Cornfield Railyard & Foot Bridge, Los Angeles

Cornfield Railyard today is called Los Angeles State Historic Park.

Let's start with an overview.  [BTW, this is a decent archive of the railyard.]

If you want help orienting yourself with the old downtown LA, the picture below is not terrible.  This shot, I believe, is 1938, so it's pre-Dodgers Stadium.  That broad road left of center is Hill Street.  The street to its right is Broadway, where Little Joe's was located and Dad's favorite Chinese restaurant, Grand Star [looks like it's a jazz club today], where he'd have lunch and a cocktail with friends from work during lunch.  I'd gone with him a few times and loved it.  They seemed to put out on the table slightly fresher Fortune Cookies.  It was my introduction to film noir.  The street at the far right that farther up curves to the right is Spring Street.  It forms the southern border of the Cornfield Trainyard.    I didn't have much experience there, except for when we touched down on the southern end of that pedestrian bridge from Broadway.  I remember that Dad used to tell me that he'd cross that bridge, then cut down another street to get to Maimi's.  Loved that story.   

1938, If you look close enough, you can see the footbridge at about the middle of the photo and to the far right.  You can see it, too, in this pic that is looking northeast.  Will never forget how Dad enjoyed the San Antonio Winery [few more pics] over there in Lincoln Park.  I had gone there a few times, at least twice with Dad.  Once Dad and I sat in their dining room and had Italian dinners on a red-and-white checkered tablecloth while they played Dean Martin's "That's Amore."   

This is the footbridge that Dad used to take me, Tom, and Joe across whenever we were in the area, either after a Dodger game or after an afternoon at the Police Academy or after a half-day spent with Dad in his courtroom getting caught up on his paperwork on a Saturday.  Or it could have been after a morning of strolling down Olvera Street, getting a colorful snow cone, or standing around a burro and a cart for a picture in the plaza there.  On the north end of the footbridge is Broadway and on the south end is Spring Street.  

 

Here is the southern end of the footbridge.  Grateful to LA Creek Freak for the picture.  That is Spring Street there.  

Below is a distant shot of the footbridge that you can see beyond the parked cars.  I love it.  

But the bridge didn't just make for a route for my Dad from school to Maimi's, it was also his playground, like so much of LA was.  From that bridge, he would jump down onto moving train cars in the yard.  See for yourself what that could have been like. 

1942, This is a screenshot from the 1942 movie, This Gun For Hire, starring Ladd and Lake.  That's Alan Ladd jumping from the pedestrian bridge down onto movie train cars.  This is what Dad used to do. 

1957, A decent shot of Cornfield Yard looking into Downtown from the very east end of the yard, 1957.  Thanks to LAPL.

1957, Cornfield  Rail Yard, Los Angeles, CA.  Thank you to Mel-v VC.

A close-up of Ladd preparing to jump. 

1942, Screenshot from the 1942 film noir, This Gun For Hire, starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake.  Interesting to learn that the movie was based on a novel by Graham Greene who I like a lot.  Ladd plays the character Philip Raven, who'd been double-crossed (aren't they all?) and his honeypot in the movie is none other than Veronica Lake.  

The scene above comes from the 1942 film noir, This Gun for Hire, starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake.  It's a classic film noir, and if you like Alan Ladd at all, in movies like Shane (1953), then you'll love This Gun For Hire.  It rents for $4.  

1942's This Gun for Hire isn't the only movie that contains scenes from the footbridge over the old Cornfield Yard.  The 1954 The Big Chase, starring Lon Chaney, Jr. is seen running across the bridge too.  

I posted this picture because my dad would take Tom and Joe, and me and park at the curb of the eastbound side of Broadway, directly in front of that pedestrian bridge that used to run over the yard to Spring Street on the south side.  We used to run across this bridge, before and after they added the reinforcing chain link fence, sometimes in the late afternoon of a Sunday evening following a Dodgers game.  Or, on more than a few occasions, Dad would take us in the evening and into the night and run across it.  At the 1:28 mark in the clip above, you can see the scene in question; it offers a fuller view of the bridge back in 1942.  By the time we hit the bridge in the early 70s, it was in disrepair.  It was a mixture of excitement and fear, for the bridge had missing planks and I kept imagining my foot getting stuck in the opening or worse, falling through, which was impossible but as was my wont I imagined the worst.  Dad always knew how to make things exciting.  And it was. Dad got to review his youth when on this bridge, for with his friends from Cathedral High School he would jump from this bridge, exactly as Alan Ladd is doing above, and jump on top of the moving boxcars.  

Here is what the Pasadena Freeway looked like back in 1938.  It was called Figueroa Boulevard back then. 

1939, Railroad tracks and trains as seen from the Broadway Bridge.  Thanks to the LA Public Library Collection for this shot above, titled "Railroad tracks and trains, 1939." 

Looking south from Radio Hill.  

The Southern Pacific Railroad's River Depot in the 1920s. The photo is taken from present-day Radio Hill. North Broadway Street can be seen just below the hill. On North Broadway Street, near the right edge of the image is the Basso car dealership. Across the railroad yard is the neighborhood known as Dogtown. , a reference to the Anne Street Animal Shelter, located near 1300 Cardinal Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012.  On September 5, 2023, I asked Dan about these neighborhoods, and he replied, 

Great job of researching and posting.  Dogtown was called that because of the "dog pound" or "shelter" where many dogs entered the next life. 

It was an area between N. Main Street and N. Spring Street from College to the L A River.

Radio Hill was part of Elysian Park area - I used to run all around this area on my lunch break from 1990 til 2000.

This shot is looking east on Broadway.

On September 20, 2023, I asked Dan the following

I think Dad told me once that Maimi lived south of the Cornfield Railyard, south of Main Street, that he would walk south across the footbridge over the railyard to Main but from there I couldn't tell which direction other than farther south.  Do you know if Maimi lived south of Main there?  Do you happen to have that old address of hers?  Thanks, Dan.  

And he replied,

I believe the Scoleri's lived in the general vicinity of S. Avenue 20 [which is also N. San Fernando Road] and Pasadena Avenue east of the LA River and west of the 5 Frwy.  I sort of remember Dad saying  something about the Scoleri's living in that general area.  They later moved to Alhambra, then to Michillinda, and then to Santa Anita . . . .

When driving into downtown Los Angeles on a Saturday morning, Dad would more than occasionally drive south on Mission Road, past Lincoln Park, and turn west onto Main Street into downtown Los Angeles.  So maybe he did that just so that he could pass by the old neighborhood where he grew up around good memories with his cousin, Maimi, and near Cathedral HS.