Quote:
Originally Posted by gsjansen
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Quote:
Originally Posted by malumot
Story on the news about all the potholes after the deluge in December.
Which made me wonder....
Why aren't more streets paved in concrete? I don't think concrete has the pothole problems that asphalt does.
I recall (and many of the photos in the 124 pages of this thread will verify) that in the 1920, 30s, 40s.........a LOT of streets were paved with concrete. Many still are, for that matter. Shit lasts forever.
Even in dopey Oxnard, where I grew up, neighborhoods that were built in the 30s and 40s had concrete streets. But by the time my neighborhood was built (1960) it was all asphalt.
Anyone? Bueller?
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I know they exist in other places, but one of the many things that have always suggested old L.A. to me are whitish concrete streets with contrasting tar lines randomly covering cracks--something I must have seen in movies and on tv and lumped together with sun and palms and mountains in the background. Your photo above, gs, came up just as I was looking for a shot to illustrate what I mean. Presumably, malumot, asphalt is cheaper to install than concrete initially, but I doubt it could be more economical over the long term. (Maybe the asphalt purveyors have a stronger lobby than the concrete boys.) At some point in my L.A. perambulations, I discovered an interesting juncture of asphalt and concrete in Windsor Square:
Google Street View
Google Street View
West 4th Street, east from Lucerne toward Plymouth
Google Street View
West 5th Street, west from Plymouth toward Lucerne
An excerpt from the Windsor Square-Hancock Park Historical Society:
"The older part of the tract was bounded by Irving Blvd., Plymouth Blvd., Third Street and Wilshire Blvd. It had a linear street layout with wide streets, wide parkways, elaborate electoliers and trees for which $200,000 was expended. The ornamental light standards were erected with the trademark “WS” at the base. All streets were paved, utilities were underground, long term deed restrictions did not expire until 1965. $7,500 would get you a lot in Windsor Square.
"The area to the west of original Windsor Square, which includes Lucerne and Arden from Third to Fifth streets, was a different tract. This small tract was owned as of 1913 by the Wilshire Hills Land Corp.
"You can tell where the Wilshire Hills addition and the Windsor Square addition join. At the back lot lines behind Plymouth and Lucerne across 4th and 5th, you will notice that the street surface changes from concrete to asphalt which indicated that different developers laid out the streets. Also, the street lamps on the boulevards in the Wilshire Hills addition are stone, not metal, as in the original Windsor Square tract."
See also:
http://www.wshphs.org/windsor.html
The concrete streets of Windsor Square are pushing 100 years old--actually, I don't really know if any of them in this district have ever been replaced, but, from the looks of them here, perhaps not. I wonder how many times the asphalt streets in the later part of Windsor have been replaced in the past century?