Downey Residents Move Forward on Saving the City’s History

In the last 10 years, residents in Downey, California have taken a more grassroots approach to preserve historic places that are or were being threatened with demolition within the city walls and matter to residents.

Cities continue to struggle with what to do with their historical properties within their communities. During difficult economic times, cities like Downey, have to make decisions on saving or demolishing historic places while hearing concerned residents in the community.

The question of saving or demolishing places are continuing conversations in the city, which has not only seen its share of historic places and had historical events, but deep preservation efforts by the community to save places that are facing demolition.

Both the city and residents have been met with challenges on saving historic places and maintaining them for their historical value.

Several historic places in the city are currently seeing issues with preservation efforts by the community and that includes the NASA site, Rives Mansion, Casa de Parley Johnson House and The Avenue.

The city has some of America’s greatest achievements such as the Apollo space and space shuttle program were both birthed here. Downey even shares this great achievement on its city emblem, by having a space shuttle fly across the city.

Downey is home to a lot of aviation history; the Vultee Aircraft plant created jobs and played a crucial role in making airplanes for World War II. The property has taken different shapes throughout the 70 years of aviation in the community. Several major aviation companies such as North American Aviation, North American Rockwell, Rockwell International and Boeing developed planes and aircraft. It is where the components for the Apollo capsules and space shuttles were built when the plant received major NASA contracts.

Downey’s Rockwell NASA site

The home of where the Apollo capsules and shuttles were built is now rubble as the city makes way for a new retail development called The Promenade.

In its recent years, before being demolished, the buildings on the property were turned into Downey Studios, a movie studio that helped keep movies in California and revenue for the city.

The one building that remains on the site is the Kaufmann wing and the Rotunda. The city along with the Aerospace Legacy Foundation and the Downey Historical Society made efforts to save this building in particular because of its historic value for what happened there and the architect who designed it is the famous Gordon Kaufmann who worked on the Hoover Dam.

Downey Mayor Mario Guerra said the city knows that it’s a historic site and are planning on reusing the one building that remains.

“It is a historical building and we will respect it and we are working with a developer on that it’s going to be really cool and beautiful. There will be offices and some retail in there,” Guerra said.

Residents like George Redfox, who is the head of the Downey Conservancy, are upset to see the city knocking down such historic buildings to make room for retail, which he feels the city has plenty to begin with.

He loved Rockwell International, the site of where airplanes and Apollo and Space Shuttle components were built.

“Even to this day, when I drive by there it’s hard for me to look at it. It just kills me driving by there and seeing the dirt…That probably was my favorite place just because of what happened there and I went through those building before they tore them down,” he said.

Now that the buildings have been demolished, Redfox can’t help, but to think of the engineers who worked there and built space shuttle and planes.

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal there was little to no celebration when the city tore down the buildings to make way for the new retail center.

The city built the Columbia Memorial Space Center and opened its doors to the community in 2009 on a portion of the NASA property to preserve space history of the city and build a memorial to those lost on the Columbia Space Shuttle.

But the CMSC is not the only thing that will preserve Downey’s contributions to the space program.

According Guerra, when The Promenade, goes into the old NASA site, there will be historical elements on the site where historical events took place. In the walking ways in the pedestrian village of the Promenade they will have landmarks and show people what piece of history happened at that particular location.

“The history of mankind changed there from the space shuttles to the Apollo capsules,” Guerra said.

The city also has the handprints and signatures of some of the astronauts because when they came back from their missions, they would come back to Downey to thank the workers there for building it.

Currently, the concrete handprints and signatures are located on the second floor of the CMSC. The most famous one that visitors can see is Commander Eugene (Gene) Cernan, who was the last man on the moon during the Apollo 17 mission.

“I value our history and love our history and all it entails so I love bragging about it. Nobody else has that kind of history that we have here,” Guerra said.

Redfox disagrees with what they are doing with the property at the site.

“They should at least have preserved the building 290, that’s the one that said Downey Studios on the outside of it. That’s where they built the command module component and they built the space shuttle components in there and that was a super historic site,” he said.

