JANET GAYNOR - SUNNY SIDE UP - 1929

2010  THE YEAR OF VALLEY ADVENTURES

One of the most successful actors of her era, Janet Gaynor was among the few who made an effective transition from silent movies to the talkies.
The Archives of The Museum of the San Fernando Valley has just acquired the sheet music for Ms. Gaynor's 1929 hit film entitled "Sunny Side Up." The film co-starred actor Charles Farrell. (click on image to enlarge - refer to image 1948) Janet Gaynor, her husband and son lived at the South-West corner of Devonshire and Reseda Boulevard.

Sunny Side Up - sheet music 1929 

gift to the Archives of The Museum of the San Fernando Valley from Gary Fredburg 2010.

The San Fernando Valley Entertainment Industry Library is part of the Museum's on-going effort to celebrate and document our Valley's amazing creative heritage. If you have books, music or artifacts that you wish to share today and with future generations related to the Entertainment Industry please call 1 (818) 347-9665.  Donations to your Museum are tax deductible.

RECIPIES FROM FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF NORTH HOLLYWOOD AND MORE

2010 -- The Year of Valley History
Ralph Brown - First Baptist Church of North Hollywood - Photo for the Archives of The Museum of the San Fernando Valley by Gerald Fecht - Feb. 2010 - Ralph Brown has been playing the piano since his 3rd birthday.

As I was leaving from a short talk about The Museum today at the First Baptist Church of North Hollywood, Ms. Jan Fisher presented me a copy of the 70th Anniversary Church Family Cookbook. I don’t know about you, but just reading about Dan Doggett’s “Copper Penny Salad”, Harriet Oman’s “Double Layer Pumpkin Pie” or Jan’s “Zucchini Bread and Butter Pickes” make me think that maybe we should have just a culinary museum.
If the recipes weren’t enough, on pages 2 and 3, there are highlights of the church’s history.
The First Baptist Church of North Hollywood began as a “mission” church fostered by the First Baptist Church of Van Nuys. The fledging church held its first services in a store front location on Burbank Boulevard. 49 charter members of the church were led by the Mr. Howard Bigelow. As it grew the church moved to Duncan Hall on Magnolia Boulevard and from there in the famous El Portal Theater on Lankershim Boulevard. In 1929, the Rev. William Riddle became the pastor of the newly incorporated denomination.
At the height of the Great Depression, the First Baptist Church of North Hollywood purchased its first property at the corner of Otesego and Fair Streets.
In 1964 an ever growing congregation rejoiced with a handsome new sanctuary. Education buildings, offices, a fireside room and other additions came along. The Museum of the San Fernando Valley always tries to include the First Baptist Church of North Hollywood in our walking tours. Its unique architecture and the warmth of its pastor Rev. Mike Woodcock and welcoming congregation make the church an important San Fernando Valley landmark.

WINTER TIME THOUGHTS OF VALLY SWIMMING POOLS

2009 - The Year of Valley History
North Hollywood Municipal Plunge date unknown. Historic postcard given to The Museum of the San Fernando Valley by Gary Fredburg - December 2009
The venerable Municipal Swimming Pool was dedicated on June 15th, 1929 at the north end of North Hollywood Park. Coming, as it did, at the onset of the Great Depression, this pool served as one of the few ways that Valley kids could learn to swim or find relief from searing summer heat. As the 8th public swimming pool established by the Los Angeles Playground and Recreation Commission, it represented a dramatic change in the accessibility of ordinary people to swimming facilities. Less than two decades before, most swimming pools like colleges in America existed as private facilities for the privileged.
Other pools in Reseda, Sun Valley and Griffith Park, that had been funded prior to the Depression, were built until about 1931.

With the end of World War II and a population explosion in the San Fernando Valley, a resurgence of park pools joined home swimming pool construction. From the late '60s until the introduction of the polio vaccine, use of public pools in Los Angeles County lost popularity.

Click on this image of the North Hollywood Municipal Plunge, and image a young high school boy by the name of Alan Ladd working as a summer lifeguard here. Or ask the older members of your family who grew up in the Valley, if they can remember the actor Andy Divine's Crystal Plunge just north of Van Nuys High School on Kester - or their adventures at Pop's Willow Lake.

The North Hollywood Pool is located:
5301 Tujunga Avenue North Hollywood

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THANKS CAMPO DE CAHUENGA

Special thanks from the Museum Community to the leaders and members of the Friends of Campo de Cahuenga Memorial Society for protecting Southern California's most important historical site. We salute Deuk Perrin and his courageous board for making sure that the integrity of the place where America's Manifest Destiny come to completion is not compromised.
THANKS CAMPO DE CAHUENGA!
Memorial Day 1929 - Gift to The Museum of the San Fernando Valley by Gary Fredburg 2008
Mrs. Armitage Forbes, founder of the Friends of Campo de Cahuenga Memorial Association, was also the woman who began the American custom of laying wreaths of flowers on the ocean in memory of those who died at sea defending our nation. Mrs. Forbes' vision of a California that cherishes its history continues in 2009 through the Memorial Association she helped to create.

Mrs. Armitage Forbes 1929 - Photo in the collection of The Museum of the San Fernando Valley - Gift of Gary Fredburg 2008.