When we first arrived in Los Angeles from Britain many years ago, we were based in Marina Del Rey and our office was there as well. It was an ideal place for people who had left a small English village. The Marina has a similar feel if you don’t go outside its borders.
As our clients were mostly in the large financial sectors, we spent most of our face-to-face time in the commercial areas of the city, but it was not long before we heard about this other part — the Valley.
TV stations and radio programs were often speaking about this place and how conditions were there. It sounded slightly mysterious. But it was quite a long time before we ventured up across the hills on the 405 Freeway and saw the Valley spread out ahead.
In truth, the Valley is more like a plain, as it is quite large — it’s about 260 square miles — but its borders are often the subject of argument. For instance, is Glendale in the Valley? Pasadena certainly is not. How about Burbank?
I now have a branch of the family living in the Valley and on a recent visit, I went along to look at the Valley Relics Museum in Chatsworth. The founder and curator, Tommy Gelinas, told me that the boundaries are “Calabasas to the west and Glendale to the east; Sylmar to the north and Sherman Oaks to the south.”
Gelinas is a born and raised resident of the Valley, and he’s passionate about it and its cultural past; so much so that in 2000, he started to house his collection of Valley artifacts in a museum. He currently has 15,000 objects there, but that’s just a third of the entire hoard.
He owns and runs The Print Lab in North Hollywood, and much of his collection is there. Space is becoming a problem, as people keep giving him stuff and he rarely can refuse it.
The Valley Relics Museum is only open on Saturdays and when I recently arrived there an hour past opening time, there were already a lot of people crowding around the entrance, which is also a shop selling souvenirs and mementoes.
Located in an industrial strip in an unassuming part of Chatsworth, you could easily pass it if you were not looking for the number — 21630.
The museum consists of some smallish rooms and one large hangar type. In this area are signs and neon displays of famous businesses that would be familiar to all those who frequented this large sprawling area that everyone refers to as the Valley.
I liked the life-size sign of Manny, Moe and Jack that has always been the logo for the auto service center Pep Boys. This one is old, as Manny has his trademark “stogie” crammed into the corner of his mouth. Today’s more health-conscious version has the cigar removed.
I asked Gelinas my regular question of such collectors: What would he choose to save if there was a fire? He thought a moment and then said, “It’s a bit like asking a parent who is their favorite child — very unfair. But I’d have to say that it would be the sign for The White Horse Inn, and also the Palomino sign.”
The latter, he negotiated for years to acquire after the famous nightspot closed in 1995.
The White Horse Inn was a busy place located in Van Nuys, and the locals were sad when it closed its doors forever in 1997.
It will take time to get around this compact place if you have memories of the Valley and regret the changes that have happened. For an outsider, I was amazed at the number of things to look at and the history behind them.
“Trevor’s Travels (in Southern California)” is available from amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and other booksellers. You can reach Trevor Summons at trevorsummons@hotmail.com.
Valley Relics Museum
Where: 21630 Marilla St., Chatsworth
Hours: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays
Admission: Free; $10 per person for private guided tours (10 or more people). Donations accepted.
Information: 818-678-4934, valleyrelicsmuseum.org
