Smoglandia: Quandary The smog we hate so much versus the cars we love so much
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Eighty years ago, the enchantment ended.Los Angeles, that magical realm of shimmering natural beauty, was befouled by smog — maybe forever.The mayor, Fletcher Bowron, told Angelenos in 1944 to lower their expectations.
“We can never go back to the old days where the air was clean and pure and sweet and scented with orange blossoms.”That was during World War II, when L.A.defense factories were chuffing fumes and smoke in the cause of victory.
The U.S.won the war against fascism; smog was winning the war against Los Angeles.Smoglandia is a four-part series on L.A.’s historic battle with smog.It took a lot to bestir Angelenos from their bungalows and Buicks, but their throats felt like sandpaper, and their chests hurt like the blazes.
L.A.’s sense of outrage was aroused.In the especially nasty autumn of 1954, women in June Cleaver dresses and gas masks protested outside the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.
Three-year-old Agatha Acker, in a cute gingham outfit and gas mask, brought along her doll, Betty Lou, also tricked out in a pretty dress, and a gas mask.In Highland Park, the Optimist Club was decidedly pessimistic.They showed up for their October 1954 luncheon in gas masks, and on the wall behind them hung a banner reading “Why wait till 1955? We might not even be alive.”Angelenos were moving away, and tourists were staying away.
A hundred years of perky boosterism were being obliterated by smog.Oh, L.A.had glimmers of whimsy to keep up our spirits.
Locals loved the story about the one-eyed New York man who had a special bloodshot glass eyeball made, so that when he came to L.A.on business, his fake eye matched his real one.
A husband-and-wife pair of actors marketed “authentic” canned smog.As the Technicolor label bragged, “This is the smog used by famous Hollywood stars!”Smog warriors did battle for L.A.
On Valentine’s Day 1953, a young L.A.County sup...