocean, next to that facility is the Scattergood Generating Station which uses that waste treatment plant somehow to generate power. Next to it is Chevron refinery #2 and next to it is Southern California Edison power plant. All of these facilities are beach front properties. Also, as the narrator mentioned in the video about the air raid sirens around the city of LA, one still remains in Westchester, as there are still a lot of them around the city. When I was in elementary school and into Jr high school in the 1970s, on the last Thursday of every month, at 10 o'clock AM the air raid sirens were tested and we had to do an emergency air raid drill by immediately stopping whatever we were doing and drop and get under our desk as if that would help if a nuclear bomb hit the city. But, that went on monthly until around 1978 or so. The sirens are still operational but they don't test them anymore the way they used to. Please make more videos of the deep history of Los Angeles as a critical area for military bases and the aerospace defense contractors and secret manufacturing facilities around the city and the tunnels that connect the airport and the manufacturing facilities used to transport hardware, airplanes, bombs, etc... to be shipped and how the air force used women pilots to fly the fighter planes and bombers that were built around the city and then flown off to deliver them to the bases and carriers that needed the planes. LA was a and still is a vital military location for defense of the West Coast.
@@dustysdad801 ---- are you talking about the home depot on Variel near Victory? Was all that big box store shopping area aerospace industry? I lived at the corner of Canoga and Erwin for a couple years until about 3 years ago. Two blocks from Topanga Mall and the Westfield Shopping. There are still a couple of big empty lots of property in that neighborhood. I thought all that area was Warner property. But, I'm from LAX area and didn't spend much time in the valley. There is a saying that there's no life East of Sepulveda. That and we'd go hiking in Topanga and Malibu Canyons but we never went into the Valley. Hahahaha
Yes that home depot. There is/was a tunnel from that building under victory to rocketdyne. It was big enough for semi trucks to go to rocketdyne so satellites could not see them. My Dad worked for rocketdyne ☢ in the 60s. Fun stuff.
@@dustysdad801 --- very interesting. Thank you for sharing that info. My dad's father, was a master machinist and from Indianapolis and had worked on the Norden bomb sight, he was asked to come to California by the Navy and Hughes to be a scale model builder, my father had just graduated from Butler University so, my grandparents and my dad moved to Santa Monica and both my grandfather and father worked for Hughes Aircraft in Culver City. My father worked at Hughes Weapons Misssiles and Communication was the head of purchasing for their Data and Guidance Systems. All the targeting systems for TOW and TRAM missiles, the helmet targeting for the Apache Helicopter pilots, and the targeting for the canon on the Cm1 Abrams tank and a bunch of satellite secret stuff. He knew about secret companies throughout the Inglewood, Hawthorne, Gardena, Torrance areas that on the outside were ordinary businisses like a printing shop or a company that made brooms and janitorial supplies that were really making parts for bombs and aircraft parts for Hughes and McDonnell Douglas, Northrop, Garrett, etc... . Supposedly tunnels from Hawthorne airport to somebody those secret machine and tooling companies to LAX and to the Hughes Helicopter Plant which had its own runway as well as multiple hangars. My friends and I would sit on the bluffs above Hughes, which is Loyola Marymount University and we had seen helicopters being test flown a couple times. I remember back as a kid in the early '70s just before it would get dark outside seeing the missiles or their contrails in the sky after being launched from Point Mugu or Vandenberg.
Interesting, I was out at White Point Nature Preserve on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, San Pedro side on Paseo Del Mar W. and there they were, the metal doors for the Nike missiles and a guard house nearby. Up the hill are the bunkers for the big guns.
I live in the San Fernando Valley and I have visited the Nike Missile Site LA-96C a number of times. This site was a radar observation and missile control sight. The Nike Missiles were located in the Sepulveda Basin. This Nike Missile Site LA-96C is also known today as San Vicente Mountain Park.
Thanks Alex. I was a kid in LA in the 50s and remember it well, We have been under threat from Russian bombs my whole life. In grammar school we had drills every week on what to do in bombing attacks.
@jasminespencer3992 Back in the day it was a US airforce radio station that housed Nike missles, I remember when they removed them . The National Guard base is across the street and is an active base.
I live right next to a former Nike missle sight in Redondo Beach. When it was decommissioned it was transformed into a wildlife park called Hopkins Wilderness Park.
