Westchester, Los Angeles - History

History

Westchester began the 20th century as an agricultural area, growing a wide variety of crops in the dry, farming-friendly climate. The rapid development of the aerospace industry near Mines Field (as LAX was then known), the move of then Loyola University to the area in 1928, and population growth in Los Angeles as a whole, created a demand for housing in the area. Westchester hosted the cross country part of the eventing equestrian event for the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

In the late 1930s, real estate magnate Fritz Burns developed a tract of inexpensive prefabricated single-family homes on the site of a former hog farm at the intersection of Manchester and Sepulveda Boulevards. This community, dubbed "Westchester", grew by leaps and bounds as the aerospace industry boomed in World War II and afterward. A Los Angeles Times article in 1989 described the development as "a raw suburb", "created willy-nilly in the 1940s".

The area was predominantly residential. When the area had 30,000 residents, it was still lacking a police station, fire station, or hospital. It lacked a barber shop even by 1949.

Howard Hughes, the famous aviator, movie director, and tool company owner, operated a large manufacturing plant in northern Westchester in the area now known as Playa Vista. Hughes Airport (IATA: CVR), a private airport, was part of the manufacturing plant. The street named Runway Road is laid out in the approximate location of the former Hughes Airport runway.

The Hughes facilities were commonly called "Hughes's Culver City" facilities, even though this area has never been part of the City of Culver City. This appellation continues today in any number of publications that discuss Howard Hughes himself, or his companies. The Hughes facilities were owned by Hughes Tool Company, operated by Hughes Aircraft, a company that specialized in building aviation navigation and communication systems, and the profits went to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Hughes's nearly spruce-free "Spruce Goose" wood-bodied transport airplane was built in the Hughes facilities. The plane was disassembled into major components in 1947, transported to Long Beach on then-rural roads, and reassembled. Howard Hughes himself flew the H4 for little over one mile (1.6 km), but the plane was never flown again.

The 1960s saw the introduction of airliners that could make trans-Pacific flights without refueling, causing a massive increase in air traffic at LAX. While Westchester residents successfully blocked a northward expansion of the airport, the increase in noise from jet takeoffs greatly decreased the desirability of the residential areas adjoining LAX. In response, the city of Los Angeles began a longstanding program of purchasing houses from noise-weary homeowners; as a result, a number of streets just north of the airport have been decommissioned, and the homes along those streets have either been demolished or moved to other locations. The 18-hole Westchester golf course became a 15-hole course. As a result of a 2007 Los Angeles World Airport (LAWA) proposal to move the North runway into Westchester, local opposition to LAX expansion (first proposed in the late 1990s) rose to fever pitch. In February 2010, a NASA panel found that the North runway was safe and should stay as it is. That same month, LAWA broke ground on a $1.5 billion expansion of the Bradley International Terminal.

As part of the 1960s expansion and modernization of LAX, the now famous landmark "Jet Age" style Theme Building opened. This iconic building has itself been modernized and is the location of Encounter Restaurant.

In the late 1990s, Otis College of Art and Design, with approximately 1,000 full-time and 3,000 part-time students, moved to Westchester from its previous location near downtown Los Angeles. What is now named the Kathleen Ahmanson Hall was designed by architect Eliot Noyes in 1963 to house an IBM research center. This well-known local landmark, a seven story, 115,000-square-foot (10,700 m2) building, has a distinctive "punch card" window design. The two story Galef Fine Arts Center, designed by Frederick Fisher Architects, opened on the campus in 2001. The complex geometry and corrugated metal forms contrast with the "punch card" vocabulary of Ahmanson Hall. Together, these buildings comprise the Elaine and Bram Goldsmith Campus. Ironically, the Otis building has Westinghouse brand elevators.

With Loyola Marymount University and Otis only blocks from one another, Westchester has undergone a shift away from defense/aviation related industries (which have declined significantly since the end of the Cold War) and has become a college town. In 2004, a Graduate School of Pepperdine University relocated to the north-east quadrant of Westchester. The private college/university students, paying tuition typically well in excess of $30,000 per year, are a huge boon to the local economy. Adding living expenses to tuition, merchants gladly count the $45,000-$55,000 per student, per year, dropped into the local economy.

During the beginning of the fall 2008 semester, Westchester residents became more concerned with the off-campus parties hosted by Loyola Marymount University students. Los Angeles-based KNBC 4 interviewed approximately 12 Westchester homeowners over their concerns with LMU. The piece aired on Friday, September 5, 2008. It was met with criticism by LMU students because KNBC did not interview a student in the piece.