History parks itself in Montrose Shopping Park

After being interviewed for, and subsequently reading, Robert

Chacon’s article, “Parking is at a premium in city,” Friday, I

thought I should clarify some history regarding the municipal parking

lots in Montrose.

The Montrose business district owes its origin to a 300-acre land

auction on Washington’s Birthday, Feb. 22, 1913. Almost immediately,

the first commercial building in the Montrose business district was

erected on the Southwest corner of Honolulu Avenue and Verdugo Road.

Although Montrose Avenue was intended to be the main street in the

new business district, which was constructed as the widest street in

Los Angeles County, by the early 1920s, a thriving business district

had grown up along the 2200 block of Honolulu Avenue, including a

hardware store, pharmacy, men’s clothing store, bank and cafe.

From the late 1920s through the 1940s, the Montrose business

district continued to expand westward along Honolulu Avenue,

eventually encompassing the 2300 and 2400 blocks of Honolulu Avenue,

foreshadowing today’s Montrose Shopping Park District. In the

mid-1950s, Montrose was at a crossroads as to its survival as a

viable business area. Along with the main subject of conversation at

the time, namely “annexation” of the foothill community of La

Crescenta by the city of Glendale, some influential interests within

and outside the city believed that Honolulu Avenue would serve the

community better as a primary transport route for heavy trucking and

automobile traffic between La Crescenta Avenue and Verdugo Road.

Such a move would have imperiled the Montrose business district.

The inspired idea, which saved what became today’s Montrose Shopping

Park, began with a letter to the local paper by La Canada architect

Steve Sander, who outlined his vision for an outdoor mall. In fits

and starts various attempts were made to improve the look and

commercial viability of the Montrose district with mixed results.

Then, a forward-looking group of Montrose businessmen set about the

task of framing a new retail district with a concept that would set

it apart from all other neighborhood business districts in the city.

Representing what would become the future Montrose Shopping Park

Assn., Montrose merchants Bob Cooke, Hugo Ebmeyer, Tom Jeffers,

Clifford Banks, Jarv Hymer, Frank Baird, and local newspaper

publisher, Don Carpenter, set off for Grand Junction, Colo., at their

own expense to see a new concept for its day, something called a

“shopping park” in which cars were allowed to drive down a charming

“Main Street” with limited parking in front of the stores and the

primary public parking was located directly behind the district.

It was a full eight years after Sander’s letter suggesting a

modern “old town” look for Montrose that the Glendale City Council

authorized preliminary plans under the Improvement Act of 1911 to

allow Montrose property owners to commit themselves to the project by

a required margin of 60%. The biggest hitch was that in order for the

new concept of a “shopping park” to work, businesses would need rear

entrances, and even if this hurdle could be overcome, their was very

little parking behind the existing business district.

Enter the Glendale Parking Commission, which helped by partnering

with Montrose merchants in facilitating additional off-street

parking. Incidentally, neither the money for the construction of the

Montrose Shopping Park, nor the accompanying parking facilities were

a gift from the city. The cost in 1966 for the project was $308,741

with property owners (assessed at a rate of $50 per foot of business

frontage) paying $146,741 of that total. The design for the new

“shopping park” was drawn up by Montrose architect Jack Simison, who

also oversaw the construction of the new “Montrose Shopping Park,”

which was completed in 1967. On Aug. 18, 1954, a petition was filed

in the office of the Glendale city clerk to form a “Parking District”

in Montrose. On Dec. 23 of that year, the City Council formally

adopted the proposed parking district and its boundaries were

established. The purpose of the new district was to acquire land and

construct parking improvements by assessing Montrose property owners.

On July 28, 1955, the Glendale City Council appointed Montrose

businessmen Hugo Ebmeyer Jr., Thomas Jeffers Jr. and William Nitzsche

as the first members of the Board of Parking Place Commissioners.

The initial assessment against Montrose property owners for land

acquisition for the parking lots serving Honolulu Avenue was $101,700

with the city of Glendale contributing an additional “temporary

transfer” of $38,573. By 1956, 168 off-street parking spaces had been

created within the district. From 1959 until 1970, various expansion

projects, property assessments and bonds brought additional land

acquisition for parking behind Honolulu Avenue businesses. Montrose

merchants of those early days, such as Faye Snow, Raiford Dorsey,

Peter Gelsinger, Clifford Banks, Tom Jeffers and others, were true

visionaries whose “three-block dream” has grown up into today’s

Montrose Shopping Park, which now encompasses approximately eleven

blocks and 200 businesses and is one of the five oldest business

improvement districts in America.

As a related side note, if you find this slice of history of

interest, you might also be interested to know that the Montrose

Shopping Park Assn. has partnered with the Historical Society of the

Crescenta Valley to dedicate the new “Century of Commerce Monument,”

which will memorialize the history of the Montrose business district

and list the names of 100 visionary businessmen from the district who

were, and are, the founders and business pioneers of Montrose’s first

century of commerce.

JOHN DRAYMAN

Montrose

EDITOR’S NOTE: Drayman is vice president of the Montrose Parking

Assn.