He also believes that would have been a good site for the mock up space shuttle that the city currently has sitting outside under a plastic tent. Redfox feels the city should have done more to get a place like the Smithsonian involved with the mock-up and create a museum in the building 290 and even possibly get the Space Shuttle Endeavour to be placed in the building instead of at the California Science Center.

“They had a good facility that actually had the element of history with it because it was all built there. That would have been the coolest thing ever to go inside of a building where they built all this stuff and then see the Endeavour,” he said.

“I think it would have been cool to walk around and look at that space shuttle and be in a place where so much of that history was built and all that stuff happened. So I really think they (the city) dropped the ball on that one,” Redfox said.

According to Guerra, the Space Shuttle mock-up is dusty, but others have a different opinion.

Redfox said he went inside the white tent where the Space Shuttle mock-up is being housed about six months back and it was not in good shape.

“It (the tent) had leaked it, it had rained and this was probably around the last rainy season and was at least six months ago, and it had rained and the water had come in through the plastic roof or whatever and leaked all over it and it smelled like that woodsy kind of rotting smell and had all these fans blowing up on it,” he said.

He is disappointed in the condition of the shuttle and with the city on preserving it.

“This is just typical of how of they (the city) treat the history of the city right here. I don’t expect anything more from these guys because that is how they do it,” Redfox said.

Larry Latimer, vice president of the Aerospace Legacy Foundation and the Downey Historical Society, agrees with Redfox about the city’s management of the CMSC and The Promenade.

Latimer recalls when the city council was excited about the opportunities for the CMSC but now seeing news articles about the management issues have him concerned about the future of the center. He also feels that preservation issues are not priority for the city.

“One of my biggest gripes with the city is that the Public Arts Funds are being given to other groups and I believe a certain amount of money should be allocated for preservation of historical places and support efforts,” he said.

He is confident in the city in the long run and believes the CMSC center has lots of potential.

The NASA site is not alone with several other preservation issues facing historic places in the city.

The Avenue

The Avenue movie theater, built in 1922, sits vacant in the heart of downtown on Downey Avenue. In 2009, residents put together a Save the Avenue campaign, as residents would like to see the theater restored and reopened as a theater venue for showing old movies or live performances.

The city owns the property and bought it with housing money.

After the campaign lost steam for a couple years, residents in the last few weeks, have restarted the movement on the Downey Conservancy’s Facebook group’s page to restart the petition and campaign to ‘Save the Avenue’. The petition has 727 signatures from residents and those who would like to see The Avenue come back to life.

Fond memories of going to The Avenue movie theater in Downey are just a few of the things that Downey resident Malia Phillips recalls about growing up there.

She has lived in Downey for her entire life of 32 years.

While she has not been active in the historical preservation of specific places in Downey, she finds value in preserving places in Downey that have had significant importance for the city.

“It makes it (the city) more interesting. Otherwise we would have a boring city with not a lot going on. It makes it interesting for people who are visiting and when you have friends who come visit you have places to show them,” she said.

Phillips believes that the city is not doing enough to help save and restore places in Downey.

“I think there are places like The Avenue movie theater, that are sitting empty and could be refurbished and being used. I think they try, I know like with the Bob’s Big Boy they helped to get that going and the McDonald’s that are open now,” Phillips said.

Historical preservation for Phillips means that we are preserving our history like a legacy to tell the children in the next generation and the world that something important or interesting happened in Downey.

Phillips is one of those residents who are not happy about the new shopping center being built on the land where the Apollo capsule was built.

“I don’t think we need another shopping mall, so it’s kind of disappointing. I am glad to see they are doing something with the property cause I really hate see buildings sit empty and wasted space like that…That space could probably be used differently and to better serve the community. I really don’t think we need more shopping in Downey,” she said.

She follows several Facebook groups that talk saving parts of the city such as The Downey Conservancy group. While she doesn’t participate in conversations online about historical preservation, she does take what she sees in the groups and has conversations with people about it.

Having personal memories of places in Downey has often been the starting point for saving a place because of the influence of the personal memory it has on someone.

Phillips also feels that saving places in the community has a lot to do with the personal connection a person has with the place.

