"Move-In Day in Lakewood, California, 1953."

1953, It's titled "Move-In Day in Lakewood, California, 1953."  And though it's a staged photo for Life Magazine, it is neat to see the moving vans from the '50s.  Thank you to Bushman Uk for the pic.  

Keith Suhr explains,

This was a staged photo for Life Magazine in 1953: "Life magazine published a photograph in 1953 that was supposed to be a typical move-in day in booming Lakewood, with a moving van in every driveway and each family’s belongings on their front lawn. In reality, it was a staged publicity photograph. As Lakewood Park publicist Don Rochlen recounted many years later, new residents "were moving in at the rate of 60 families a day. So to symbolize that, we got 60 moving vans up and on the street and told people just to come out and put out a few pieces of furniture on the lawn.” 

I've had very few experiences in Lakewood.  Conroy lived there, which put it on the map for Mom and Dad.  We visited them infrequently, but they came to our home in Duarte far more often.  Will never forget watching the UCLA vs. Notre Dame basketball game there in 1974.  I used to walk to the local school, shoot baskets, and play some one-on-one and pick-up games there.  That was fun.  There were moments at that school of feelings of loneliness, compared to the back alley pick-up games I'd played with my cousins in Denver.  As I recall, the outdoor courts were located at a school with multiple courts, back-to-back and side-to-side.  But the only school near the Conroys is Lindbergh Middle School, but I can't find any pics online to confirm the existence of the outdoor courts.  So many things have changed since pre- and post-1974.  There is a park nearby called Cherry Cove Park, but it's mostly grass and no bb courts to be seen. 

The other memory I have with Lakewood is indirectly through the essay by Joan Didion, titled, "Trouble in Lakewood," 1993.  I loved the essay, I loved her.

"Trouble in Lakewood,” Joan Didion, 1993, July 26.  The New Yorker.  This was one of the best articles I’d read on gangs; nay, perhaps the first one I’d read on gangs.  It was about the Spur Posse gang in Lakewood, CA.  Didion had written other articles on California, one in particular that I liked was hers on San Bernardino, CA, titled “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream.”  It was stunning in its flow and shocking in its brutal detail.