MID CITY NEWSPAPER GROUP | AUGUST 2015 | 15
CRAZY FOR CARS Today’s car shows hark back to North Park’s early roots
1950 Studebaker
1958 Pontiac Bonneville
Gary and Sylvia Wright proudly hold their People’s Choice Grand Trophy for ‘Ruby,’ a 1954 Chevrolet Bel Air, at the 2014 North Park Car Show. (Courtesy of Katherine Hon)
BY KATHERINE HON
Classic cars will fill the Balboa Tennis Club parking lot at Morley Field on Sept.12 from 10 a.m. to 2 pm. This is the sixth year that the North Park Historical Society (NPHS) has organized its North Park Car Show, a family-friendly event celebrating North Park’s love of the automobile. Attendance is free. If you have a fine classic car or vintage motorcycle to show (pre-1990 is preferred), the exhibition fee is $10 for one vehicle and $20 for two or three. Visit NorthParkHistory.org for a registration form and car show information, or contact NPHS at info@northparkhistory.org or (619) 294-8990. The 2014 North Park Car Show grand trophy winner, a cherry-red 1954 Chevrolet Bel Air appropriately named “Ruby,” reflects the historic period when North Park was a premier shopping district. On the northwest corner of University Avenue and 30th Street alone, a shopper could buy stamps, prescriptions, and a sundae at Pioneer Pharmacy; ladies apparel at Ballard’s and men’s wear at Leo’s; as well as office supplies, corsets, books, and fabric in other stores. This intersection has been the “Busy Corner” since North Park’s beginnings in the early 1900s. The 2015 North Park Car Show poster car, an impeccably maintained 1928 Ford Phaeton, reflects the time when the automobile began to dominate the street scene. Streetcars originally provided the public transportation that allowed the sagebrush-covered mesas surrounding Downtown to develop with homes and businesses. In the late 1920s, the streetcars still served residents, shoppers, and visitors. But increasingly, the “machine” that had been a toy for the
affluent was becoming a family necessity. Henry Ford’s assembly line production of his Model T and generous labor practices of paying workers enough to buy the products they made enabled families to afford a personal automobile, and buy it they did. By 1920, half of all cars in the U.S. were Model Ts. Businesses focused on the automobile naturally increased with its popularity. Garages and full-service gas stations proliferated along University Avenue and El Cajon Boulevard. In March 1925, L.D. Selmser obtained a building permit for a tile and brick building on the southeast corner of 28th Street and University Avenue estimated to cost $18,000. Now the location of the Mission Restaurant, the building originally housed the Public Service Garage offering mechanic services, radiator repair, fluids, tires, and bottled gas. The Miller Brothers, Charles and William, operated an oil station they bought from Albert Winter at University Avenue and 30th Street in 1923, with an improvement of offering block ice for operation of home kitchen “ice boxes” before the advent of residential refrigeration. In 1928, the brothers moved to a larger facility they commissioned that stretched along University Avenue between Herman Avenue and 32nd Street. The elaborate automotive center provided gas and oil operations, battery and brake service, tire re-treading, headlight testing, and wheel alignment. The entire block became a Sav-On Drug Store and parking lot in the 1950s and has more recently been a CVS. Along with the convenience of personal transport vehicles came severe SEE CARS, Page 17