“It has a lot to do with their personal lives and what they choose to want to save and choose to want to restore and what they don’t care about,” Phillips said.

For her, it’s her personal memory of The Avenue.

“We used to go there all the time when I was a kid, cheap movies and it was an adventure. We didn’t have a bigger movie theater until I was much older so that is where we went to the movies most of the time unless you wanted to go to a different city,” she said.

“We have a very interesting history and would just like to see it get preserved,” she said.

According to Guerra, Downey had plans for The Avenue and the city bought it with housing money. There will need to be a housing element at the property since it was purchased with housing money.

“If anyone wants to buy it, we will gladly sell it to them but the city is not in a position to run theaters. People refer to the one in Fullerton and so forth, whether they are money losers from that perspective, not that it has to be. We subsidize our Downey theatre only a couple hundred yards away. We have no problem subsidizing something, when it’s being used,” Guerra said.

The city added a mural of West Side Story on the front of The Avenue to beautify it for the downtown area and it will stay that way until someone buys The Avenue or city finds something to do with it.

“If anyone wants to buy it, we are willing to sell it and work with any developer that wants to sustain it and restore it. The restoration cost and I don’t care what anyone says are prohibitive from a city to do to make it sustainable. But the city people said use if for show old movies and so forth that’s not going to happen from a city perspective, the business model is not there for a municipality to do that, especially when we have a great (movie) theater, a couple hundred yards away from a city stand point,” Guerra said.

Redfox would love to see it restored and brought back as some type of live entertainment mixed with vintage movies showing.

“I just think it’s worth saving, it would bring people downtown and people would go there and frequent the business around there which would be good for the whole downtown economy. It’s a draw for people to go downtown. We already have enough other malls and stuff around here that suck the people away from downtown and we need something to bring them back and I think that is something that could bring them back,” he said.

He thinks that it would be cool to have a venue in the downtown area, since it’s the only theatre left there and would probably compliment the larger Downey Theatre.

“Something downtown would be great, I think that The Avenue would be a catalyst to bring people back downtown, get it restored and a really vintage marquee on there, it would draw people downtown,” Redfox said.

He remembers standing outside The Avenue under the façade marquee and people driving began to slow down as they pass because it looked like something was happening.

Casa de Parley Johnson House

A National Historic Registered property, the Casa de Parley Johnson House is currently facing a preservation issue within the property. According to the The LA Conservancy website, the LA Conservancy holds facade easement on the exterior of the residence and walled garden area. The LA Conservancy sent a certified letter to the Assistance League of Downey in July notifying them that the old carriage house doors need to be placed back on the carriage house. The carriage house doors were taken off years ago and replaced with new doors.

Luckily, the Assistance League still has the original carriage doors that sit on the side of the property. Florence Towers, president of the league, recognizes that they have received the letter and has to get measurements of the doors and see what shape they are in.

She did inform the LA Conservancy by letter that she would need to find the doors on the property and get them checked out after the Assistance League’s fundraiser.

Towers did locate the doors that are sitting on the side of the property. The doors are intact, but appear to have termite damage and are in need of restoration before they are placed back on the carriage house.

The LA Conservancy was contacted for comment on the carriage house doors and was not able to comment before publication.

According to Towers, the Assistance League was given the home when Gypsy Johnson passed away in 1986.

“We have a caretaker that lives on the property and takes care of the home,” she said.

Well-known architect, Roland E. Coate, designed the Monterey-style home for Parley Johnson, who was a prominent local citrus farmer according to the LA Conservancy.

“Every room is kind of unique, it has different tiles on the walls and on the floors different patterns. We still have the original stove and it works,” Towers said.

Her favorite part of the house is the breakfast nook.

Towers is working on taking photos and measurements of the carriage house doors to send to the LA Conservancy.

Though many may not know about a lot of preservation efforts going on in Downey, those directly involved with the historical parts of the city know a lot about the current environment in Downey to save historical parts.

James C. Rives Mansion

The Rives Mansion is a home that once belonged to James C. Rives, who was a pioneer in Downey and was a Los Angeles Superior Court Judge. The mansion was built in 1913, still stands today on Paramount Boulevard and Third Street. The property has seen several owners since Rives and his family lived there.

