Rodger Young Village was a

public housing Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, def ...

project, established to provide temporary housing for veterans returning to the

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...

area following the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The village was named for

Rodger Wilton Young Rodger Wilton Young (April 28, 1918July 31, 1943) was a United States Army infantryman from Ohio during World War II. Born in the small town of Tiffin, Ohio, in 1918, Young suffered a sports injury in high school that led to his becoming nearl ...

, an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

infantry Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and marine i ...

man in the U.S. Army during

. He was killed on the island of

New Georgia New Georgia, with an area of , is the largest of the islands in Western Province, Solomon Islands, and the 200th-largest island in the world. Geography New Georgia island is located in the New Georgia Group, an archipelago including most of ...

while helping his

platoon A platoon is a military unit typically composed of two or more squads, sections, or patrols. Platoon organization varies depending on the country and the branch, but a platoon can be composed of 50 people, although specific platoons may range ...

withdraw under enemy fire. For his actions, he posthumously received the United States' highest military decoration, the

Medal of Honor The Medal of Honor (MOH) is the United States Armed Forces' highest military decoration and is awarded to recognize American soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, guardians and coast guardsmen who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor. ...

History

Built on the site of Griffith Park Aerodrome, in

Griffith Park Griffith Park is a large municipal park at the eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains, in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The park includes popular attractions such as the Los Angeles Zoo, the Autry Museum of the Ameri ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, the Village consisted of 750

Quonset hut A Quonset hut is a lightweight prefabricated structure of corrugated galvanized steel having a semi cylindrical cross-section. The design was developed in the United States, based on the Nissen hut introduced by the British during World War I ...

s, temporary buildings made of corrugated steel, which were intended to house 1,500 families. At peak residence, over 5,000 persons lived there.Cuff, Dana (2000)
''The Provisional City: Los Angeles Stories of Architecture and Urbanism''
pp. 186-202. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 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

, was one of several such projects under the control of the Los Angeles City Housing Authority. Veterans and their families were able to rent living space at reasonable rates, while waiting for the post-war housing "boom" to counter the post-war housing "crunch." Other veterans' housing projects used military barracks and trailers, as did a settlement in Burbank which provided travel trailers to house some of the Japanese and Japanese Americans who had been taken from their Southern California homes and sent to

internment camps Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without Criminal charge, charges or Indictment, intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects ...

in other parts of the country. Image:Rodger Young Village 2.jpg, Life at the Village 1948 Image:Rodger Young Village 3.jpg, Life in the Village 1948

Living conditions

Nearly all residents were young families with children (including many

war bride War brides are women who married military personnel from other countries in times of war or during military occupations, a practice that occurred in great frequency during World War I and World War II. Among the largest and best documented examp ...

s). 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 An icebox (also called a cold closet) is a compact non-mechanical refrigerator which was a common early-twentieth-century kitchen appliance before the development of safely powered refrigeration devices. Before the development of electric refrig ...

(not a refrigerator), 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

Helms Bakery The Helms Bakery on the border of Los Angeles and Culver City, California, was a notable industrial bakery of Southern California that operated from 1931 to 1969. The buildings have now been adapted for reuse as retail shops, restaurants, and fur ...

trucks and

Fuller Brush The Fuller Brush Company sells branded and private label products for personal care as well as commercial and household cleaning. It was founded in 1906 by Alfred Fuller. Consolidated Foods, now Sara Lee Corporation, acquired Fuller Brush in 19 ...

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 booth A telephone booth, telephone kiosk, telephone call box, telephone box or public call box is a tiny structure furnished with a payphone and designed for a telephone user's convenience; usually the user steps into the booth and closes the booth ...

s 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 ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...

racial segregation Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against hum ...

, as next-hut neighbors went to dine together. 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, the Aerodrome was not reopened; instead, the Griffith Park Zoo (now the

Los Angeles Zoo The Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens is a zoo founded in 1966 and located in Los Angeles, California. The city of Los Angeles owns the entire zoo, its land and facilities, and the animals. Animal care, grounds maintenance, construction, ed ...

) relocated, taking over most of the land which had been occupied by RYV. The remaining portion is now covered by the interchange linking

Interstate Highway 5 Interstate 5 (I-5) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific coast of the contiguous U.S. from Mexico to Canada. It travels through the states of Californi ...

(the

Golden State Freeway Interstate 5 (I-5) is a major north–south route of the Interstate Highway System in the United States, stretching from the Mexican border at the San Ysidro crossing to the Canadian border near Blaine, Washington. The segment of I-5 in ...

) to State Route 134 (the

Ventura Freeway The Ventura Freeway is a freeway in southern California, United States, running from the Santa Barbara/Ventura county line to Pasadena in Los Angeles County. It is the principal east-west route (designated north-south) through Ventura County a ...

). No trace remains of Rodger Young Village.

References

External links

Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles Photograph Collection map of Rodger Young Village

Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles Photograph Collection Photo of Merl Horn and Mr. Householder at Rodger Young Village

{{coord missing, Los Angeles County, California History of Los Angeles Public housing in Los Angeles Demolished buildings and structures in Los Angeles Buildings and structures demolished in 1954