I go to the one in Mulholland road,i run 11 miles there, refuel,eat drop a hot one ,then run 11 miles back down. Thats actually were i met my good friend, now we are running ultras together😂
I drove thru the open gates of site 88 in 1972 and thought it was abandond only to be apptoached by an irate guard with a m 16 telling to get the F%#K out or i would be shot ha ha kinda crazy guy ha ha i left post haste with him still screaming at me the army guy was kinda Nuts ha ha !!
Lol yup, i run 11 miles to get there, refuel, eat, drop a hot one if i need to,then run 11 back down to temescal canyon road. Im ever so happy to be there
Chatsworth, myself and high school buddies tried to drive up in late 1970's, but the signs of being arrested if you continue farther, stopped us. I remember in the 1960's once a month (I believe it was 11:45-12 noon) the sirens, and in grade school when the teacher would say "Drop and Cover", in which every student jumps under their desk, yup that will protect us.
Thanks for making this video.
I'm from L.A., born in Inglewood, raised in Westchester /Playa Del Rey.
There were two Nike bases in my neighborhood. One in Playa Del Rey at the Southwest Property adjacent to North runway of LAX Airport about ¼ mile from the beach and used to be surrounded by houses. It remains but has been a "secret" facility disguised as an exotic animal transportation and quarantine facility for animals being shipped around the world out of LAX. It's a couple of acres of open space with a few buildings fenced in by chainlink fence with razor wire wrapped around the top. Only a painted sign reading Jet Pets at the gated entrance tells what the place is. Anyone who has lived in the neighborhood from back in the day prior to 1990s knows what that place is and local military personell from LA AFB which is the missile and rocket radar tracking base knows what the Jet Pets facility is in reality.
I don't believe there are NIKE rockets there but I think the military has something else there in operation as some defense for the coastline and the city of LA.
About a mile South, down the beach if you follow the sand dunes to the South side of LAX property you'll find LA Hyperion Plant that sits on the low bluffs above Dockweiler State Beach, which also was a NIKE missile sight. That property is in El Segundo and the Hyperion plant is the waste water treatment plant for Los Angeles processing raw sewage (poop, etc...) and pumps it out a large pipe that extends a couple miles, supposedly, into the Pacific Ocean, next to that facility is the Scattergood Generating Station which uses that waste treatment plant somehow to generate power. Next to it is Chevron refinery #2 and next to it is Southern California Edison power plant. All of these facilities are beach front properties.
Also, as the narrator mentioned in the video about the air raid sirens around the city of LA, one still remains in Westchester, as there are still a lot of them around the city. When I was in elementary school and into Jr high school in the 1970s, on the last Thursday of every month, at 10 o'clock AM the air raid sirens were tested and we had to do an emergency air raid drill by immediately stopping whatever we were doing and drop and get under our desk as if that would help if a nuclear bomb hit the city. But, that went on monthly until around 1978 or so. The sirens are still operational but they don't test them anymore the way they used to.
Please make more videos of the deep history of Los Angeles as a critical area for military bases and the aerospace defense contractors and secret manufacturing facilities around the city and the tunnels that connect the airport and the manufacturing facilities used to transport hardware, airplanes, bombs, etc... to be shipped and how the air force used women pilots to fly the fighter planes and bombers that were built around the city and then flown off to deliver them to the bases and carriers that needed the planes.
LA was a and still is a vital military location for defense of the West Coast.
Wonderful comment. Thanks for sharing 💚
Yes.
A tunnel from the new home depot in woodland hills to what was rocketdyne. They are out there
@@dustysdad801 ---- are you talking about the home depot on Variel near Victory?
Was all that big box store shopping area aerospace industry? I lived at the corner of Canoga and Erwin for a couple years until about 3 years ago. Two blocks from Topanga Mall and the Westfield Shopping. There are still a couple of big empty lots of property in that neighborhood.
I thought all that area was Warner property. But, I'm from LAX area and didn't spend much time in the valley.
There is a saying that there's no life East of Sepulveda.
That and we'd go hiking in Topanga and Malibu Canyons but we never went into the Valley. Hahahaha
Yes that home depot. There is/was a tunnel from that building under victory to rocketdyne. It was big enough for semi trucks to go to rocketdyne so satellites could not see them. My Dad worked for rocketdyne ☢ in the 60s. Fun stuff.
@@dustysdad801 --- very interesting. Thank you for sharing that info.