Possibly one of the most controversial issues with the Rives Mansion is that this 100-year-old home is being transformed into the Rives Mansion Steakhouse and Wine Gardens. Ralph Verdugo, owner of the restaurant is currently leasing the property with the possible hopes to buy it.

For years, the Rives Mansion sat on the corner looking as if it had no more life in it as the home started to look old and vacant.

Verdugo has been a resident of Downey for more than 25 years and has restored three historic properties around the Los Angeles area said that this project he has really required him to put some elbow grease into it.

He said he was fascinated by the mansion since he was a kid, when he normally starts a new project he likes to walk around the property for about a week with no one around him giving him their opinions and having his pad and pencil to take down notes.  After a few days he will get a lift so that he can get on top and take a look at everything.

When he rented the lift and went up there he discovered that the house is entirely made out of redwood and none of it was rotting. What was rotting was the nails and paint, so they scrapped off paint, cleaned it up and secured it.

“I have always said it’s a lot more expensive to restore than to build new. A lot more expensive to restore especially a historical property, we did it but we had a lot of challenges,” Verdugo said.

For Verdugo, the biggest challenge has been convincing the community that he was not like the past residents. He respects each one of the past owners, but he feels like he has taken time and love and passion to do things right.

“To restore it, if we removed a piece of redwood we put a piece of redwood back. There were no shortcuts. It would have been a lot cheaper for me to buy new hinges, buy new doorknobs, and buy new doors, new windows,” he said.

He said that once some of the residents started coming by and giving them a little tour of what he had done they started believing in him.

One of the challenges he and engineers faced was restoring the old water tower that was leaning in the back portion of the property. It is no longer leaning anymore after it took three engineers, three mappers and a whole crew to restore it. The tower was leaning about eight inches, according to Verdugo.

“When they got close to one and a half inch, all you could hear in the tower were crumbling (sounds) that was the worst feeling you could get in your stomach, it was oh God,” he said.

They had placed a camera inside the tower by the joints and had a guy monitoring it on the outside because they didn’t want to put anyone inside in case something happens.

They stopped at half an inch. When they re-measured it, was only off by a quarter of an inch now.

With so many years of the tower leaning from the rain and wood takes shape so they had to wet the wood back up and reframed the wood so it doesn’t lean anymore. According to Verdugo, It’s secure and now it’s nice and even.

The three other historic properties that he has restored include was Richard Nixon’s first law office, the Globe Theater and the first Bank of America in the world is now a brewery in Los Angeles.

“One thing I say is you can have the best contractor in the whole wide world building whatever you are building but it takes a special kind of contractor and a special kind of person to guide and lead in a restoration on a historic project,” he said.

He finds that most contractors just want to knock it down, but for him you can’t do that. He would make the contractors pull each original screw from the hinge and place it in a bag until it was ready to go back up.

“Guys would think that I was a little too tedious with doing things like that,” Verdugo said.

Some of the great finds included finding casters that were dated February 25, 1890.

“We actually took the pocket doors a part very carefully and removed the casters. They were in great condition all we needed to do was put a little more grease on them and done,” he said.

The windows of the mansion would not open and now both the top and the bottom portion of the windows open. He said that the head building and safety inspector for the city had come to the mansion and gave him a trick on how to take the windows a part.

He had a bid of more than $25,000 for the windows to be done. With a little help from the inspector showing the workers how to do it, they were able to do the windows for a fraction of that price but they did them right.

“We used the same casters we just restored them, new ropes and windows we took all the paint off down to the wood. It was a challenge and time consuming, a lot of thousands of man hours have gone into this project, just dealing with the details,” Verdugo said.

They had to do the original floors, four times because of the wood being so old and was absorbing everything they put on it so fast. He said that they had a joke when doing the floors saying that the house was thirsty and to give it some more water (sealer). It took a lot of work to get it the way Verdugo wanted it but he said when you see the floors especially at in nighttime, they look like wine and it’s amazing and incredible.

Verdugo and his team of contractors are still not done with the restoration of the property and preparations for the restaurant. He said that he has about 15 people at a time working on parts of the house and will probably have about 25 people working on the outside at one time, every single day for six days a week.

