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Vista Del Mar offers spectacular ocean views, but better keep your eyes on...
Vista Del Mar’s coastal route is shown in red. Blue markers, from top to bottom: LAX ghost town, Dockweiler State Beach, Hyperion sewage plant, Scattergood power plant. (Credit: Google Maps) Vista Del...
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San Pedro hosted the Navy’s first submarine base on the Pacific Coast
Undated postcard shows the San Pedro Submarine Base along the East Channel, circa 1917-1923. Submarine technology already had been developing for decades by the time the U.S. Navy commissioned its...
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El Segundo turned its big dreams for Recreation Park into reality
Recreation Park in El Segundo first opened in 1958. Over the years, the park has been renovated and updated many times. (Sept. 2019 photo by Sam Gnerre) El Segundo’s decision to build a large central...
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FDR forced to send in military during 1941 North American Aviation strike
Employees on the outdoor assembly line at North American’s Los Angeles plant put the finishing touches on another B-25 bomber in October 1942. Photo by Alfred T. Palmer. (Credit: Library of Congress,...
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San Pedro’s Toberman Community Center has helped the needy for more than a...
The Toberman Neighborhood Center main building at 131 N. Grand in San Pedro. The motto on the mural at left reads, “Empowering Families for a Lifetime.” (Sept. 2019 photo by Sam Gnerre) James R....
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Wilmington Hall wartime housing project became a happening place to live
Panoramic view of the Wilmington Hall housing development for war workers in Wilmington. Note the barrage balloons which offered protection from enemy dive bombers. Undated photo circa 1942-45....
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The La Venta Inn has been a Palos Verdes Estates landmark for nearly 100 years
The La Venta Inn in Palos Verdes Estates, with Santa Monica Bay in the background. (October 2019 photo by Sam Gnerre) Magazine publisher E.G. Lewis bought three acres of land on a barren hilltop on the...
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Rudecinda Florencia Sepulevda de Dodson played a major role in San Pedro’s...
James H. Dodson. Undated photo. I began this post expecting to write mostly about James Hillsey Dodson, an influential early resident of San Pedro. Born in Los Angeles on Feb. 28, 1861, he led by all...
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Torrance Elementary is the city’s oldest school still in operation
Torrance Elementary School has operated at 2125 Lincoln Ave. since 1963. (October 2019 photo by Sam Gnerre) Torrance Elementary School went by simply “Torrance School” when it opened in a small,...
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How two men and a giant Wurlitzer organ transformed El Segundo’s State...
The Old Town Music Hall in El Segundo. Posters advertise upcoming screenings of “The Invisible Man,” left, and “The Mummy.” (October 2019 photo by Sam Gnerre) El Segundo residents started agitating for...
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Thousands cheered glider meets at Hollywood Riviera Field
William Hawley Bowlus launches his Bowlus SP-1 Paperwing at the Redondo Beach Glider Meet on December 1, 1929. Spectators look on as tow lines at left and right of the plane are pulled. Photo by...
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Torrance occupational center SoCal Roc has offered job training for more than...
The SoCal ROC administration building at 2300 Crenshaw Blvd. in Torrance. (November 2019 photo by Sam Gnerre) The idea seems like a no-brainer now: Build a communal center for occupational and...
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Redondo Beach man gets death penalty for 1937 slaying of three Inglewood girls
A crowd of people waiting outside the Superior Court of Los Angeles, presumably to harass confessed child murderer Albert Dyer, in August 1937. (Credit: Los Angeles Daily News) Hired under a Works...
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The Boys and Girls Clubs of the Los Angeles Harbor have served youths since 1937
Community supporters of the San Pedro Boys Club stand outside the group’s clubhouse in this undated photo, probably from 1938. (Credit: Boys & Girls Clubs of the Los Angeles Harbor Facebook page)...
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A proposed high wall morphs into an award-winning park in Wilmington
The hotly debated strip land lies mostly vacant between Wilmington, right, and the Port of Los Angeles before the construction of Wilmington Waterfront Park. Undated pre-2011 aerial view looking south...
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Torrance Mayor Albert Isen led the city through its period of rapid postwar...
Albert Isen Albert Isen, the first mayor of Torrance elected by popular vote, was born Albert Ben Israel Isenstein in Los Angeles on Oct. 19, 1907. He arrived in Torrance in 1912 at the age of five...
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Auto racing legend Parnelli Jones has deep South Bay roots
This photo of Parnelli Jones, left in cowboy hat drinking the traditional post-race milk after winning the 1963 running of the Indy 500, is part of his private collection. (Daily Breeze staff file...
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Cabrillo Beach Polar Bears began their annual New Year’s Day forays in 1953
Polar Bear King Marion Chuka and Queen Trudie Logan, kneeling, along with participants in the 1959 Cabrillo Beach Polar Bear Swim. (Credit: Cabrillo Beach Polar Bears website) The Coney Island Polar...
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Gardena’s Vermont Drive-In Theatre becomes the South Bay’s last drive-in
Undated photo shows the exterior of the Vermont Drive-In Theatre with Arnoldo Rubio’s Snow White mural. (Credit: Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection) The Vermont Drive-In Theatre in Gardena...
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Perry School served generations of South Bay students
Exterior of the main Perry School building that opened in 1924. 1936 photo. (Credit: Los Angeles Daily News) When the Perry School District officially was founded in 1905, the school building...
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