My wife and I took a trip down memory lane in late March, or at least I dragged her down a congested highway through Southern California in an attempt to share some of my Los Angeles roots and haunts.
Hometowns are funny things. No matter how old you get or where your residence sits, your hometown will always be just that. It may merely represent the place you were born, or more significantly, it may be the environment that shaped your formative years and early perceptions of life, people and the world — and how you fit amongst it all.
It also can maintain a treasure trove of memories, some of which always percolate on the forefront of your mind, while others seep deep into the dark vestiges of the brain, only to spring forth at the sight of a building, street corner or landmark.
For me, Southern California represents all of this and more. Growing up, I lived in several areas of the Los Angeles metro area, but my impressionable years were spent in Santa Monica and Westchester. I was born in Santa Monica, but I grew up in Westchester.
Which is why, I suppose, it was particularly jolting to drive up to the house in which I spent my youth only to find it missing. Gone. Demolished, along with most of the block of single-family houses and much of the neighborhood known as Manchester Square. Chain-link fencing surrounds the area where this block of houses once stood, and irrigation and hydro-seeding has created an inaccessible grassy park inside the fencing.
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| The walkway leading to what used to be our front porch. There should be a house behind me. |
Making the scene more surreal is that the front yard landscaping remains intact, not only for my house but for most of the block. Thus, the double hedges that lined our walkway leading to the steps and front door are still there. The rubber tree and bird of paradise that stood when I was a child are still flourishing. The large hedge that served to border the neighboring alley, as well as swallow many a tennis ball and baseball, also remains.
But gone are the concrete walkway and steps, along with the driveway. Gone is the house that took me from the second grade through the 10th grade. Gone is the house where my dad toiled to lay a rooftop of shingles and fought endlessly with a fickle TV antenna. Gone is the house that enabled my mom to finally get the dog she always wanted and to nurture her family in a place we could call our own.
Gone is the living room where our Christmas tree once fell on me during an earthquake and where my grandmother and grandfather filled the air with music on a piano that I regret not learning how to play. Gone is the single-car garage my father converted into an elongated third bedroom that, while being my older brother’s room, also housed torrid Nerf basketball tournaments and my private baseball league for which I still have the statistics — somewhere.
Gone is the bedroom in which I first donned Little League and youth soccer uniforms, fell in love with music and admitted to liking girls.
Gone is the first house my parents ever owned. A $27,500 symbol of the American dream, I cannot overstate the significance of what the purchase of that house must have meant to a proud homemaker and former shoemaker—two British immigrants—12 years after moving to the United States.
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| The front yard remains largely intact, although the rubber tree is much larger than when I was a kid. |
It didn’t matter then that the house was in the flight path of LAX, with engine noise so loud I first thought I would never figure out how to fall asleep at night. It didn’t matter then that our neighborhood was bordered by the airport, industrial buildings and cleared areas where other houses once stood, effectively separating Manchester Square from the rest of Westchester and creating a residential island literally on the wrong side of the railroad tracks, closer to gritty Inglewood than our community namesake.
Today those factors appear to have contributed to my house’s disappearance and the eventual eradication of an entire neighborhood. LAX has long cast a menacing shadow over the area, and now it seems the neighborhood will give way to what will someday be a Ground Transportation Center (GTC) — a spot to drop off or pick up airport passengers (a proposed people mover would shuttle people to and from the airport), provide parking for some private vehicles, and stage all taxis, shuttle vans and limousines serving the airport.
Sounds lovely.
Neighborhood residents reportedly rejected the receipt of soundproofing in favor of becoming part of the LAX Voluntary Residential Acquisition and Relocation Program, clearing the way for a $485 million program to purchase properties and begin demolishing or moving residences. The airport’s expansion plan and idea for the GTC is devised in part from increased security concerns stemming from 9/11 and a desire to move private vehicle access and curb-front functions away from the main terminal area.
It seems my house and neighborhood have fallen prey to progress and, in some way, are a casualty of an unconventional cold war.
Perhaps it is a blessing. The last time I visited the old neighborhood, it was already nearly unrecognizable. Many of the houses on neighboring blocks had been replaced by low-income apartment buildings, and our bright yellow house with white trim had been transformed into a drab, gray dwelling with bars on the windows. The building that stood before me then had definitely been my house, but it clearly was not the same one that had been my home.
Now it is simply gone.
All is not lost, however. Later that day, my wife and I were among the 115,300 people who attended the Dodgers vs. Red Sox spring training game at the Los Angeles Coliseum. On a day when I discovered I could no longer go home again, the Dodgers returned to play a single game on an unconventional field it had called home for four seasons when the team moved to Los Angeles from Brooklyn in 1958.
The announced attendance was a world record for a crowd witnessing a baseball game. The night was a glorious tribute to a team and city celebrating 50 years together, and raised more than $1 million for cancer research through Think Cure, the Dodgers’ official charity and nonprofit organization.
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| The view from row 88 was exceptional. So was the sense of community. |
Several former Dodgers returned to be acknowledged before and during the game, and broadcaster Vin Scully, the team’s indelible link between Brooklyn and L.A., was honored with a permanent plaque at the Peristyle end of the Coliseum. If you don’t think Los Angeles cares about its teams or has a hint of sentimentality, you should have felt the warmth in the cool night air throughout the game and heard the ovations Scully received before and after his acceptance speech.
The Dodgers lost the game, but that was not really the point. It was a spectacle to be sure, but it also was about a greater sense of community and nostalgia — the very things that had failed me earlier in the day. For one game, the Dodgers saw fit to reconstruct the quirky dimensions of an ill-fitting baseball field in a stadium it had departed in 1962, and the community responded with an outpouring of love for the team and support for a worthy cause. The effect was validation, even though none was really necessary.
I suppose if there is a business or industry lesson to be learned, it is not to hold onto a past that no longer resonates with the present. Don’t be overly nostalgic about buildings, equipment or procedures that are well past their prime, no longer contribute to the profitability of the business or interfere with the positive experience of customers.
Conversely, listen to your customers. Watch your customers. Figure out what resonates with them and expand on those themes. Implement equipment and procedures that enhance those experiences.
I took my dear wife to Los Angeles to share a piece of my past and hopefully give her a little insight into what makes me tick. But in doing so, I may have learned the more valuable lesson — no matter how difficult it is to accept.
Tony Jones 