More challenges face Verdugo in the coming months, he has to do a environmental impact report that is mandated by the state and well as put in 31 water tanks in the ground to help recycle the rain water.

Verdugo said that when it’s a historic property you never know how much the restoration is going to cost. “I don’t care how tough or how good you are in your estimating, you don’t know,” he said.

“Everyone that had put their hands on it was giving it a coat over everything, coat after coat after coat of paint. The roof right now has 15 layers of roofing, 15, geez, take it off and put a new one on you know but nobody wanted to spend the money,” Verdugo said.

According to Verdugo, there are some things you can take on and things you don’t, but they do their best to do it right.

The original-projected opening date was in November, but now it is unknown when the restaurant will officially open but Verdugo hopes it’s soon.

The estimated cost of the project so far is more than $300,000 that has been spent with most of that is thousands of labor hours, according to Verdugo.

“The guys are not cheap, not the guys that know how to do this kind of work. They make double what a regular construction worker makes, they have patience and experience but we are not done with it no where near it,” he said.

Verdugo thinks that 99.9 percent of the residents are for the restaurant, but there is one person that doesn’t want a restaurant in the mansion that he knows of.

Some of the emails the community writes to him really keeps him going and have shared how thankful they are for his work.

Included in some of the discoveries while restoring the mansion the work crew have found old marbles, plates, croquet set, spoons, a United States Army spoon, 1847 silver spoon, a sheriff badge.

One of the most interesting finds that will be on display at the mansion is the writings one the walls of the carriage house by James C Rives found under drywall during the restoration project. The writings will be covered with plexiglass so visitors will be able to see the original writings.

Verdugo took pictures before the restoration started and they will be on display in each room. So when guests come to visit they will be able see what it looked like before and the process they went through to restore it.

He feels that the restoration and the restaurant will have a positive impact on the community from what he can already gather from the emails he has received. He believes that it will bring people from other areas around Downey, out of the state and even the country.

After the restaurant is opened and successful, Verdugo plans on having community events and tours for people, especially for children and schools.

“So they can have a respect and admiration for old things. And I think one of the things we don’t have too much is places like this,” he said.

Eventually he hopes to be able to give back to the community through fundraiser events as well.

Guerra is excited to see the progress that Verdugo has been making on the mansion.

“He is taking it apart piece by piece and restoring it piece by piece. It’s almost done the restoration. He saved the water tower,” Guerra said.

“That place (Rives Mansion) is an amazing tribute to the past. That is going to open up as a restaurant so people are going to be able to see the beauty of restoring that. That is one of our most famous buildings and we love that,” Guerra said.

Not all residents were happy at first about the mansion becoming a steakhouse.

When Redfox first heard about the Rives Mansion restaurant, he wasn’t too happy about it, but now that he has seen them working on it and what they have done with the place he likes it.

“From what I understand, I have had friends of mine from the conservancy that have been into the house I guess they have really restored it nicely on the inside, they have kept it like it should,” he said.

He feels like it’s going to be a good thing and is looking forward to going there for a steak it opens.

“I am thinking well, if we can go in there and check out this piece of history and he keeps it the way it should be, that’s totally great with me because I am going to be able to go there,” Redfox said.

In the last 20 years, the city has seen two other historic places in Downey become threatened with demolition.

Bob’s Big Boy Broiler (formerly Johnie’s Broiler)

Johnie’s Broiler (Harvey’s), now known to the community as Bob’s Big Boy Broiler was illegally partially bulldozed on a Sunday in January 2007 without the knowledge of the city.

Mayor Mario Guerra recalls when Johnie’s Broiler was illegally demolished two days before his first council meeting.

He said it was the largest crowd that we ever had at city council meeting a few days after the partially being demolished.

“We wanted to make sure we prosecuted anyone that broke the law for starters and we did and number two we figured out how we could rebuild it and what could we do to bring that back to historical elements,” Guerra said.

According to Guerra, the city had to find the right player for the possible rebuild and restoration of the diner. The city partnered with Jim Louder, who is the current owner and Bob’s Big Boy to bring the diner back to life to its original Googie-style architecture.

