Aliso Street, then and now

Thanks for your Nov. 6 article on the Brewery Art Colony. My 95-year-old mother, a native Angeleno, lived as a child across the street from Maier Brewing Co. on Aliso Street, a couple of miles from the Brewery Art Colony.

The year was 1917, and Catherine Sabella, then 7 years old, remembers it better than yesterday. Her father, Charles, had a barbershop across from the Brewery and next to Le Roux French Restaurant. Nearby, there were horse and mule traders. There was a saloon next to the Maier brewery, and their house was at the back of this property. For transportation, there was a red streetcar, along with a few cars and horse-drawn carriages.

When the Spanish flu broke out, my grandfather nursed the family, wife and four children with chicken soup and half a jigger of whiskey daily. He cleaned the house with formaldehyde, and all family members survived.

In 1918, when World War I ended, my mother remembers a victory parade in downtown L.A. My curiosity got the best of me and I drove down to find Aliso Street. At one point, it is a freeway onramp. Near Mission Road, it breaks up and is a dirty alley, while a couple of blocks away, it parallels the freeway and is next to a Los Angeles Police Department car storage. Very depressing. I told her to remember it as a child. I don’t want to take her there now. It would break her heart.

JOAN KERR

Torrance

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