When I first saw this photo of the Angels Flight funicular in its original location next to the Third Street Tunnel, I thought “How wonderfully atmospheric to ride Angels Flight amid swirling fog.” But then I read the caption which said that the photo was taken from at LA Times article titled “Blanket of Smog Obscures View of City from Top of Angels Flight.” And then I saw the photo’s date: 1958, when LA was reaching the peak of its smoggiest era. Thank goodness the city government eventually introduced very strict car pollution laws, otherwise I can’t imagine many people would be willing to live in such a thick soup of clogged air. Oh, and all those backyard incinerators didn’t help, either. I can’t believe we used to do that without even thinking much about it.
Andie P. said: “In the 1950s the Dept of Water & Power built several oil-fired power plants that belched out a lot of emissions. The one in Sun Valley poured out a lot of stuff that affected us when I lived in Burbank in the early 60s. The prevailing light winds out of the West would push the smog up against the foothills and it would stay there, especially when we had an inversion layer.”
Suzanne S said: “Los Angeles County banned backyard incinerators on October 1, 1957.”
The photo illustrates the time. The smog was awful, and today it is hard to understand what it was like for current residents. Not only did it impede visibility but it made it harder to breath and it burned the eyes. Who knows how many residents had sever lung and other health issues in that thick air era? At the time this photo was taken I was driving from the San Fernando Valley to USC every weekday. Even with my 1956 VW’s canvas sunroof closed and the windows shut there were times that my eyes were watering and burning so badly that I was having trouble seeing and had to pull off the freeway and park to give my eyes a chance to calm down. Hard to imagine today. Getting rid of the back yard incinerators where everyone burned all their trash, with the implementation of trash pickup at homes, and fewer smudge pots in the Valley as the orchards became housing developments all helped curb the smog. Later car emissions were regulated and eventually made a real difference. There is still room for improvements but policy makers and those of us who put them in their jobs have to remember the past and keep pushing for clean air. Today we focus on climate change, which is part of the struggle.
I lived in LA then, and the smog was lung searing.
I’ll have to keep thinking that photo is L.A. in the fog to enjoy it! I also don’t recall seeing a single Angel’s Flight photo before with it decorated, a bit, for Christmas!
I moved to Los Angeles in 1964. When I flew down for the job interview and we entered Los Angeles airspace, below us was a dark brown cloud stretching in all directions. I thought some disaster had occurred and assumed we’d have to be diverted to another airport. Instead, of course, they proceeded to drop down into this muck. I was actually a little panicked. Once off the plane, I looked up in the sky and it wasn’t that obvious. A typical ‘gray day’. After I got the job, my sister came down for a visit a few weeks later. We went downtown to ride Angels Flight, among other things, and I noticed standing on a street corner, that visibility was little more than a block.
Yeech! Sounds awful. I think I’d have thought twice about moving into all that brown air.
Yes, I remember in the mid-50s when I was in kindergarten and first grade being kept indoors during recess because the smog was too bad. And I lived on the (slightly) less smoggy West Side!
Your eyes burned, and it was hard to breathe.
As they say: all regulations are written in blood (and seared lung tissue).