“A lot of the historical elements like the flooring is still the same but it took a lot of effort and time to make sure we did it, looking back at the original blueprints and looking at it,” he said.

“You also have to have the finances to do it and we had some redevelopment money that we could put into place. We also looked at it as what kind of jobs it could create by having it rebuilt. There was a tax revenue increment and jobs increment, so there is a couple of benefits to our city on top of that,” Guerra said.

With efforts by the residents and city, they were able to save the diner and bring it back to life through the efforts of campaigns, residents attending city council meetings and partnerships with LA Conservancy.

Johnie’s Broiler has been featured in many films, music videos and commercials throughout the years. Some of the best known are “License to Drive,” “Can’t Hardly Wait,” “What’s Love Got to do with it.” As well as music videos by Bob Dylan’s “Things Have Changed,” Madonna’s “What it feels like for a girl,” and Sean Kingston’s “Beautiful Girls” to name a few.

So not only is the diner a favorite for locals’, millions of people without even knowing it have seen the diner.

World’s Oldest Operating McDonald’s in Downey

Another well-known historic site in the city is the world’s oldest operating McDonald’s.

In 1994, after the Northridge Earthquake that rocked the Southern California area, the world’s oldest operating McDonald’s became a hot point of preservation within the community and world. Built in 1953, with its famous Googie-style architecture, the McDonald’s had its share of earthquake damage so much that it had to close its windows to the community.

It was listed on the National Trust for Historic Preservations 11 most endangered historic places in 1994.

Through the efforts of residents, the city council and Los Angeles Conservancy getting involved, “Save Speedee” campaign it took two years to get this historic place to reopen in 1996.

The McDonald’s now has a museum that takes residents and tourists through the history of the restaurant. The McDonald’s is the only one in the world that still does the apple pies the old way, deep-fried.

Future naming of historic places in the community

Future projects for preservation include naming some of the city’s historic places.

The city council took action on an agenda item on Tuesday, Oct. 22 that would have the city be able to name some of the areas within the city like “Orange Estates.”

“We are looking at signage designation of historical elements or branding between itself. Everybody knows what Orange Estates was and other parts of the city we could do the same thing. We are always looking at preserving our history and identifying our history,” Guerra said.

What can residents do

From the city perspective, residents can help the city identify places that need to be preserved or looked into for historical purposes.

“One of the ways, is that Downey has so many aerospace workers here and living here. There is a treasure in peoples’ garages not only here, but passed down to another generation outside the city of the Downey that people don’t realize is there. Check out what you have and get in touch with us we would love to preserve it and show it off in the Columbia that’s one easy way because people don’t realize what the treasures they have,” Guerra said.

People can also help the city find partners, any restoration or preservation, it also has to be financially sustainable according to Guerra.

“That is always a concern or a challenge and that’s what we have to work on,” Guerra said.

When it comes to the city marketing some of the historic places it’s yes and no answer. They plan on promoting places like the Rives Mansion and will look at others.

The cost of saving and restoring historical properties is a challenge for most cities.

Currently, the Downey Conservancy is working with a grant writer to help secure funding for projects.

Redfox knows that there are a lot of grants out there that the city doesn’t know about that takes care of the history and culture of the city.

“They don’t ever apply for them, they don’t know about them,” he said.

There is a program called Main Street USA that helps restore main streets in the United States. Redfox said that he has sent the paperwork more than once to the city council and they have never used any of it.

“Of course, because they do it on their own and they really don’t know what they are doing in my opinion, they just don’t have that expertise, they don’t have expertise in running cultural sites in the city and cultural buildings and stuff like that,” Redfox said.

A perfect example for not knowing how to run cultural facilities in the city is the space center according to Redfox.

He is a yearlong pass holder to the center and every time he goes there it’s empty. After a couple times visiting his kids no longer want to go there because there is nothing to do there.

Groups like Downey Historical Society, Downey Conservancy and the Aerospace Legacy Foundation continue to educate community through events and meetings about historic places and history of Downey. The residents of the city have made an effort to preserve historic properties they still have a long way to go when they face challenges with the city in saving the community’s history.

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