My dad's father, was a master machinist and from Indianapolis and had worked on the Norden bomb sight, he was asked to come to California by the Navy and Hughes to be a scale model builder, my father had just graduated from Butler University so, my grandparents and my dad moved to Santa Monica and both my grandfather and father worked for Hughes Aircraft in Culver City. My father worked at Hughes Weapons Misssiles and Communication was the head of purchasing for their Data and Guidance Systems. All the targeting systems for TOW and TRAM missiles, the helmet targeting for the Apache Helicopter pilots, and the targeting for the canon on the Cm1 Abrams tank and a bunch of satellite secret stuff. He knew about secret companies throughout the Inglewood, Hawthorne, Gardena, Torrance areas that on the outside were ordinary businisses like a printing shop or a company that made brooms and janitorial supplies that were really making parts for bombs and aircraft parts for Hughes and McDonnell Douglas, Northrop, Garrett, etc... . Supposedly tunnels from Hawthorne airport to somebody those secret machine and tooling companies to LAX and to the Hughes Helicopter Plant which had its own runway as well as multiple hangars. My friends and I would sit on the bluffs above Hughes, which is Loyola Marymount University and we had seen helicopters being test flown a couple times. I remember back as a kid in the early '70s just before it would get dark outside seeing the missiles or their contrails in the sky after being launched from Point Mugu or Vandenberg.
Interesting, I was out at White Point Nature Preserve on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, San Pedro side on Paseo Del Mar W. and there they were, the metal doors for the Nike missiles and a guard house nearby. Up the hill are the bunkers for the big guns.
I live in the San Fernando Valley and I have visited the Nike Missile Site LA-96C a number of times. This site was a radar observation and missile control sight. The Nike Missiles were located in the Sepulveda Basin. This Nike Missile Site LA-96C is also known today as San Vicente Mountain Park.
I remember the site at Point Vicente and the one at the Torrance Airport.
We had schools drills that would never have saved us
Amazing content 👍🏻 you deserve millions of subscribers
Interesting 🤔
Thanks Alex. I was a kid in LA in the 50s and remember it well, We have been under threat from Russian bombs my whole life. In grammar school we had drills every week on what to do in bombing attacks.
Cool channel. Interesting stuff. Keep up the good work. You Got a new subscriber.
The one near San Franciso does tours and is super cool to check out.
You need to show the base right on Woodman and victory blvd in the San Fernando Valley, oh wait it's still an active military base.
Woodley not Woodman. It’s not an active military base, it’s a California national guard storage facility.
@jasminespencer3992 Back in the day it was a US airforce radio station that housed Nike missles, I remember when they removed them . The National Guard base is across the street and is an active base.
This was an amazing video & history lesson! I hope more people subscribe!
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed the video!
Such a great video I recently explored one of these sites.
Thank you! 🙏
I visit these on my regular bike rides
We visited one not far from Sausalito
I live right next to a former Nike missle sight in Redondo Beach. When it was decommissioned it was transformed into a wildlife park called Hopkins Wilderness Park.
I go to the one in Mulholland road,i run 11 miles there, refuel,eat drop a hot one ,then run 11 miles back down. Thats actually were i met my good friend, now we are running ultras together😂
Bad road ya need a pickup last time i went but that was a decade ago but its pretty cool area !
Interesting work Mr. Documentarian... I Appreciate it 🫡
We use to ride our motorcycles up there.
I am close to LA-14. I wonder if anything is there left to see amd where it’s exact location was ?
I drove thru the open gates of site 88 in 1972 and thought it was abandond only to be apptoached by an irate guard with a m 16 telling to get the F%#K out or i would be shot ha ha kinda crazy guy ha ha i left post haste with him still screaming at me the army guy was kinda Nuts ha ha !!
I went to veterans park and the nike missle 94c
Dirt Mulholland!
Lol yup, i run 11 miles to get there, refuel, eat, drop a hot one if i need to,then run 11 back down to temescal canyon road. Im ever so happy to be there
I guess Orange County was lesser in value not to be protected.
Most of OC was not very developed in the 50’s. The el toro marine air station was there but that’s about all of any defense value.
actually the hills between Rowland Heights and Orange county is a Nike Base with missile silos aimed toward the ocean
@@hunglo666 I saw the map and it doesnt cover south-eastern-western Orange Country. Google it.
@@hunglo666Was. The remnants of the base were demolished years ago.
Another big waste of $$$$
Chatsworth, myself and high school buddies tried to drive up in late 1970's, but the signs of being arrested if you continue farther, stopped us. I remember in the 1960's once a month (I believe it was 11:45-12 noon) the sirens, and in grade school when the teacher would say "Drop and Cover", in which every student jumps under their desk, yup that will protect us.