This is the least despairing of my latest suburban despair photo expedition. This time I was in Stanton, which is a small, boring, violent chunk of North Orange County. Stanton evokes for me, because it looks the way Costa Mesa did when I was a child in the 1970s: strip malls, asphalt, and piles of improbable small businesses.
Tag: suburbandecay
More suburban bleak: Abandoned car dealership on Harbor Blvd
THIS IS COSTA MESA, MAN
for rent
The Sunken City of San Pedro
When they said that California would fall into the sea, they weren’t kidding! Well, at least that was the case of San Pedro, California. In 1929 a sizeable section of land in the southern tip of San Pedro began to unexplainably slip into the sea. The 600 block of Paseo Del Mar began moving seaward in 1929 and continued to slip until the mid 1930s. Movement was measured as high as 11 inches a day. Due to quick action, all but two of the houses on the seaward side of the street were moved before toppling into the sea. The eastern section of Point Fermin Park was lost and the entire area is very unstable, yet not moving at the present time. Geologists have termed this phenomenon as a “slump” and this area has been featured in many geological studies and books. This geological mystery also occurs about 4 or 5 miles up the coast from this spot at Portuguese Bend in Rancho Palos Verdes. The Portuguese Bend Slide Area is still moving and slipping into the sea. Palos Verdes Drive South, the main road through the area, has to be refurbished continuously and frequently as it is constantly being displaced by the movement. This area is closed by chain link fencing, but may still be viewed at the south end of Pacific Avenue or the east end of Pt. Fermin Park at Paso Del Mar and Gaffey Street. — http://www.laokay.com/MiscSanPedro.htm
San Pedro’s Sunken City – Flickr Photoset
via this post on blogging.la, which also has a fascinating link to a shipwreck site in Palos Verdes.
Shipwrecks and sunken cities right here in Southern California! Neato!
This town is our town, this town is so glamorous.
Bet you’d live here if you could and be one of us.
Continue reading “This town is our town, this town is so glamorous.”
Get back in the wagon, kids, we’re going to Farrell’s
About 30% of my childhood was spent riding around in shitty beat-up station wagons going from one parking lot to another in a yellowish haze of smog. I got to relive a bit of that today because the nearby brushfires have once again turned everything yellow and a bit toxic, and I found a craptastic Chrysler Reliant K “woody” wagon in the Borders parking lot. It’s similar to the one I shot in Santa Ana before. Something about the way that smoky light hit the veneering and the frayed upholstery and the dirty glass caused me to have a Central Orange County Proustian Experience.
The rest of the shots are in this Flickr set.