Funny about that $27000 number. In 1973 that is how much my family’s three bedroom Torrance tract home sold for. LA real estate was slightly depressed at the time as the aerospace companies that were big employers in the area were cutting back as the Vietnam War was winding down. LA real estate prices went up dramatically in the mid-to-late seventies.
Torrance has some importance in the automotive world in two ways. Many racing teams were based there when I was a kid, and in the nineties both Honda and Toyota built huge corporate campuses there to be their US headquarters. A bit over twenty years later and Toyota is moving their US HQ to Plano, Texas to be closer to their plants. I think they’re expecting most of their employees to move, but they may be surprised at the number who decline the offer.
Yup. Toyota was a big presence there. And I remember near what would become Toyota headquarters there was McDonnell Douglas, Martin Marietta, the Mobil refinery which is now idled, and all the ancillary businesses that support the bigger ones.
When the economy was booming 10 or more years ago my dad would send me real estate flyers from the neighborhood. 3 bd 1200 sq ft houses built in the 50’s and 60’s–you know the ones–selling for $700K.
Whether you lease or buy negotiate hard on the price of the car! Don’t let the sales guy/gal get you into saying how much you want to pay per month. Watch out for add on fees. Best add in any such fees BEFORE starting negotiations.
Nobody can give you a sensible answer until you know the distance of the commute, will it be the only car in the family etc. The perception that what you drive reflects who you are is only one of the things that makes me know that I would never want to live in Southern California. The crowds, congestion, prices and heat are the others.
I see where this person is apparently being transferred again and that makes me think that Julie is a capable , intelligent employee. I would bet she could research her decision quite well all by herself.
I’m not being negative at all about LA. In fact I’m quite a fan of the LA & surrounding area. I’d enjoy to live there I think. But I had to share this story, reminded of by TSM’s story of his son always waiting in LA traffic.
A friend of mine invited me to come visit her at her apt in Redondo Beach, an LA beach community south of Santa Monica. At the time she was a potential romantic interest. I was all in favor of going for pleasant beach walks from her apt, maybe taking public transport over to the UCLA area and walking around there, stay out of the car in other words. Actually, I didn’t really care to go anywhere in particular. The only actual place I wanted to go was the LaBrea tar pits, but for some weird reason she wasn’t interested in going to see tar … lol … Anyway, she decided to take me to her favorite place in LA, somewhere on the beach further north, in her car. So we get on this road, Sunset Blvd I think, on a Saturday afternoon, and we wind slowly through stop and go traffic for miles, it eventually ends at the beach. To make matters worse, our eyes are bloodshot from looking directly into the sun all the way. But once there, no place to park. We go north. No parking available. South. No parking available. All of a sudden she lets out this demonic scream “I Hate This City!!!” … I reconsidered the romantic interest idea … lol … .
It’s not very hot in Southern California if you’re within ten miles or so of the ocean. Except when the Santa Ana winds blow and it is hot all over, but that’s not that frequent. Most of the country has hotter summers than coastal Southern California, not to mention far more humid. The local newspaper in Torrance is even named the Daily Breeze, after the pleasant ocean breezes that start in the afternoon and keep summer days very comfortable.
People are pretty much the same everywhere. The ordinary folks living in LA suburbs are no more interested in what car you drive than people anywhere else. They also don’t know any celebrities or much care what people are doing in Beverly Hills or Brentwood. The average commute time is about the same as in many other large urban areas. The LA most people have such negative ideas about bears little resemblance to reality.
Nor does the San Francisco of mythology, but at least in that case the myths are mostly pleasant. It really is a nice place to live, if you can afford it. Torrance is cheap in comparison, and it’s an above average LA suburb.
Ahh the Daily Breeze. I had forgotten about the paper route I had in 5th grade. It was an afternoon paper, so I would come home from school, fold up the papers, load the bags on the handlebars of the Schwinn and go to it. And one year of doing that every day, 7 days a week, was enough to make me never want to do it again. And somewhere here I have a clipping from the Daily Breeze 1987, my picture and a blurb about my accomplishments in some high school competition. Thanks for the memories.
@GeorgeSanJose it sounds like your friend wanted to take you to Venice beach. Horrendous traffic. Very fun place, but I prefer Redondo. I spent a lot of time there as a teen. I taught my girlfriend how to drive on those streets.
I’m from Minnesota so I know what cold is but we were there in February and I was cold all the time. It didn’t help that I was having sinus attacks. Lots of interesting places but everything seemed older without a lot of new construction going on.
@Bing My mother managed to live the first 21 years of her life in White Bear Lake before having enough of cold that will crack your skin and mosquitoes as big as your fist. She moved to LA and never looked back.
If you were near the coast the afternoon breeze coming in off the Pacific can really make you feel cold.
My only direct exposure to LA was during a layover on the way overseas in '71. It seemed okay, but in those days you could have buttered the air on bread. That was before the Clean Air and Water Act took effect.
My son has lived outside LA for a number of years now, and he loves it. When he comes back to the east coast to visit, he’s amazed at how dirty, dingy, and gray Boston is. You don’t notice it when you live there. I noticed it when I flew back from England in the '80s returning from a wekk-long business trip. The trip was in winter, and I was stunned at how dirty Boston is. Everything looked like a black & white movie, like all the color had been removed.
The upper Midwest would be nice to visit just to renew old memories, but there’s no way I’d go back in the winter. Those aren’t the memories I’d like to renew.
Sunset would take you to Santa Monica, unless you got of and went a little north. Then it would be Malibu. Venice beach is south of Santa Monica. I would never take the 405 to Sunset and drive west. The best way to get to Venice Beach or Santa Monica is to drive north on Sepulveda, turn left just north of LAX, then follow Lincoln north until you get there.
Venice Beach is just too weird for me. All the stores on the strand seem to be a tattoo parlor or sell drug paraphernalia. The regulars seem to be a bit unusual, too. Like the guy on skates with the electric guitar, rainbow colored hair, and the guitar amp on his back. Fortune tellers on blankets everywhere.
I don’t often go to Venice Beach, either. Some of the performers are good, but rude and aggressive. To be honest, I worry about pickpockets at crowded places like that
Have you ever eaten at Rose Cafe . . . it’s not on the boardwalk, though
Really good food, in my opinion. But not cheap, and it’s sometimes a few minutes wait
No, and I don’t travel to LA for business anymore. We used to eat in Manhattan Beach for the most part. We enjoyed Chicago for Ribs on Lincoln in Westchester, the Pizza parlor in downtown El Segundo, Cozy Mel’s in Manhattan Beach, Mamma D’s in MH on Highland, and Versailles on Sepulveda in MH. Houston’s on Rosecrans is a very good place for steaks and seafood if you really want to splurge.
"Sunset would take you to Santa Monica, unless you got of and went a little north. Then it would be Malibu. Venice beach is south of Santa Monica. I would never take the 405 to Sunset and drive west. The best way to get to Venice Beach or Santa Monica is to drive north on Sepulveda, turn left just north of LAX, then follow Lincoln north until you get there."
Does that remind anyone else of an SNL Californians sketch?