That Time When 6000 People Lived in Griffith Park

Not many locals know that L.A.’s treasured Griffith Park was once the site of a major public housing project. Well, let’s dial back the clock to post-WWII. Military vets are returning  home and a baby boom is just about to begin!

From 1946 to 1954, a bustling pop-up village, complete with Quonset-hut homes and gardens covered the acres of land that are now home to the L.A. Zoo and the Autry Museum of the American West.

Rodger Young Village (aka “RYV”) was built to temporarily house these veterans and their growing or soon-to-grow families. Thousands of Californians had left the state to serve in the military during the war years. When these men and women returned much of the existing housing was gone, the majority of it absorbed by defense workers employed in factories producing war materials. Of course, this was a problem throughout the nation, but especially here in Southern California.

So how to solve this temporary but “calamitous” housing shortage? Well, in December of 1945, the Federal Public Housing Authority advised Los Angeles that it was eligible to receive funding and surplus military huts and barracks for temporary domestic use. It was up to City and L.A. County officials to provide the land.

Against the wishes of the Griffith family (who had donated the massive Griffith Park to L.A. with strict provisos as to its usage), a 160-acre swath of flat parkland was chosen. Edged by the banks of the L.A. River and near the cities of Glendale, Burbank and Hollywood, it was deemed a perfect site for these military families to nest while awaiting housing tracts to be built throughout the Southland.

After much legal wrangling with the Griffiths, Rodger Young Village* was dedicated and opened on April 27, 1946. It took just two months to build. Housing consisted of 750 corrugated steel Quonset huts. These were delivered for assembly from Port Hueneme’s U.S. Navy base, near Ventura, at a cost of $1800 per unit. Once completed, RYV was said to be the largest VA housing project in the United States at the time. Nearly 13,000 applications were received for the 1500 family units projected to house nearly 6000 residents.

RYV residents were primarily young families with children. On May 23, 1946, Mr. and Mrs. James Parkhill became the first “Quonseteers” to move into the Village. James was a 31-year-old Army veteran who had served in Europe. Upon his discharge, he and his wife and two children, ages 1 and three, had been living in a trailer in the Hollywood Bowl parking lot for 5 months. (The Parkhill’s, along with son Jim and baby Janie, lived in Hut #1087 until January 1948, when they were able to move into a new San Fernando Valley tract house built in Sun Valley.)

So what was it like to live in the RYV Quonset huts? First, each hut was configured into two living units (duplexes). Each duplex had 2 bedrooms, one bath, a kitchen and small den or living room. The units rented for $35 a month, utilities included.

RYV featured a market, hardware store, drug store, post office, library, theater, churches, a K-6 school, milk and diaper delivery services. Helms trucks delivered baked goods and Fuller Brush salesmen went door-to-door selling brooms and cleaning supplies.

RYV functioned as a real neighborhood. Residents were encouraged to plant gardens and lawns for entertaining. There were playgrounds and clubs for the children. And of course there was all of Griffith Park. There were no phones in the huts, but telephone booths were  located throughout the compound. When the phone rang, whoever was closest would grab the call and send kids to pass the word. In addition, RYV was possibly the most racially diverse community in Southern California at the time, blending veterans/neighbors of all races, ethnicities, and military branches.

But by 1952, this temporary housing was deemed unnecessary by L.A. officials, who bowed to political pressure to close the Village. Federally-subsidized housing was viewed as “socialism” by the political right. Vet’s groups organized protests (Korean War veterans now among them) to save the housing. But in September of 1954, the Federal Public Housing Authority ordered the closing of Rodger Young Village. It was demolished before the end of the year. The post-war housing crunch was now replaced by the “construction boom” of cookie-cutter but affordable housing tracts throughout California and the nation.

Dial the clock ahead to present day. No trace remains of Rodger Young Village. Not even a memorial plaque. But when you wander the L.A. Zoo or visit the Autry Museum of the American West you are walking on its former grounds. The balance of RYV lies under the freeway interchange linking the 5 (Golden State Freeway) to the 134 (Ventura Freeway). Such is progress.

(*Private Rodger Wilton Young was an American infantryman who was killed in the line of duty while trying to save his platoon. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. His mother was the guest-of-honor at the Village’s dedication in 1946.)