Vons 1956 photos Broadway-Crenshaw LA

Uh...California.

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dcgrocery
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Vons 1956 photos Broadway-Crenshaw LA

Post by dcgrocery »

Here are some photos I scanned to share. What is on this site now? This might be a dumb question, but, did the windmill portion of the sign actually ever spin?

http://s11.photobucket.com/albums/a175/ ... t=vons.jpg

http://s11.photobucket.com/albums/a175/ ... =vons2.jpg

http://s11.photobucket.com/albums/a175/ ... enshaw.jpg
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Post by Steve Landry »

wow..............great stuff.................looks like the same architecture as the old May Company building on Wilshire and Fairfax.

:)
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Post by runchadrun »

Santa Barbara Avenue is now Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. The Broadway is now a Walmart and the exterior has been remarkably preserved. Even the Walmart sign uses a moderne font.

The Vons store is gone, there's now an indoor mall that spans MLK that uses that space. Immediately to the west of the current span is the Magic Johnson movie theater and that might take the space of the bank and Savon. The LA Marathon goes under that span at around mile 8 and it's a nice bit of shade for those of us who run it every year.

The windmill is probably an ad for Van de Kamp's Bakery whose products were sold in virtually every store in LA until they went under around 1990 or so. I don't remember that style of sign so I don't know if the blades spun.
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Post by runchadrun »

Also this snippet from David's Vons history page at http://www.groceteria.com/stores/vons.html:
In 1948 the [Von der Ahe] brothers opened their most ambitious store at the corner of Santa Barbara and Crenshaw. Thanks to the introduction of pre-packaged perishables, they were able to offer some of the first self-service produce, meat and Deli departments. This milestone marked the advent of the first true supermarkets as we know them today.
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Dave
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Post by Dave »

Great pictures! I'm also curious about the windmill. Was that a Von's thing? I assume they were of Dutch extraction with a name like Von der Ahe. It seems weird otherwise to have a great moderne building next to another moderne building shaped like a steamship and to slap a windmill on the side.
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Post by Groceteria »

Dave wrote:Great pictures! I'm also curious about the windmill. Was that a Von's thing?
Actually, the windmill was most likely related to Van de Kamps, as stated above. It may have been an ad, but a more likely guess is that there was a Van de Kamps restaurant/bakery adjacent. Most of them had windmill motifs.

The photos, BTW, are from a great 1950 book on shopping center design by Geoffrey Baker and Bruno Ferraro. I have it too, as well as the one they did on motels. If you find one on eBay or wherever, it will be well worth the purchase price.
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Post by dcgrocery »

Hi David. Yes, my edition of the book is dated 1956. I didn't realize you already captured some of the images until I went to your Von's section to learn more about the chain. I wonder if there is much difference in the 1950 vs. 1956 version of the book. I also highly recommend it. Gary
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Post by Steve Landry »

Van De Kamps logo, name and th erights to use it were purchased by Ralphs. The name is part of their private label bakery monikers.
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Post by runchadrun »

Steve Landry wrote:Van De Kamps logo, name and th erights to use it were purchased by Ralphs. The name is part of their private label bakery monikers.
Actually the rights were first purchased by Alpha Beta in VDK's bankruptcy sale and then it became the property of Ralphs in the Yucaipa buyout.

The landmark Van de Kamp's bakery building in Atwater Village is being converted to a sattelite campus of the Los Angeles Community College District. It was saved from the wrecking ball and the site becoming a home improvement store and a Burger King. Many moons ago Huell Howser did a show from the bakery when it was still operating and it was fascinating to see how it worked. (Huell hosts a couple of shows about LA and California on the local PBS station. His shows are my guilty pleasure.)
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Post by runchadrun »

Here is a picture from the California State Library's collection with a VDK windmill advertising the bakery on the corner of a store.

http://helios.library.ca.gov/soca/laci/1992-0597.jpg
View of Fitzsimmons grocery store, shows produce stacked on veranda; Van de Kamp's Bakery on corner. Los Angeles; [ca. 1930].
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Post by javelin »

On the panoramic picture, there's a large Woolworth's store next to the Broadway. And Security First National Bank, did they become Security Pacific?

Great pictures!
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Post by runchadrun »

javelin wrote: And Security First National Bank, did they become Security Pacific?
Yes. And they were gobbled up by Bank of America in 1992.
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Re: Vons 1956 photos Broadway-Crenshaw LA

Post by boxboy19 »

On an associated note, I remember seeing the VDK on various stores in the southland during my youth, and lived near the VDK bakery in Atwater Village. The smell of fresh baked goods, mostly bread, are a fond remembrance.

The small promotional windmill, if one can call it that, on the side of the Vons building at the beginning of this thread, is representational of the others I've seen on other stores; I remember them to have been lit and moving (when they were operational and not broken, which they usually were).
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