Verdugo Views: Flying high with Glendale’s own air terminal
The historic Grand Central Air Terminal, newly rehabbed and restored by the Walt Disney Co., will be the fabulous location of the Glendale Historical Society’s upcoming gala, “Come Fly With Us.”
The June 11 event celebrates the airport’s importance in aviation history, beginning with a small airstrip which opened in 1923.
MORE: Read previous columns from Katherine Yamada>>
The airstrip was a fascinating place for young boys, according to three locals who roamed the area in their youth. Their memories, printed in previous Verdugo Views columns, paint a picture of the airport in its infancy.
Ed Chandler lived on Allen Avenue in the late 1920s and, when the weather got hot, he and his friends headed for the stretch of river between Allen and Grandview Avenue.
They passed huge tracts of vineyards below Glenoaks Boulevard; the Waldron nursery at Allen and Glenoaks; the Joe Plosser Air School at Flower Street and Sonora Avenue and the huge Grand Central Market, also on Sonora. It had a miniature golf place on the roof, he recalled on Aug. 4, 2006.
Instead of crossing the airport runway, the boys often crept through the underground storm drains and came out at the river’s edge.
George Natsume, who grew up near the airport, recalled walking across San Fernando Road — then lined with huge eucalyptus trees — and the railroad tracks to get to the airport in the 1920s.
“It was just an airstrip for ‘barnstormers,’” he recalled on Jan. 20, 2006. On Sundays, a young man and a young girl known as “Suicide Slim” and “Reckless Rosie” did parachute jumps, giving the assembled crowd a thrill.
Eventually, the airstrip was sold, updated and renamed. The new Grand Central Air Terminal opened with great fanfare on Feb. 22, 1929.
That same year, 11-year-old Don McDonald, after discovering that the airport was just a bike ride away, viewed the launch of the third and final Slate dirigible. An excited crowd gathered for the much-publicized event, he recalled on Oct. 20, 2012, only to see the huge craft slowly rise and then sink back to earth due to a faulty hydrogen-intake valve.
McDonald also saw Amelia Earhart demonstrate an early type of helicopter. But his ultimate sighting was Charles Lindbergh, his hero since 1927 when Lindbergh flew solo across the Atlantic.
When he learned the flyer was coming to Grand Central in 1930, he was “beside myself with excitement,” he recalled on June 16, 2012.
McDonald got to the airport early, but a huge crowd had already gathered. After watching Lindbergh’s Lockheed Sirius land, McDonald ran into the new terminal to get a close-up look at his hero.
This was not the first time Lindbergh had been there. In July 1929, he had piloted the inaugural flight of a coast-to-coast service, the beginning of air service between New York and Los Angeles, with Glendale’s Grand Central as the actual terminus.
The last airplane took off in 1959. Later, the runway was demolished and the terminal became part of the Grand Central Business Centre. One of the first companies to move in was WED Enterprises, known today as Walt Disney Imagineering. The business park was later acquired by Disney, which began rehabbing the terminal in 2013, according to disneynow.com.
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Readers Write
More responses to the May 5 Verdugo Views column on Pike’s restaurants have arrived. An email from Carole Jouroyan: “Richard and I had our wedding reception in the Versailles Room at Pike’s Verdugo Oaks. At the time, the room was the most elegant in Glendale with its velvet drapes, chandeliers, tapestries, stage and dance floor.”
It was a luxurious and intimate setting for many local events and had a great buffet, she added.
“This was long before the establishment of the Hilton Hotel and current banquet halls. I never knew the history behind the restaurant until I read your article, so thank you,” she wrote.
Excerpts of a letter from Marcia Lindstrom, who has “such wonderful memories” of Pike’s Verdugo Oaks when it was owned by Mary and Jack Pike: “This was a very upscale restaurant. My husband and I made Pike’s our home away from home from the early 1960s until it was turned over to the sons.”
The couple found the ambiance, service and food wonderful.
“Pike’s is long gone, my husband passed away three years ago, but, Lindstrom wrote, “I’m still rockin’ along at age 90.”
Plus, she added, her heart still belongs to Pike’s Verdugo Oaks.
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KATHERINE YAMADA can be reached at katherineyamada@gmail.com or by mail at Verdugo Views, c/o News-Press, 202 W. First St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. Please include your name, address and phone number.
