Rodger Young Village

Rodger Young Village was a

Rodger Wilton Young, an American infantryman in the U.S. Army during World War II. He was killed on the island of New Georgia while helping his platoon withdraw under enemy fire. For his actions, he posthumously received the United States' highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor

.

History

Built on the site of

Griffith Park Aerodrome, in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, the Village consisted of 750 Quonset huts, temporary buildings made of corrugated steel, which were intended to house 1,500 families. At peak residence, over 5,000 persons lived there.^[1]

Built in approximately two months (and over the objections of the Griffith family, who had donated the park to the city), the Village was dedicated on 27 April 1946 and closed in the mid-1950s. The Quonset camp met a desperate need for living space. Thousands of Californians had left the area for military duty. When these men and women returned from the war, they found that housing had been taken by the thousands who had come to work in plants producing war material.

As the veterans were discharged from the service, they found themselves with no place to live. Rodger Young Village, named for Private

internment camps

in other parts of the country.

Life at the Village 1948
Life in the Village 1948

Living conditions

Nearly all residents were young families with children (including many war brides). Each family had one half of a Quonset hut, built on concrete slab floors. Their living space consisted of two bedrooms, a bath, kitchen with icebox (not a refrigerator),^[1] and den. The few unmarried residents, and some married couples without children, had a bedroom to themselves but shared the remaining family area.

"RYV," as it was known, had a market, hardware store, milk and diaper delivery, drug store, theater and other amenities commonly found in small towns, and children enjoyed the adjacent Griffith Park and climbing the tower which still held the airport beacon. The

Fuller Brush

salesmen made the rounds, as they did in the other neighborhoods in the area. Residents planted lawns and gardens, and were encouraged to make their surroundings as homelike as possible.

Few families had telephones, relying instead on

phone booths

located about 100 feet apart. When a phone call would come, whoever was closest at the moment would answer, while the neighborhood children would run to see who the call was for, then pass the word to that person.

Rodger Young Village was, for a time, the most diverse community in Southern California, as veterans of all races and all branches of the military lived there. This caused problems in some nearby restaurants, which were practicing de facto racial segregation, as next-hut neighbors went to dine together.^[1] The influence of RYV residents helped end these practices in a number of establishments.

Current site use

After Rodger Young Village was razed in 1954,

State Route 134 (the Ventura Freeway

).

No trace remains of Rodger Young Village.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Cuff, Dana (2000). The Provisional City: Los Angeles Stories of Architecture and Urbanism, pp. 186-202. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
^ "Young, Baseline Tenants Moved". Valley Times. March 4, 1954.

External links

[cuff-1] Cuff, Dana (2000). The Provisional City: Los Angeles Stories of Architecture and Urbanism, pp. 186-202. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

[2] "Young, Baseline Tenants Moved". Valley Times. March 4, 1954.

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