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The historic LA street that was once the iconic epicenter of Valley youth culture is now nothing more than a boulevard of broken dreams — featuring drug-riddled homeless encampments and boarded-up stores.
Van Nuys Boulevard — where teens used to famously cruise through the middle of San Fernando Valley, showing off their hot rods and gathering at hamburger stands — has become home to hordes of out-of-control druggies and threatening vagrants who leave behind so much garbage that local workers have to use leaf blowers to disperse it.
One of the few businesses still operating in the now-decrepit area was even forced to move its customer entrance — because the bums’ camps blocked the original one.
“It’s so sad, so sad. We are in California, the best state in the United States, right?” said George Barak, who is originally from Syria and was working his second day as a cashier at the 99-cent store when he talked to the California Post.
Aziz Saxenian, a Los Angeles native and dental assistant who works at another local company struggling against the troubling tide in the onetime beloved quirky heart of the Valley, said, “They settle in front of our businesses.
“Customers say, ‘Oh, can’t you get rid of them?’ ”
The Post walked a stretch of the dilapidated boulevard between Sherman Way and Victory Boulevard on a recent morning and found a wasteland of crack pipes, needles and empty bottles of whiskey in front of makeshift tents.
Trash, clothes and even jars of open mayonnaise covered the sidewalks, while broken metal spoons and lighters — tell-tale signs of heroin and crack addicts — were strewn around local bus stops.
Most of the stores along the famed blocks are boarded up, but the businesses brave enough to open such as the ones Barak and Saxenian work at said they never know what to expect one day to the next.
Saxenian said her boss bought the dental office six months ago and that he’s hoping the boulevard turns around.
But she said that doesn’t seem very realistic.
“We’re hoping our taxes would go somewhere where this situation wouldn’t exist on the streets,’’ she said.
“It’s very sad. We would love the city to do something about it.’’
Down the street, at the discount store where Barak works, the business had to move its customer entrance to the alley west of the boulevard because homeless tents were blocking its Van Nuys entrance.
“I hope the city can help a little bit to clean up the thing,” Barak said.
Rick McCloskey was one of the teens in the mid 1970’s cruising Van Nuys and capturing it on film with his new camera at the time.
“That Boulevard was our meeting place, that’s what it was for,” he told The Post.
His pictures, featured in the book “Van Nuys Boulevard 1972,” are a stark contrast from today’s misery here.
The photos depict smiling teens and vibrant stores as a movie theater’s marquee is emblazoned with the newly released “Godfather” classic flick while youth socialize.
Teens used to come from all over to enjoy the road’s robust social car culture — making it so popular that Hollywood produced a movie about the hot spot simply called “Van Nuys Boulevard.”
“The only tension was if boys were fighting over a girl. There was no homelessness and no crime,” McCloskey said.
“There was no resemblance to what it was. It has fallen very far, it was depressing. I don’t have a desire to go back.”
District 6 Council member Imelda Padilla, who represents the Van Nuys Boulevard area, did not respond to a Post request for comment.
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