Van Nuys built Camaros for decades before becoming a shopping centre site
For almost 45 years a General Motors plant in Van Nuys turned out 6.3 million cars, from Impalas to Camaros and Pontiac Firebirds. Smog-reduction rules and a shrinking market closed it in 1992. The site is now a shopping centre, in the most populous neighbourhood of the San Fernando Valley.
The town was a land speculation from the start. Investors headed by Hobart Johnstone Whitley, with Harry Chandler among them, formed the Suburban Homes Company and in 1909 bought 48,000 acres of valley farmland for 2.5 million dollars and drew up plans for roads and several towns. Van Nuys, founded in 1911, took its name from developer Isaac Newton Van Nuys, a rancher of Dutch descent. Being the first new stop on the Pacific Electric red car line helped early lot sales, and by 1917 buyers were being brought out on day trips to inspect five-acre farms.
Water decided its future. Once the Los Angeles Aqueduct was finished, the town was annexed by the city on May 22, 1915, which gave it the supply needed to grow. In 1932 an Art Deco Valley Municipal Building went up, turning Van Nuys into the valley's satellite civic centre; it is now a Historic-Cultural Monument.
Industry followed. GM ran Van Nuys Assembly from December 1947 until August 1992, and in 1989 announced that Camaro and Firebird production would leave for Quebec. The Plant shopping centre, with a 16-screen cinema, opened on the site in 1999. Sound City Studios records here, and parts of The Terminator were shot in the neighbourhood.
Its boundaries have been contested. In 1991 a councilman reassigned a 45-block area to Sherman Oaks after residents produced old deeds using that name, and in 2009 more districts were allowed to join wealthier neighbours to lift property values, a move one council member linked to racism. The 2000 census counted 136,443 people in 8.99 square miles, with a young median age of 28. About 60.5 percent were Hispanic, and nearly half were born abroad, most often in Mexico or El Salvador. Roughly three in four homes were rented.
Source: Van Nuys
