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Look at a map of California, or a decent-sized map of the United States.
Find Los Angeles. The little bump on the coastline just southwest of Los
Angeles (and north of Long Beach) is the Palos Verdes Peninsula. The peninsula’s
name originated with a 19th century Mexican land grant.
It means “green trees,” and possibly refers to forests that
existed at the time. Millions of years ago, the Peninsula was an island
like Catalina. The channel
between it and the mainland eventually silted up to form the Los Angeles
Basin.
In some ways Palos Verdes still is an island. On a clear day looking south from downtown Los Angeles, it rises from the flat “sea” of concrete and asphalt. “The Hill” physically isolates its ocean-side residents from the rest of Los Angeles (including television signals). It offers a milder climate, better air quality, and some of the best ocean views and coastline in California. But as in much of California, development has been relentlessly eroding much of what makes Palos Verdes special.
Housing tracts started proliferating in the 1960s and 1970s. Eager to
fill them were thousands of white professionals fleeing the congested
suburbs closer to Los Angeles, especially after the Watts riots of 1964.
My family moved in 1968. The houses— particularly those with ocean
views— were rather expensive. But they were still affordable for
what was then the normal, one-income family, although that one income
needed to be quite above average. Palos Verdes was a favored address for
engineers in the well-funded Cold War defense industry.
This population produced a largely homogeneous, politically
conservative, and rather snobbish community, perhaps reflecting the
Peninsula’s insular heritage. The 1977 Palos Verdes High School yearbook
shows 565 students in my class, of whom 96.5% were white, 3% were Asian
(Chinese, Japanese, or Korean heritage), and 0.5% (3 people) were
African-American. Today the percentage of Asians is much higher, as is
the requisite income. Soaring real estate prices long ago barred new
aerospace engineers and other lower-level professionals from the area;
even two such incomes aren’t enough today. But their managers might live
there, possibly alongside the engineers’ own aging parents.
The developers who first began converting the cattle ranches of Palos
Verdes into homes in the 1920s conceived planned communities that would
resemble towns along the Mediterranean coast. These developments would
offer seclusion from the congestion of Los Angeles to the sort of people
who enjoyed golf, polo, tennis, and country clubs (amenities all
included in the plan). Malaga Cove, on the northern coast of the
Peninsula, was the only community completed before the Depression of the
1930s put an end to the plan. Development that resumed in the 1950s
was the typical Southern California suburban sprawl.
Malaga Cove Plaza was the centerpiece of the Malaga Cove community.
Today it’s the civic center of Palos Verdes Estates, the oldest of the
four cities on the Peninsula. It’s built around the Spanish-style arcade
completed in 1930. In the center of the plaza is the Neptune Fountain, a
marble and plaster replica of a 16th century bronze fountain in Bologna,
Italy.
The plaza’s bougainvillea-covered bricks were one of my favorite
“stress tests” for photo labs when I used to shoot color
negative film. The bricks have an unusual color that’s noticeably
bluer than the typical “brick red.” A lab with well-trained,
conscientious printing operators will deliver prints that render it with
reasonable accuracy. A lab that relies entirely on automation
won’t. The color of these digital versions is correct, at least on
my monitor.
Thanks to deed restrictions on the land in the original Malaga Cove
development, the area retains the vision of a terraced Mediterranean
village in harmony with the landscape. Roofs must be red tile, and all
construction and landscaping requires official approval.
Palos Verdes Drive West is the scenic road along the coast, with a chain
of cliffs and coves (see the “Palos Verdes Travel Notes” link at the
bottom of this page). On a clear day you can pause to look at the ocean
and the mountains across Santa Monica Bay (the coast faces north for
about two kilometers past Malaga Cove Plaza, before turning west). In the spring,
red and yellow flowers line the hills on the inland side of the road.
Not surprisingly, the Malaga Cove development was named for an actual
cove (left; see the “Palos Verdes Travel Notes” link at the bottom of
this page for directions). Next along Palos Verdes Drive West is Bluff
Cove (right, and the first picture on this page), where favorable winds
attract model glider and radio-controlled airplane pilots.
A parking area off Palos Verdes Drive West provides access to another
scenic view of Bluff Cove (I took the first picture on this page there).
This is also where Paseo del Mar splits off from Palos Verdes Drive
West. Paseo del Mar runs close to the cliffs, past many large and
ostentatious houses, toward Lunada Bay. The cliff on the southern side
of Lunada Bay is Resort Point (left); the cliff at the northern side is
Rocky Point (right). (See the “Palos Verdes Travel Notes” link at the
bottom of this page for directions).
Trails, some quite steep and treacherous, lead down to the rocky shore
of the coves. The strip of sandy beaches stereotypical of Southern
California begins north of the Peninsula, in Torrance and Redondo Beach.
The coves offer good surfing, but local surfers are notoriously
unfriendly to anyone who intrudes on their turf.
The road continues into Rancho Palos Verdes and Point Vicente.
| Rancho Palos Verdes | Palos Verdes Travel Notes |
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