Surfside | The Valley Village View

**“Slow cooking a brisket as Texas Barbecue!” — Stockton’s Top Chef, Ken Albala**

The View has correspondents all over, and this weekend we honor America with some snapshots of Life, As She Is Lived, Here, Now. Happy Independence Day from the View!

That beautiful shot of the Ben Franklin Bridge over the Delaware towards Camden’s fireworks, was taken by Bobbi Block — who also sent Philadelphia’s Fireworks Over the Delaware, Live From Penn’s Landing! VIDEO CLICK BELOW. Can’t you just inhale that thick, smoky, rusty, July on the Delaware Air? What a way to celebrate Independence!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bOlgcQSc4kHpO2dDqPxvMZeqx_oHYy2u/view?usp=drivesdk

Fancy a 20-year snooze? Fall under the enchantment of the Catskill Mountains, America’s magical forest, as depicted by Mr. Jocelyn:

CICADAS: You thought it was all over with the Cicadas? Nightlife is back in the swing — Kayre Morrison and Damon Kirsche and Dean Mora’s Orchestra brought LA’s Cicada Club throbbing back to life this weekend.

THE DESPERATE WATCH: C. Butterman, our man in Florida, witnesses the awful scene in Surfside this holiday weekend.

Meanwhile, in the middle of another landfill island, in the middle of another bay on another coast…View Chris Martin’s alluring and colorful back garden in Alameda.

A SHOT IN THE ARM for the U.S. state that ranks 50th in tourism: Larry Freedman!

“Bully! Bully!” After Medora, Larry winds up his Twister Tour of North Dakota at Jamestown!

CRUISING VALLEY VILLAGE: 1949

VV was developed by Bob Symonds beginning in 1947. The style he chose epitomized post-War America; a mix of LA’s homegrown Hollywood Regency, with a progressively popular Bauhaus element brought experimentally to the Valley by Jews fleeing fascism; while the third, and binding, element of the Valley Village style is Moderne, which was largely a culmination of the economies and miniaturizing of Wartime design, much of that work done locally at Lockheed. For better or worse, a Mid-Century Middle Class paradise for the automobile.

Cities back east have their bunting and their hansom cabs in the park, or Tall Ships in the Harbor, to help citizens celebrate the summeriest day of American yore. Seeing things like horses and ships, or hearing a town-crier’s bell, where they once were and suddenly are again, is part of our continuing theatre of living history. In California, nothing recalls “the Good Old Days of Summer” so much as a car parade of vintage roadsters, hipped-up, souped-up, dropped-down, cherried-out, taking over downtown and luring the local kids to (ahem) jump in each others’ back seats to take a ride. Well, wouldn’t you, if the cars looked like this?

The name of the chop shop is First Class, and I’ve never seen prettier low-riders in my life. These sleek cars are from the Mid-Century, late-‘Forties through the ‘Sixties, when our neighborhood was built. They so perfectly match Valley Village, and seem so at home on Magnolia, and so perfectly Doris Day-parked there, I figured it must be a commercial film-shoot. I looked around for the Art Director but there was no crew, nobody filming except the View. Still the First Class family must have carefully chosen this spot to show off their cars. The point is, these cars were made too look good cruising Magnolia Boulevard. And they still show it off to fine advantage — even if one or two of the booths are Covid-marked by “American Grafitti.”