A Walk Through Montrose in 1929 (Part 9)

This week we wrap up our time travel adventure. We’ve gone back to 1929 and we’re walking west down Honolulu Avenue. In our last episode, we encountered the dump of illegal moonshine in front of the sheriff’s station on Ocean View Boulevard. The alcohol was flowing down the gutter and pooling in the Ocean View/Honolulu Avenue intersection. The smell of the evaporating moonshine is overpowering.

We continue on the north side of the 2300 block of Honolulu, passing the
Valley Pharmacy on the corner (now Froyo Life frozen yogurt). In just a few steps, we encounter the Home Bakery at 2303 Honolulu (now WundaBar Pilates). Here the smell of alcohol is replaced with the enchanting aroma of fresh baked bread.

Walking further, we come to a vacant lot. Looking across the street are more vacant lots – very different than we see today. No banks, no restaurants … so different from 2024. It seems this is the end of the “business district” of Montrose. But the paved sidewalk continues west as do the streetlights, anticipating the businesses that will come in the future.

At 2331 Honolulu (now Casa Cordoba restaurant) we come to a private home.
The mailbox says Zwick on it and the name is familiar to us from history. Two little tow-headed boys are playing out in the front yard. That would be Charles and Leland Zwick. We remember that those two boys would soon play in the “Our Gang” comedies and, in WWII, would tragically die within a month of each other.

We keep walking past vacant lots where today there are businesses. On the
south side of Honolulu are a scattering of homes where today there are bank
buildings. Now that we are away from the buildings, we notice how quiet it is. No
freeway, no jets. We can hear the sound of hammering and sawing from the many construction projects, and faintly in the distance the “ding-ding” of the trolley.

Almost to Orangedale Avenue now. We spot a little market, the Honolulu
Grocery on the south side (about where the Trader Joes parking lot is), so we cross over to take a look. As we poke our head inside the wide doors of the market, we can hear people speaking in Italian and German and we smell the unmistakable aroma of wine.

Guess we’ll keep on walking west, past Sunset, past Rosemont. The sidewalk
finally peters out at Rosemont and we’re on dirt now. Still vacant lots and the
occasional house. Starting to see more oak trees now.

We come to a cluster of houses under beautiful oaks around a two-
story rock house. It’s Rockhaven Sanitarium! We can see several nicely dressed women sitting on lawn chairs in the sun. They must be patients of the new all-women sanitarium. Here the hammering and sawing sounds are loud as there’s a new sanitarium building being built behind the stone house.

Right by the street there are two men just beginning construction on a stone
wall. They are speaking to each other in Italian. We say hello and they introduce
themselves in thick accents as the Binetti brothers, stonemasons. They say they have built many rock walls and homes in the valley.

Continuing past Rockhaven Sanitarium, a sign welcomes us to Verdugo City.
On the northwest corner of Honolulu and La Crescenta is yet another pharmacy, this one a grand two-story with ornate brickwork. Verdugo City Drug Company the sign says, and another sign advertises a dance being held this weekend in the Fowler Auditorium above the pharmacy.

Looking across the street, there is a little gas station on the southwest corner. It
looks a movie is being filmed there! A cameraman and director are across the street and following the action as a convertible pulls wildly out of the gas station. We remember that a lot of early films were shot here in the valley.

We find ourselves fading back into the present. The brick pharmacy slowly
disappears and a modern Chevron gas station takes its place. We enjoyed our trip to 1929, but we’re glad to be back in the present.