1959: Business Is Booming

A look back at Lemon Grove, 52 years ago this week.

Mall of Fame: Construction of flagship stores at College Grove Shopping Center, the first regional shopping mall in San Diego County, got under way. The formerly hilly, 70-acre site at College Avenue and Broadway (today, state Route 94) was leveled eight months earlier when more than a million cubic yards of dirt were removed. The $14 million project was owned by L.A. financier Michael Birnkrant and built by M.H. Golden Construction and L.E. Dixon Construction.

A 5,000-car parking lot, 650,000 square feet of retail space, outdoor escalators, electric carillon, movie theater, nondenominational chapel, air-conditioning throughout, sidewalks, lighting and park-like “comfort zones” made the center a magnet for nearly 200 contractors whose bids were analyzed in Seattle by John Graham & Co., the project architects and engineers.

More than 80 percent of the center was leased at the start of construction. Flagship stores were Walker Scott and J.C. Penney, both building stores twice as large as their San Diego counterparts. Other stores—most now a distant memory and their wares on the vintage list—included J.J. Newberry, Woolworth's, Safeway, Leed's Shoes, Copper Penny Restaurants, Bond Clothes, Lawton-Schiller Jewelers and more. Ultimately there were 90 stores and jobs for 1,500 people. 

College Grove was renamed Marketplace at the Grove in 1985 and renamed College Grove Center in 1998. The famous Neon Majorette (built 1947) struts her four-story stuff over the center. Her fascinating history is a tale for another day. 

In the mid-1950s as suburbs mushroomed, car ownership and freeways escalated—thus, the shopping mall and its love-hate relationship with increasingly abandoned downtowns. For more on area shopping malls, see Richard F. Pourade's outstanding series, The History of San Diego.

New School in Town: The Lemon Grove School Board approved application to the state for $123,500 to build Lemon Grove's eighth and final school, Mount Vernon Elementary. The funds would augment $176,000 in projected bond monies to build a 15,000-square-foot facility on a district-owned site on Mt. Vernon Street. Superintendent Byron Netzley said there would be no additional cost to local taxpayers. At the time, children in the neighborhood were bused to San Altos School. Netzley projected population growth to 35,000 residents and 5,000 school children.

“Eight new classrooms would alleviate overcrowding,” he said.

Chamber Dreams: The Lemon Grove Chamber of Commerce unveiled a plan to move to new, $45-per-month offices at 7350 Broadway (near Lido's), hire a part-time manager at $150 a month and up the budget from $3,000 to $7,981. The chamber raised and lost $14,000 to help incorporate Lemon Grove in 1958, leaving a $2,500 deficit.

Chamber member George Scott of Walker Scott fame said he'd pay the shortfall. Harry Griffen of Helix Water fame said he'd chair Broadway improvements and cleanup during 1959. Chamber president Bill Parker vowed to raise membership from 159 to 300.

The meeting, held at the popular watering hole Michael's Pub, featured entertainment by Bob Turnbull (Drag Strip Riot 1956), son of Drs. Amorita Treganza and Robert Turnbull III, and a budding film and TV actor. He, Frank Jamison and Bob Hensley performed a satire of Western movies. Hensley, alive and well today, composed more than 100 songs, among them, Just a Little Bit Crazy, Old Friend, and I'd Rather Be in Texas (find him on MySpace). After a successful movie, theatre and TV career, Turnbull became the “preacher of Waikiki” and today leads Turnbull Ministries in Indian Wells. No word on Jamison's career.

Kodak Moment: In his Picture Talk column, Bob Vaught, owner of Lemon Grove Camera, 7848 Broadway, advised that the new, miniature Kodak Pony 35mm camera was “a great traveling companion.” It used the once superb 135 Kodacolor film at 36 images per roll for both prints and slides.  

“The colors sparkle, the detail is so sharp,” enthused Vaught.  

Today, Eastman Kodak, founded in 1892, has plummeted as a worldwide household name and faces bankruptcy. On Jan. 10, 2012, Kodak sued Apple and HTC for copyright infringement of its digital camera patents.

Auto Insurers Strike Back: So goes California, so goes the nation. State insurance companies already had uninsured motorist coverage in place at $5,000 to $10,000 for bodily injury and $1,000 for property damage. They were joined by 532 companies seeking to make the California law national. They had clout, commanding 79 percent of the auto insurance market. Beyond the uninsured, the companies sought to strip licenses from the owners and operators of uninsured vehicles, and establish chemical tests for intoxication, no-fix traffic tickets, a point system for offenders and stringent rules for young drivers.  

Polio at Bay: Since the advent of Dr. Jonas Salk's vaccine in 1955, polio cases dropped in 1958 to just 12 countywide, two of them in Lemon Grove. With a warm, damp spring approaching—the season when polio cases formerly soared—doctors urged those who hadn't gotten the vaccine to begin the series of inoculations as soon as possible. Young men, and especially young fathers, ages 19 to 29, were especially at risk and urged to seek inoculation.

He'll Always Have Paris: Plumbing contractor Al Robertson, Dayton Drive, lost his airline ticket to Madrid when his pickup truck was broken into and the contents of the glove box stolen. Though his pocket was picked in Tijuana and his baggage stolen in Hong Kong, the world traveler said the last time he saw Paris all was well.  

“They didn't steal anything,” said Robertson. But then what Parisian would be caught dead or alive doing something as jejune as pocket picking? Please.  

In that earlier, trusting time, people announced their travels to the newspapers and took off with nary a backward glance. Now, such information would go viral and pillage and plunder on the home front would be your reward.