lmharnisch: A Vintage Development

Dec. 2, 1907
Los Angeles

The Times real estate section features an apartment building at 2nd Street and Figueroa—no point in even going to look for it. But there’s also a large ad for the Erkenbrecher Syndicate’s Glendale Valley View Tract.

An unknown development today, the Glendale Valley View Tract is located west of Central Avenue in Glendale and north of Riverdale on what was once Judge Andrew Glassell’s vineyards. Part of it is apparently occupied by the Glendale Galleria, but some homes remain south of what is now Colorado Boulevard and was then 6th Street.

“Planted by Judge Glassell to vineyards some 30 years ago,” The Times said in 1907, “and kept by him in the highest possible state of cultivation, the Glassell vineyard of 146 acres was looked upon and pointed out as the ‘show place’ of the Glendale Valley.”

The homes are modest and the streets are narrow, probably not what Henry Huntington and L.C. Brand had in mind when they tried to acquire the property, “looking upon it as the choicest of subdivision property in that entire section,” The Times said.

The development offered five miles of oiled streets, curbs and sidewalks. The ads noted that the neighborhood was closer by streetcar than the West Adams District.

Here’s what the neighborhood looked like then: